Our Story

Our story;    (7 minutes read)

  

Let’s take a short trip back in time to tell you how this all began…

I first shot a rifle when I was in the army cadets.  From then on, I was fascinated by the experience of sending a bullet to a target and wanted to be very good at it.  But honestly as much as I practiced and concentrated on the fundamentals as taught, I shot, like a dork…literally!

I would never make it in the precision rifle team as I had hoped.  Then came the day when I shouldered the rifle on the “wrong side” fired my shots and went on to get my target like everyone did after the shooting session.  Well lo and behold, I couldn’t believe my own eyes, there it was, a tight group at the outer edge of the paper target. The CO was suspicious and made me shoot again, but this time…alone. Got my target and had a very decent grouping at the exact location as the previous target.  He sent everybody on a short break, we then came back to resume our shooting practice session.   This time my target came back centered on the bullseye in a tight group, I was elated and so proud when the CO announced then and there that I was officially admitted in the precision rifle team.  From then on, I shot left-handed and always was enthusiastic about shooting. 

In my 20’s I had a few buddies who also enjoyed the shooting sport and we met more and more at the range and tried to out-shoot each other, precision-wise.  We all had saved a long time to buy a decent gun and we found that ammo was getting very expensive for our means. We were in effect young, poor, but willing to learn so we, eventually, saved all of our spent cases and picked up as much as we could from the range in the hopes of trading them for cash or reloading them.  A couple of guys noticed our regular presence and efforts at the range in becoming better shooters. They were ex-military mostly, two were either designated marksman or snipers, but all were superb shooters, their groupings made us envious and eager to learn how to accomplish this.  Hence, they gradually accepted to mentor us on our quest to tiny grouping shots.  As they observed us, they first pointed out needed corrections to our fundamentals; proper body positioning, shoulder and cheek contact, relaxing and breathing, sight picture, mindset, trigger control and eventually learning to shoot between heartbeats.  We kind of resisted a bit at first, thinking that equipment should be looked at first, but they were very convincing as they demonstrated with our own guns that indeed, our guns were far better than we were in accuracy.  They told us ‘’No worries kidz, we’ll tell you when you’re good enough to out-shoot your guns’’. Correct fundamentals improved us far more than we officially admitted but we complied and trusted them as we had proof these guys were for real.

Next came equipment, specifically, reloading our spent cases to save cash.  We were shooting 7mm08 Remington and 308 Winchester and were asked what the maximum, “normal” distance we wanted to be proficient at, our combined response was in the 500-yard range for a ground-hog sized target and never missing it.  Our mentors told us it was entirely reasonable considering our guns and growing abilities. They instructed us to buy a basic manual reloading kit and corresponding reloading dies for our calibers.  We learned tons of info from these guys. It would have taken us years and loads of cash to find out on our own, needless to say we were very thankful for them to share so much knowledge.

In essence, we learned (and they actually demonstrated by extrapolation with our own guns at 200 yards) that: for a 100% accuracy within a 3 to 4 inches circle at 500 yards:

1-Cartridge cases were to be visually inspected for; obvious damage, neck and shoulder cracks as well as imminent or suspected case head cracks/separation.

2-That empty cases were to be handled gently but small dings and scrapes were perfectly acceptable for reloading.

3-Cleaning the case’s insides was far more important than outside cosmetics.

4- Overall case length was never to exceed nominal, but cases could be used to about 25 thousandths under trimmed length with practically no ill effects on accuracy, in other words shorter cases ok, longer cases were no-go.

5-Cases were to be full-length resized after each firing.

6-Inside necks were to be chamfered carefully to not allow burrs to scrape the outside perimeter of the bullet upon insertion thereby severely unbalancing it in flight.

7-Necks were to be annealed at least once every three to five shots.

8-Primer residue in the primer pocket and flash hole was to be cleaned if accumulation, some thickness or obstruction was evident, otherwise, cosmetics were irrelevant here, i.e. there can be obvious stains but no build-up.

9- Bullets were to be of good quality match grade types but not necessarily of very high-end quality such as Berger Nosler Sierra and the likes.  We chose Hornady for quality, availability and price and the guys confirmed that they would perform outstandingly for our goal. For our reloading kits we chose from Lee Precision and again the guys told us our choice was adequate for our quest.

10-Best possible concentricity (bullet to case) was to be tweaked and maintained.

11-Powder types/quantities and bullet seating depth variables were to be experimented, one at a time and results recorded.

12-Once the lands dimension was determined for our barrels, we were to subtract 15thousandths (and use this dimension as our baseline) and play within +- 10 thousandths for the cartridge overall length to get ultimate precision. The lands original dimension was to be, from then on, forgotten, yep you read that right… Forgotten.

13-Four to five barrel-fouling shots were to be done prior to any accuracy testing.

14-In our case, the calibers chosen were not ‘’over-square’’ as they explained, so our barrels would not wear out anytime soon, provided a good cleaning care and moderate firing regimen was stuck to.

15-Within reason, consistency, in all aspects of previously mentioned guidelines were to be maintained. (As tedious as case preparation became, it was crucial to our aim).

 

There were many more details of course, which came later as we progressed.  At one point we thought they had forgotten one important aspect and that was; what about case segregation by headstamp/manufacturers, we asked?  Their answer was basically this; for our purpose, insofar as distance and accuracy, if we respected all of the previously mentioned fundamentals and technical aspects, then, where the cases came from was irrelevant, neither the target or the gun would care, and neither should we.  Although sceptical of this assertion, they did prove it, with our own guns in blind testing…We simply could not identify a trend or difference in accuracy from one manufacturer to another or when mixed in together.

In hindsight, many years later, the last assertion was to be one of the catalysts for the decision to open Brasswurx.com, as 95%+ of shooters and hunters involved in reloading would generally shoot under 500 yards and would be very happy to obtain the results we aimed for, (consistant half minute of angle accuracy or less) and I had a plan on how to make their life way easier. 

Case preparation quickly becomes a tedious chore which for many, distracts and bogs down from the pleasure of the reloading process.  Even when buying brand new cases, surprisingly quite a few steps of preparation and checks are required before reloading even begins.  Being an avid shooter meant many cases to prepare for reloading and I too became bored at the chore.  So, I equipped myself to process brass cases far more efficiently and in doing so created an excess capacity which I could use to benefit other shooters as well.  Hence was born Brasswurx.com where everything is done in-house to assure quality and save you time, money and enhance the pleasure and satisfaction of reloading your own ammo.

Enjoy, stay safe and practice, practice, practice!-)

Alain