Bertram Brass ?

2Tone

2Tone

Hammer Time Executive member
OK all you smarty pants!! I just received 100 300 H&H from Bertram at first glance it look's over annealed. Measured neck tension and it was
right at 303 so I ran a 306 mandrel through them dipping each case in graphite first every pass with the mandrel felt very hard on down
and up stroke. I proceeded loading some 150 nosler spitzer I have had laying around to form the brass not wanting waste any Hammers forming
and noticed they were seating harder than normal, when I seated a couple deeper than I really wanted I tried pulling them with a kinetic
puller and they would hardly budge with very hard smacks on concrete.. I am afraid the neck tension is way to tight and this brass is junk not sure
if I should try to anneal a couple pieces and see if things change. I am not sure I would want to fire the few I have loaded. Thoughts
 
Welcome to the club, now there's three of us 👍👍👍 I shoot the exact same brass in my Rem 300 H&H and don't recall any of these issues. I never really paid any attention and just loaded them jammed at first. I do know that I have to drop two grains from an established load to new unfired brass or I'll blow a primer💥🤪

This is a very old chambering and I would want my brass soft at the shoulder so it could fill out. There's probably a large variation in the 300 H&H chamber since it's been shot all over the world for a 100 years

On the first firing my brass grows .037 of an inch at the shoulder. If you have any fired cases around I would take those two measurements just for comparison and if it's a large increase like I'm stating you'll have to load those 150 Spitzer to a jammed chamber (.005) to get the brass to properly headspace on the shoulder. I'm not a belted Magnum fan. This is normally a non-belted technique but I use it on every fire forming.

I hope this helps and if it doesn't, I'll shoot em 🤪

I say let them kangaroos eat!!! 💥🚀🔨☠️

Joe
 
Do the ones you have loaded chamber ok? Personally, I always anneal my new brass regardless of whether or not the factory did.

If all you are doing is fire forming with a mild load, does it really matter at this point? Fire form it and then process it as you prefer. At this point, Bertram USA won't let you return open bags I believe, so give it a whirl on 20 or so just to see?
 
Thanks for the input guys. Usually I never fire form brass but after following this crowd for a while I decided I would burn some old stuff laying around and give it a whirl.
Unfortunately i broke my kinetic puller trying to pull some pills!! That’s how hard i was smacking the garage floor and I think I let the screw cap get to loose out of frustration 🤷‍♂️.
I did a little more checking on a few pieces of brass seemed real rough on inside of neck so I cleaned neck resized neck and and then the mandrel ran thru it smoother I am not sure but it seemed like the brass was leaving noticeable scratches on my mandrel.
Thanks for the forming tips Joe a lot of this stuff new to me even thou I am on team Geratol🍻 Yea I like this old girl and want to get the most out her!!
 
ButterBean said:
Bertram brass is very hard and very thick, you will need to adjust accordingly but there is nothing wrong with the brass and annealing is for elasticity and has nothing to do with the size of the case mouth,
Click to expand...
That’s what I was thinking might be causing the extra resistance expanding harder and thicker. Thanks for input🍻
 
2Tone said:
Unfortunately i broke my kinetic puller trying to pull some pills!! That’s how hard i was smacking the garage floor and I think I let the screw cap get to loose out of frustration 🤷‍♂️.
Click to expand...
As an aside, I have done this a couple times myself. Switched to an RCBS collet puller and am very pleased with it. There was a learning curve for my dumbposterior (might have been on old forum where I posted pic of my stupidity), but now it is a much cleaner, efficient, and safer way to pull bullets.
Good luck with your H&H!
 
@aratliff - I still have the pics, and still honor your name when I "Ratliff" a case... 🙃 :ROFLMAO:

@2Tone - everything I've gathered about over annealing a case mouth is that is becomes more elastic and less tight...it's possible the cases look over annealed, but what Bean said, maybe not enough because they are so thick?
 
2Tone said:
OK all you smarty pants!! I just received 100 300 H&H from Bertram at first glance it look's over annealed. Measured neck tension and it was
right at 303 so I ran a 306 mandrel through them dipping each case in graphite first every pass with the mandrel felt very hard on down
and up stroke. I proceeded loading some 150 nosler spitzer I have had laying around to form the brass not wanting waste any Hammers forming
and noticed they were seating harder than normal, when I seated a couple deeper than I really wanted I tried pulling them with a kinetic
puller and they would hardly budge with very hard smacks on concrete.. I am afraid the neck tension is way to tight and this brass is junk not sure
if I should try to anneal a couple pieces and see if things change. I am not sure I would want to fire the few I have loaded. Thoughts
Click to expand...
Did you order 300 H&H brass directly from Bertram? It doesn't show up on their master cartridge list.
 
mcbmd said:
Did you order 300 H&H brass directly from Bertram? It doesn't show up on their master cartridge list.
Click to expand...
Nevermind, it shows up under "shop" but it is backordered. I wonder if they decided to quit making it since it doesn't show up on the master cartridge list.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top