Federal brass life with heavy loads

[Lorgar]

I think you may be running the crimp die too far down. It only needs to crimp the very edge of the neck. Also the best case length for your ruger 308 is 2.010 inches, not 2.015 as some of the literature suggests. Check and trim.

Cartridges were loaded without crimp. I don't recall what trimmer he's using.

Won't be checking anything, just sharing a mates brass for informational purposes of anyone who's interested.

[Lorgar]

Notning wrong with federal, prefer it to winchester but PPU or remington are my first choices.

Not knocking it, just sharing some results.

Also prefer Winchester personally. Remington was also fine really as I only "need" hunting accuracy, but found groups were a tiny bit loser with Remington.

[Lorgar]

It can be as simple as. Joe Blow the factory worker decided to swap his 15 year old but unused brass for new stuff at the factory. Old stuff chucked into the batch and new ones smuggled out in the lunch box.

I seriously doubt that... I'm not out to knock Federal, nor am I looking for any excuses on a few dud cases, the results just are what they are.

You could also get chemical impurities within the brass during manufacture that could produce stress corrosion quickly within the brass or just plain fracture. Do a test and see how hard the necks are.

Just sharing some results, not looking for a solution or to determine the cause with any testing.

[Warrigul]

Not knocking it, just sharing some results.

Also prefer Winchester personally. Remington was also fine really as I only "need" hunting accuracy, but found groups were a tiny bit loser with Remington.

You know, Remington are a thinner case, capacity is higher and sometimes this leads to a different charge. May be worth investigating.

But if winchester works for you why change?

[Lorgar]

I likely never will.

I have about 400 brass from when I was more interested in target shooting and doing it regularly.

These days I only hunt and do a few dozen rounds here and there.

400 will last me a lifetime, or close enough.