Getting ready to start cranking some 123 gr SST hunting loads

[lazyengineer]

I’m learning. What troubles have you seen with starline ? I have had a few split necks with 2-3 firings on them myself

Mostly observation from some othe recent threads here, where strange rings forming in the head area, and it being a phenomenae that seems to mostly only happening with Starline and Lapua brass casings. Sure enough, when I look at my own very few Starline pickup casings I see, they too have hint of starting to do this. The head-area is one place I take very seriously, as that's the zone of the brass that is gasketting 52,000 PSI from my face. That, and I only have a few anyway, and it's a hassle keeping up with random mixed headstamp brass. Coincidentally, a recent Kaboom was posted with one of those two casings fired. Who knows, it could have been an issue that had nothing to do with the brass itself at all. Just... yea.

Personally, I like Hornady. NOt because it's super consistent, or super well made. They have a decent amount of weight variation, and the primer punch holes often have spikes around on the inside, which isn't super awesome. But they tend to have higher case capacity in general, and they are crazy common. Meaning load developed in Hornady brass, will be easy to continue to propegate. Just me. Lots of other guys here who know Grendel far better than Ido, really like the Starline or Lapua brass. I don't. If you really want to know, my absolute best performance I ever got, was actually with PMC 7.62x39 brass. Maybe just coincidence, but I've gotten the best accuracy ever with that brass, which is random, I know. Maybe just coincidence.

Edit to add, that said, if Starline is what you have, then of course, run it. By no means am I saying the stuff is unsafe to fire, or a bad choice. Just my own bias and preferences. If all I had were 200 Starline casings, I'd be running 200 starline casings for sure.