Match Brass Performance – Case Comparisons

Match Brass Performance  Case Comparisons
Match Brass Performance
Case Comparisons
Kinetic Industries
Kinetic Industries

USA-(Ammoland.com)- You have heard, and probably used, the saying “you get what you pay for.” This age-old term refers to the idea that the more you spend, the better the product. When it comes to Match Brass, though, I can tell you that not all brass is created equally. To prove it, I set out to compare samples of brass obtained directly from the marketplace (mail order retailers.) Buying as an anonymous regular customer ensures that we have not been given any special case lots from any of the providers. My expectation going in is that the results may surprise us, proving that sometimes you can actually get more than what you pay for!

Background

Let me begin by stating that this is not a comprehensive comparison of all industry brands. I would not rule this out for a future project, but to keep the test manageable we chose to focus on four competitors. To ensure that this is a valuable test for our students and readers, I have selected three well-known brands and one NEW-to-market product. I will just refer them as Brand “A”, “B”, “C” and Kinetic Industries, which is the new product. Our goal is to compare the Kinetic product against a set of worthy challengers. Here is more detail on the group I chose to test:

  • Brand “A” is a world-recognized PREMIUM match brass maker. Numerous national matches have been won using their products. Their price reflects their market standing.
  • Brand “B” is another PREMIUM product sold in 50-count boxes at our highest recorded price per case. It claims that these cases are ready to load out of the box, with no other working left to do.
  • Brand “C” is a brass manufacturer that holds many government and military contracts and has been widely used by CMP/DCM competitors for the past 20 years or so. Not sold as match brass but widely recognized and used as match ready.

These companies are all major contributors to the shooting industry. Without their products reloaders and competitors alike would need to spend hours sorting through piles of standard brass to find those rare matching pieces that would give us the degree of precision necessary to win.

And a key point is that they cannot keep up with demand. There are times when availability of match brass can be constrained and shortages cause price gouging and unavailability on store shelves, or even via the largest internet resellers. Having Kinetic Industries expand availability by contributing a new source of high-quality products to the brass market is a win for us all.

Now for the analysis:

In order to be considered MATCH brass, each case has to be consistent with every other case in the lot. This high degree of consistency is what provides the low deviation in velocity needed to form tight groups and win.

Brass “A”, “B” and Kinetic were taken from NEW Sealed packages of 50.

Brass “C”, was taken from a single 43 count box, once fired from the same lot#. New cases were unavailable at the time of testing.

Each piece of brass was precisely weighed on a Sartorius digital scale calibrated to .01 of a grain and separated into .1 grain groups by brand. A count was taken on the number of pieces within each group including identifying the lowest and highest weight pieces. A chart has been provided to show the consistency by weight and range.

Next, each brand was measured on the appropriate tools for case neck concentricity/runout, overall case length, average case neck thickness (thin side and thick side), and headspace measurement. The results of these are provided in the results. I have included both the range of measurement and differences found from low to high.

Match Brass Performance - Case Comparisons
Match Brass Performance – Case Comparisons

As you will see in the actual findings below, not one brand came out on top in all areas:

  • Brass “B” – Wins on most consistent by Weight (they DO sort their brass by Wt.) this is proven by our results
    • Brass “A” comes in second.
  • Kinetic – Wins for most consistent Overall Length
    • Brass “B” and Brass “C” are a close tie for second.
  • Brass “A” – Wins for most consistent Neck Thickness
    • Brass “B” takes second place, and Brass “C” and Kinetic tied for 3rd
  • Kinetic – Wins for lowest Neck runout/Concentricity
    • Brass “A” and “B” tied for second

So when you’re ready to spend your money on Match brass, you can see from this analysis that no one wins in every category. So what do you buy?

The Proof is in the Shooting

The best comparison is based on how they perform in real world conditions. So, for our next article we will load up 10 samples from each company and shoot them. Once you see the results we will then provide you with the current cost per case. Then you can decide how best to invest your cash!

About the Author

David W. Johnson, a regular contributor to the Kinetic Industries blog, is the architect of the Illinois Reloading Labs facility, and the owner and master instructor for reloadinginstructor.com, which offers beginning, intermediate and advanced reloading classes. He has 25 years of competitive reloading experience and 10 years reloading instruction experience. His experience includes 25 Years of international big game hunting and 10 years as a CMP/DCM high power competitor. He is also an NRA-certified instructor and range safety officer.

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Nagalfar

Yeah, not quit a fair sampling… and how about some down range physical results from rifle them, only the trues of world class shooters could make these differences matter, your average Joe does not have a ability to use the differential of different brass as noted. Hell, most shooters cant even go sub. moa, or even understand what sub. MOA is at 1000 yards.

Fred Burley

one of the last ten comments I have made have actually been posted. Really sick of this. If you want me to continue to read your articles then you need to allow opposing views to be posted darn it.

captain Fred

A is Lapua, B is Nosler or Hornady and C is Federal Brass. I load all 3 regularly and just as regularly all 3 go bang and put little round holes consistently dead center of the bulls eye. I do not find that new brass is any more accurate than previously fired brass as long as you recondition it to SAAMI spec prior to building your new load. It has a lot more to do with seating the bullet properly, the correct bullet weight for twist and length of barrel than the brass you are using, unless you are loading… Read more »

Sam Summey

OK you took my e-mail address this time without the “invalid e-mail” objection.
The proof is in the shooting. Why did you waste the reader’s time by not publishing the shooting data. Most people will not see the second article, the shooting will verify on a limited basis (10 rounds) the conclusion of the article. A better more meaningful result would be 10, 10 round groups. 3 round groups are a waste of time and prove nothing.
You are not selling magazines on a news stand here.

Sam Summey

What’s wrong with my e-mail address? It’s the same one I have been using for 20 years!

Michael Riley

New vs once fired? a little skewed.

MikeR

Little skewed to compare new brass to once fired.