Thoughts on Remington Value pack ammo...

[Magnum Wheel Man]

brass & primers as good as their premium ammo ???

I've been trying for a while to get more 17 Fireball cases... unfortunately they are really only made by Remington ( so far ) & getting empty cases are tough... in fact I've seen once fired cases sell for the same price I can buy bulk pack boxes of ammo...

The bulk pack doesn't have the bullets I want, & likely not the powder, but as hard as ( impossible ) the new brass is to get right now, I could pull the bullets & reload the primed cases... anyone know if I should expect the same quality of brass & primers between the bulk pack, & premium Remington ammo, particularly in 17 Fireball ???

... & yes I know I could reform 221 Fireball cases, but would prefer not to, as I have a Contender barrel in 221 Fireball

 

[Sevens]

This may ruffle some feathers and it's not exactly on topic specifically, so maybe it doesn't even help you...

It's been my experience in 25 years at the bench that Remington brass just ain't the best. Now I'll state fully that I'm like 98% a handgun guy, so my experience with R-P rifle brass is not zero, but effectively, for the purpose of this discussion... it is zero.

Their handgun brass is thin, to put it simply. I know (FACT!) that I need to flare mouths a little less with R-P, I know (FACT!) that I need to crimp a little bit more with R-P, and I know (FACT!) that if I'm going to run in to any issue with regards to case mouth tension/bullet pull in a semi-auto pistol round or in a revolver round, it's going to show up in R-P headstamp brass before it shows up in any other headstamp brass.

I'll say that again for clarity:
If I have a bullet running on the slender side, where case mouth tension/bullet "grip" has the potential to be a problem, it -IS- going to happen with R-P headstamp brass before all others.

It is. Guaranteed lock.

It's not the worst brass on the planet and I do seem to get a solid duty cycle out of the stuff, it's not like all my R-P brass gets destroyed or experiences splits before all others... it's just all built thinner in the case mouth across the board. I know this because I can feel it in the resistance in the press lever. These are things you can EASILY feel when you do things single stage and you sort all your brass by headstamp.

If you gave me 49 pieces of Winchester and one piece of R-P and you blindfolded me, I could easily find the one piece of R-P in either the flare step or the seat/crimp step simply in the resistance of the press lever.

Does that help a guy looking for .17 Fireball?!
Probably not! Sorry.

But there it is.

 

[Magnum Wheel Man]

glad you got your rant out...

I'm not as much a fan of "new R-P brass, as I am "vintage" brass from the 70's - 80's...

however in the case of the 17 Fireball ( which I love & feel it's the most balanced of all 17's )... new Remington brass is the only option...

hoping someone has experience with reloading bulk pack cases, or knows if the primers are of equal quality, between Remington premium factory ammo, & Remington bulk pack ammo

I have a Burris C-4 ( custom tuned scope for a specific load & cartridge ) so instead of running a 5 grain heavier bullet at 200 fps less speed, & throwing my adjustment all off... shooting the bulk pack, I'd rather pull them down & use my 20 grain bullets & powder that the custom clicker was tuned for

 

[Ifishsum]

I haven't used .17 Fireball but I have loaded a fair bit of .223 R-P and other bottleneck cases that started life as 200rd economy packs: I cannot detect a quality difference between it and other Remington packaging including new brass. I'd be surprised if it weren't the same stuff used in everything else they load. Can't speak to the primers as I mostly use CCI but I would expect they are the same as they sell on the shelf.

 

[Magnum Wheel Man]

thanks for the reply... I mostly use CCI primers or RP Bench Rest... but this shortage economy we're in, leaves lots of things tight or impossible to get, I'd have never thought of buying ammo to take apart, & reload, a couple years ago, I'd have just bought components... I've been trying to collect 17 Fireball brass for close to 2 years... wish I would have devoted the $$$ pre "crisis" when I could get them bulk at the gun shows... I'm in the same boat with 22 Hornet, but there are more than one manufacturer of that brass, & the cartridge has been around for ever... the relative short life ( I think Remington already discontinued chambering rifles in 17 Fireball ) has those components extremely tight...

hoping someone else starts making ammo, or at least brass

hind sight is 20-20...