What The Pros Use to Find the Best Copper

The quality and consistency of brass cases are crucial for achieving precision in reloaded ammunition. Variations in case dimensions, wall thickness, and internal volume can significantly impact chamber pressure and bullet velocity, leading to inconsistencies in accuracy. If you don’t start with high-quality brass, you’ll never add enough steps into your reloading process to turn it into uniform, match-grade brass.

Fred Sinclair was a competitive rifle shooter and gunsmith who founded Sinclair International in the 1970s (later acquired by Brownells). Fred began by crafting high-quality reloading tools for Benchrest shooters and varmint hunters – a group known for pushing the boundaries of precision rifles at the time. Fred had 50+ years of experience reloading, and in the Precision Shooting Reloading Guide, Fred Sinclair explained, “The first step in case preparation is to obtain quality cases.” Sinclair says the goal of brass prep is for “our cases to be nearly identical prior to firing a shot.” So, the more consistent brass you can start off with, the better.

This article shares what type of rifle brass the 200 top-ranked shooters in the Precision Rifle Series (PRS) choose to run in long-range rifle matches. (Learn about the Precision Rifle Series.) This data is a large sample size of competitors that are also the very best precision rifle shooters in the world. If a large group of these guys are using a brand to get to the top of the leaderboard at pro-level, two-day PRS matches across the country – you can know for certain that it is very consistent and capable of world-class precision.

I’ll mention that this is the first article that is based on the most recent survey of the top-ranked shooters in the PRS at the end of the 2024 season. That survey was just after the PRS season finale match earlier this month.

Let’s dive right in! I’ll provide a more detailed breakdown of what brand guys are using for specific cartridges later in this article, but let’s start with this chart showing the most popular brands of brass among these elite marksmen regardless of what cartridge they were running:

Many people are likely surprised only to see 4 brands of brass represented among all 200 of these shooters! I was surprised by that myself. The last time I published data on the brass these guys were using was back in 2019, and there were 10 brands of brass represented then, including Alpha, Gunwerks, Hornady, Lapua, Norma, Nosler, Peterson, Prime, Sig Sauer, and Starline. So, there has been a lot of consolidation among this group into just a few of the premium brass manufacturers over the past 5 years.

Alpha Munitions was by far the favorite rifle brass among pro shooters, with 67% choosing to run Alpha brass. That included 6 shooters in the top 10. It basically was the majority of shooters, regardless of how you slice it. In the survey I conducted at the end of the 2018 season, only 5% of the top 200 shooters said they used Alpha brass. What a massive swing over just a few seasons!

Alpha Munitions was founded in 2015, and here is how they defined their goal:

Alpha’s Goal: “To manufacture the highest quality most consistent rifle brass on the planet, something we call Alpha Grade.  Alpha Grade means we exercise exacting control over every element of production, while utilizing the most advanced technologies in both manufacturing and quality control. We don’t manufacture different grades of brass. If it’s not Alpha Grade it doesn’t go out the door.” – Alpha Munitions

Their primary audience is the precision shooters who weigh to the kernel and measure to the thousandths. Frankly, it’s the shooters that are represented in this survey – and the ones reading this article! 😉

I met with some of the founders of Alpha at SHOT Show 2016 and heard about their vision for the company. For the longest time, Lapua was the de facto gold standard when it came to high-quality brass. Other European manufacturers were likely the next tier of brass quality, while most US-based brass manufacturers were trailing in terms of quality. Much of that had to do with the fact that US-based manufacturers weren’t using modern manufacturing equipment. Alpha’s founders came with a wide range of experience in other industries, including medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and engineering, and they understood the potential of bringing modern, state-of-the-art equipment and rigorous quality control processes to the brass industry. That includes an industry-leading inspection system that has multiple points of inspection on every single case.

Alpha Munitions says their OCD (Optimized Case Design) Technology is the first major advancement in brass manufacturing in decades. In testing, OCD brass plastically deforms less than competitors at identical loads, resulting in better consistency, brass life, and performance in all environmental conditions. That’s why they claim that OCD brass is the strongest, most durable rifle brass ever produced, giving shooters the widest performance envelope.

