Nosler Introduces 17 New Types of Cartridge Brass
For 2011 Nosler will introduce no less than 17 new NoslerCustom® brass offerings. Most of the 17 new brass varieties are for large hunting cartridge types, not widely used. However, target shooters may be interested in Nosler’s new 7mm SAUM (Rem Short Action Ultra Mag) and 7mm RUM (Rem Ultra Mag) brass. The 7mm SAUM is becoming popular in F-Class circles. With slightly less capacity (and a longer neck) than the 7mm WSM, the 7mm SAUM is a good choice for shooting the popular 180gr High-BC bullets from Berger and Sierra. Tactical shooters will appreciate Nosler’s new .338 RUM and .338 Lapua Magnum brass. It’s nice to have additional brass choices for these big cartridge types.
NoslerCustom Brass is Weight-Sorted, DeBurred and Chamfered
Notably, Nosler does extra finishing steps on its cartridge brass, based on the notion that: “Life’s too short to prep your own brass”. As with other NoslerCustom cartridge brass, the 17 new varieties will come “semi-prepped”. Flash holes are trued and case mouths are deburred and chamfered. According to Nosler: “Every piece is hand-inspected, and weight-sorted within +/- .5 grains” (and then packaged by weight groupings).
All the new types of Nosler brass will bear the “Nosler” headstamp although it is rumored that some of Nosler’s cartridge brass is made for it by other highly respected companies, both domestic and foreign. As to the 17 new varieties, we can’t identify which cartridge types are produced in-house and which will be out-sourced. Overall, our experience with NoslerCustom brass has been good, though in 22-250 and .308 Win it is not quite as strong or long-lasting as Lapua brass.
I certainly hope it is an improvement on what that made before. The Nosler 300 Win Mag brass that I bought 3 years ago from MidwayUSA was(real bad)out of spec in the necks. Nosler when contacted admitted they knew they had a problem yet did not pull their defectic product. Many others also complained about the 300 Win Mag brass as well as other calibers. Nosler said to return the defective brass to MidwayUSA and MidwayUSA said to return it to Nosler. Neither offered to accept responsability for a defective product. I ended up having to trash 100 pieces of premium priced brass. I encourage anyone who buys this brass to inspect it and let us know what they find. Hopefully previous issues have been resolved.
Nat Lambeth
Sorry to dig up an old bulletin, but Nosler’s new brass prices just don’t add up to me. As of today, 1/9/12, powder valley has 338 rum brass for sale at 193.16 per 100. On the other hand, 300 rum brass is only 123.42 per 100. The 338 rum price is absolutely ridiculous. That’s too bad. We need more reasonably priced rum brass.