With more members getting this brass and to aid in visibility, I have renamed the thread. Please post observations once yours arrives.
Hoot
My friend Todd, who I shoot Rimfire BR with (Hoot's secret other passion), is a used and new brass rep. He knows of my passion for the 450b. He also knew that Starline was making 450b brass now. He stopped by today with a surprise. A bag of 50 of them, to have me evaluate. He bought a thousand of them as his customers have been inquiring about them. So, it being a rainy, cold (44 deg) day, I spent a good portion of it recording measurements of them, along with the few new Hornady brass I have saved.
They look like this:
Finish is equal to hornady as far as I could tell:
I have created a spreadsheet of the two brands:
Here's the bottom line and my report to Todd. He will sell small lots if anyone wants some.
Starline 450 Bushmaster Case Report
One of the 50 cases was short (indicated in red) to the point that it will in all likelihood, be out of tolerance after 1 firing. They shrink every time you fire them. Most after the first firing and then to lessening degrees each subsequent reload. that one case was not included in statistical analysis.
All tolerances were close enough to Hornady as to be negligible in difference. I would have liked the case head diameter to have been .003+ wider, but not being able to measure wall thickness all the way down, I dont know if it will be an issue after successive stout loads. Excessive pressure is measured in this caliber, not by the primer flattening, although that is always worthy of scrutiny. It is measured by case head growth. SAAMI spec is .5000 new. Unfortunately, Hornady deviated a little from the original 2008 SAAMI spec to keep people from using .284 Win brass (original parent case) so some of the dimensions are at the outer limit of that original SAAMI spec.
The extraction groove is narrower in the Starline brass. That is a good thing as it lessens any chance of any of the different brand bolt extractors bottoming out in the groove.
Hoot