Here is a video where Tom Danielson, Founding Partner/Owner of Alpha Munitions, explains what makes Alpha brass different:

Alpha makes factory cases for most of the cartridges this group of shooters uses, far more than any other manufacturer. For example, they make factory 6mm Dasher brass, but Lapua does not. If you wanted to shoot Lapua brass out of a 6 Dasher, you would have to buy Lapua 6mm BR Norma brass and then fireform it in a Dasher. But if you choose Alpha brass, you can load it up right out of the box and take it to a match.

Here are the cartridges that Alpha offers factory brass in (at the time this was published). They seem to add new cartridges every month. The list very closely resembles the most popular short-action cartridges used in the PRS.

• 22 ARC
• 22 GT
• 22 Creedmoor
• 6mm ARC
• 6mm PPC
• 6mm BR
• 6mm BRA
• 6mm Dasher
• 6mm GT
• 6mm Creedmoor
• 25 GT
• 25×47 Lapua
• 25 Creedmoor
• 260 Rem
• 6.5×47 Lapua
• 6.5 Creedmoor
• 7mm-08
• 7mm SAW
• 308 Win
• 8.6 BLK

I know a few of the top 10 shooters who load up virgin (never fired) Alpha brass and take it to a match. They don’t feel like Alpha brass has to be “once-fired” through their rifle to give them the best consistency shot-to-shot. In fact, you can hear from one of those guys directly:

Austin Buschman is a PRS Champion and two-time IPRF World Champion who uses Alpha brass.

In an interview last year, I asked Buschman what he did before he loads brand-new brass for the first time:

• Do you run your brass through a neck mandrel to set a consistent inside neck diameter? No.
• Do you trim new cases before you load them? No.
• Do you ever neck trim to get more consistent neck tension? No.
• Do you uniform flash holes or primer pockets? No.
• Do you weight-sort or cull any cases that were outliers in terms of weight or volume? No.

Austin Buschman: “No, you don’t need to do any of that with Alpha brass. It’s super consistent.”

Austin only does one thing to brand new Alpha brass before he loads it: “I do chamfer the inside of the necks to avoid the necks damaging the bullets as they are seated. I don’t do this step again unless I trim the brass.”

I asked, “Do you mean you would take brand new, unfired brass straight out of the box, chamfer it, load it, and then take that ammo to a match?” Austin: “Yep. I won 1 or 2 matches this year with virgin Alpha brass straight out of the box. Those matches were close to the start of the year, and I had got new brass at the beginning of the season and was still shooting through all of it for the first firing. The Alpha brass seems to perform exactly the same on the 1st and subsequent firings.” One of those matches Buschman used virgin Alpha brass in was the Leupold Steel Classic PRS Match in Texas, which he cleaned – meaning he didn’t miss a single shot over two days! He hit every target over 176 shots! That was the first and only time anyone had ever cleaned a pro-level, two-day match. That seems to be pretty definitive proof that any extra steps in prepping new Alpha brass may be a waste of time!

It is no surprise to see 24% of these top-ranked shooters chose to run Lapua brass. That included 2 of the shooters who finished the season in the top 10, including Ben Gossett, who was the 2024 PRS Season Champion.

Lapua brass was considered the de facto gold standard of premium rifle brass for decades. It is a safe bet that more world championships have been won with Lapua brass in Benchrest, F-Class, and other precision centerfire rifle shooting disciplines than any other brand. Before Alpha Munitions, most serious competitors might argue there really wasn’t even a close second compared to Lapua brass quality.

There are veteran reloaders who would still argue that Lapua makes the best brass. I haven’t seen any objective, independant research that compares quality or consistency between these manufacturers, but clearly, Lapua is still extremely capable.

Lapua has added several new factory case options over the past 10 years that are relevant to this group of shooters, like the 6mm Creedmoor and 6.5 Creedmoor – and, this year, the 6mm GT. But they still don’t offer as wide of a range of cartridges that are popular among the top shooters in the PRS as Alpha Munitions. Most notably, Lapua doesn’t offer factory 6mm Dasher brass, which is by far the most popular cartridge among the pros. They also don’t currently offer any 25-caliber brass, which is becoming increasingly popular in the PRS. In general, it seems like Lapua lags behind other manufacturers in terms of adding new, popular cartridges to their lineup.

