17 Hornet Hornady brass

[oldfortyfiveauto]

I just finished loading up 400 17 Hornets with the brass I shot last prairie dog season. The brass was all Hornady and very disappointing. Lots of split cases. The bigger issues were with the primer pockets. I had to chamfer them as so many had sharp square edges so you could not get a primer started. Many of the pockets were way too tight.

I would hope others have had better experiences with Hornady brass.

 

[ATCDoktor]

I have been reloading the 17 Hornady Hornet since it first hit the streets and haven't had these issues.

That said, my brass is the original brass (first generation).

It appears that at some point Hornady was getting their brass from an outside vendor and there were problems with primer pocket geometry.

These geometry problems were causing primers to pop/back out upon firing with factory ammo.

The fix for these problems was that the vendor used a slight crimp in the primer pocket (not unlike a military brass) to keep the primers in place.

It appears that your brass came from this lot.

Here's a link to the a discussion on this issue from a couple of years ago over at the Predator Masters Forum:

http://www.predatormastersforums.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2524425&page=all

A couple of years ago I would buy 17 Hornet (factory ammo) whenever I could find it as (you probably experienced) it was very hard to find.

I have a couple 250 round cases that have the crimped primers and used a sharpie to mark these boxes as crimped so I can keep my brass segregated (crimped and non crimped).

 

[oldfortyfiveauto]

Thanks for the info. I got my CZ late 2014. My lot numbers are 314#### and higher.

 

[mboylan]

Hornet brass is thin. Do not full length resize. Neck size only.