Thread: Fiocchi 300 Win Mag Factory Brass

A while back I posted a bit about 300 WM Brass from Fiocchi that had all but separated on it's first reload from a factory firing.
My mate who gave me the brass dropped of a little more for me to load up, not sure if they are from the same batch. I looked them over and noticed the primers were quite flat to the edges and there was a noticeable ring again just above the belt. These are factory loads so figured they were warmish rounds.



The primers when removed had a slight "Chef Hat " appearance which is usually a sign of pressure.
After sizing I run them through the trim die and loaded a couple up to see if they would hold together or separate, load was 74 grs of RL 26 and the 200 gr ELDX.
On firing the shell held together, barely, showing a distinct ring and virtually a hair line crack starting to appear.
It's strange as some other Fiocchi brass I was given earlier on by the same guy loads up fine some of those are on their 3rd firing and still look ok. The noticeable difference between the two lots is the color of the brass , the good ones are a darker color compared to the separating one which are a lot lighter.

Picture is of latest shell I fired showing start of the separation

I'm not sure if this a common thing with this brass and wonder if anyone else has had similar findings either with 300 WM or even other calibers?
Needless to say I don't think I will use that brass anymore.

I use Federal brass and shoot 208s hot. My brass is on 5th firing and still going strong with no indication of separation. Any chance you might be setting the shoulder back too far when resizing?

Sent from my SM-G980F using Tapatalk

Don't think so, I run several other brands of brass and some of those have had 5-6 loadings with no problems. I was wondering if it's a problem with my mates rifle but being a standard Tikka don't really think so. Also the two different colors in the brass is strange with one being ok and the other not. I believe it is poor quality brass that's the problem.