However, Ben Gossett and a few others were using Lapua brass out of their 6mm Dasher. In that case, they would start with 6mm BR Norma brass from Lapua and then fireform that in their chamber. After one firing in their chamber, they could load it like normal 6mm Dasher brass. The headstamp would still say “6mm BR Norma,” but with the extra fireforming step, it can be used in a Dasher. (Learn about fireforming)

Here are the factory cases that Lapua currently offers (at the time this was published):

• 222 Rem
• 223 Rem
• 220 Russian
• 22-250 Rem
• 6mm BR Norma
• 6mm GT
• 243 Win
• 6mm Creedmoor
• 6.5 Grendel
• 6.5×55 SE
• 6.5-284
• 6.5×47 Lapua
• 260 Rem
• 6.5 Creedmoor
• 6.5 PRC
• 7mm-08 Rem
• 7×64
• 7x65R
• 284 Win
• 7.62×39
• 308 Win
• 30-06 Springfield
• 300 WSM
• 300 Win Mag
• 300 PRC
• 300 Norma Mag
• 7.62x53R
• 8×57
• 338 Lapua Mag
• 338 Norma Mag
• 9.3×62

7% of these top-ranked shooters were using brass made by Peterson Cartridge, including a couple in the top 25: #16 Keith Baker and #17 Andy Slade. The popularity of Peterson brass among pro shooters has been steadily growing over the past couple of years.

Andy Slade won the $30,000 prize at the 2023 AG Cup using Peterson brass. The AG Cup is a unique, 3-day precision rifle match featuring the biggest cash payouts of the year – which always attracts the best shooters in the world to compete. So clearly, Peterson brass is capable of winning at the highest levels.

Peterson offers a wide variety of factory cases, including 6 Dasher and several other popular cartridges among these pro shooters (e.g., 25 Creedmoor). Peterson’s list of cartridges is significantly longer than both Alpha and Lapua, including a few cartridges that are popular in Extreme Long Range (ELR) shooting:

• 22 Creedmoor
• 6mm BR Norma
• 6mm Dasher
• 6×47 Lapua
• 6XC
• 243 Win
• 6mm Creedmoor
• 25 Creedmoor
• 257 Weatherby Mag
• 6.5×47 Lapua
• 6.5 Creedmoor
• 260 Rem
• 6.5-284 Norma
• 6.5 PRC
• 6.5 Weatherby RPM
• 26 Nosler
• 6.5-300 Weatherby Mag
• 270 Win
• 270 Weatherby Mag
• 27 Nosler
• 7mm-08 Rem
• 284 Win
• 280 Rem
• 280 AI (Ackley Improved)
• 7mm Rem Mag
• 7 PRC
• 7mm Weatherby Mag
• 28 Nosler
• 7mm Rem Ultra Mag
• 308 Win
• 30-06 Springfield
• 300 Win Mag
• 300 PRC
• 30 Nosler
• 300 Weatherby Mag
• 300 Norma Mag
• 300 Rem Ultra Mag
• 338 Weatherby Mag
• 33 Nosler
• 340 Weatherby Mag
• 338 Norma Mag
• 338 Lapua Mag
• 33XC
• 375 EnABELR
• 375 CheyTac
• 408 CheyTac

I will add that if you’re interested in learning how brass is made, Peterson has a great page that walks you through that with visuals.

Finally, there were 4 shooters who said they primarily run Hornady brass at matches. However, those 4 were all ranked 101 to 200 in the 2024 PRS Season in the Open Division.

Hornady offers brass for a TON of cartridges, so I won’t list them out here. (Full list of Hornady factory cases)

I will mention that Kahl Harmon, who was the 2023 PRS Season Champ and finished 2nd in the 2024 season, told me that he sometimes uses Hornady brass. Kahl is on the shooting team for the US Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU), and USAMU ballisticians load all of his match ammo. Kahl told me some of his match ammo is in Alpha brass, and some is in Hornady brass.

That brings up a very good point: If you gave golden bullet winners like Kahl Harmon, Ben Gossett, Austin Buschman, Austin Orgain, or Clay Blackketter ammo that was loaded with Starline or Remington or ANY OTHER BRAND brass – they are still going to outshoot 99.99% of the rifle shooters on the planet!

Articles like this aren’t trying to imply causation. I’m not saying the reason these guys finished on top is because they used a certain brand of brass. It’s simply one component that plays into the precision they are able to consistently achieve at national-level matches. At the very least, the brass they are using isn’t holding them back. At most, it is helping them gain a very slight edge in terms of hit probability through more consistent muzzle velocity and/or improved groups.

Keep in mind that many of these pro-level PRS matches are won by just 1 or 2 points over two days of shooting. Specifically, 21 of the 41 pro matches in 2024 were decided by 2 points or less! In fact, 7 of those were ties that had to go to the tiebreaker stage to determine the match winner! So these guys are trying to find anything they can to boost their hit probability – even if it is by fractions of a point because the game has become so competitive! (More on that in an upcoming article!)

A few of these manufacturers might offer brass for the same cartridge with the option for primer pockets made for either a Large Rifle Primer (LRP) or a Small Rifle Primer (SRP). A popular example is the 6.5 Creedmoor. The original 6.5 Creedmoor case design from Hornady had a large rifle primer, but Alpha, Lapua, and Peterson are all offering 6.5 Creedmoor cases with a small rifle primer or a larger rifle primer.

I was curious how many of these top-ranked shooter opted for one or the other, so I did some analysis on it – and it’s pretty conclusive!

98% of these guys were running brass with small rifle primers! Only 3 people were running large rifle primers, and none of those were inside the top 100. In fact, 2 of those using a large primer were shooting a 308 Win in the tactical division (but still shot well enough to finish inside of the top 200 in the open division). So, if you were wondering if you should buy the brass with a small rifle primer pocket or large – this group seems pretty definitive on that!

I will add that I’ve heard guys from Hornady say if you are using a Creedmoor-sized case in cold conditions (below freezing), they would highly recommend a large rifle primer. They say you could experience ignition problems trying to light powder in those cases that have over 35 grains of powder with a small rifle primer. I personally competed with a 6mm Creedmoor for 5+ years and easily fired 10,000+ rounds with a small rifle primer in it without a single ignition issue – but very few of those rounds were fired below freezing. The guys at Hornady are experts, and that is only my anecdotal experience. But I just wanted to present a balanced view.

I’ve also heard Jayden Quinlan, Hornady’s Senior Ballistician, say that in their research, they’ve found no precision or consistency advantage to small rifle primers. He also hadn’t heard of any other serious research that had been done by other labs that would indicate some intrinsic benefit from small rifle primers for precision.

One reason many of these shooters opt for small rifle primers is the belief that more material at the base of the case could either extend brass life or possibly support slightly higher pressures. I would also bet that some people do believe that small rifle primers are potentially more consistent and might help precision. But, again – I haven’t seen any serious research (based on appropriate large sample sizes) that seems to support that conclusion. So I can’t confirm or deny that. If anyone is aware of research into small rifle primers vs large rifle primers, please share it with us in the comments!

I plan to share more on primers these guys are using in a future article, but I thought at least mentioning what size the primer pocket was would be relevant to this article on brass.

I thought it’d be helpful to show the current street price of each of these brands of brass. All four of these manufacturers sell 6.5 Creedmoor cases, so that is what I pulled the numbers for from major online distributors.

You can see Hornady is the lowest priced and Lapua is the highest. Alpha and Peterson are very similar in that middle ground between the two. Pricing will vary by cartridge, but this should give you a rough gauge of how these are priced relative to one another.

Finally, here is a breakdown showing what brand of brass shooters were using based on the cartridge they were using at matches.

If one of my close friends was getting into this sport, my advice would be to simply find their cartridge in the list above and buy 500 pieces of brass from the same lot for whatever brand is most popular for their cartridge. If you did that, brass certainly wouldn’t be the thing that was holding you back! 😉

To be clear, not all of the cartridges above are available from the factory. For example, notice the table says 42% of those shooting a 25×47 Lapua were using Lapua brass. Lapua doesn’t currently offer ANY 25 caliber brass. So what those guys likely did was buy 6.5×47 Lapua brass from the factory and necked it down to 25 caliber before fireforming it in their chamber (or you could neck up their 6×47 brass). That is why I included the list of what factory cartridge cases companies like Alpha, Lapua, and Peterson offer in this article. If you don’t want to wildcat brass, then find one of those manufacturers who offer the cartridge you’ll be using.

If you enjoyed this content, I’ve already pushed dozens of articles just like it! Check out the other “What The Pros Use” articles that have already been published this year.

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