Terry Wieland On Ammo - Norma - It’s worth it for the brass

Norma ammunition and brass is always top quality. The company has adopted the current darling of the long-range benchrest crowd, the 6.5-284, as their own. It is one of many hard-to-find calibres available from Norma.

The news that Norma Projektilfabrik of Amitfors, Sweden, is marketing a line of ammunition called the ‘African PH’ is good news in many more ways than one. Norma makes some of the finest ammunition in the world, much of it in hard-to-get metric calibres that are rarely seen in the United States, and almost impossible to obtain in parts of Africa.

Norma’s new line is available in nine different calibres: .375 H&H, .404 Jeffery, .416 Rigby, .416 Remington, .450 Rigby, .458 Lott, .470 Nitro Express, .500 Nitro Express, and .505 Gibbs. Loaded with the superb Woodleigh bullets, this ammunition is a godsend for anyone with a rifle in .404, .450 Rigby, .500 NE, and .505 Gibbs, especially, since ammunition is those calibres can be very hard to come by.

A couple of calibres on the list are a little hard to explain. Where on earth will they get demand to justify producing the .450 Rigby? Only a handful of rifles have been made in the 13 years since its inception, and even the Rigby company is discouraging people from ordering one. But, such are the baffling decisions of ammunition companies.

At close to $200 for a box of 20 cartridges in the larger calibres, this ammunition is far from cheap. But then, if you own a .500 NE or .505 Gibbs, chances are you are not hurting for money. And even for the more budget-minded, these are not rifles with which you loose off a hundred rounds in a day.

To me, the great thing about Norma producing this ammunition is the fact that first they have to make brass, and that means brass will be available even if you have to buy loaded ammunition to get it. And Norma brass is, in my opinion, the finest in the world.

Huntington Die Specialties (www.huntingtons.com) imports Norma brass in a variety of calibres. Their new catalogue lists some of the above calibres, but not the .416 Remington, .450 Rigby, .500 or .505. Brass for the .404 Jeffery, for example, is sold in packages of 20, at $46 a pack. Not cheap, perhaps, but when you have a rifle and no ammunition for it, cheap is not as important a consideration as simply getting something to shoot.

With a couple of exceptions, all the above calibres are relatively low pressure. When you combine that with the unexcelled quality of Norma brass, a hundred rounds could last you a lifetime if you load them carefully, watch for work-hardening and anneal accordingly, and so on.

From the beginning, Norma has produced the Weatherby line of ammunition. Without exception, the Weatherby ammunition I have tested has delivered the advertised velocities (and then some, in one or two cases), has been extremely accurate, and the brass has been both easy to reload and long-lived.

All the Weatherby cartridges are, of course, high intensity. If Norma brass can stand up to those pressures, shot after shot, it will have no problem with the .505 Gibbs. Of the Weatherby calibres, I have reloaded the .257, .300 and .416 extensively. The .257 brass routinely delivered 10 to 20 reloads with no problem, even when I was pushing maximum velocities.

Since Norma’s new African PH line is premium ammunition, one would expect it to deliver performance every bit as good as the Weatherby line.

While we are on the subject, Huntington carries an extensive line of Norma brass in other calibres of interest to African hunters, including the .308 Norma, .358 Norma, 9.3x74R, 9.3x62, and .458 Winchester.

I used my first Norma ammunition more than 40 years ago, and have been a big fan of Norma products ever since. In 1990, loading ammunition for a custom .257 Weatherby to take to Africa, I developed a load with Norma MRP powder (virtually identical to Reloder-22). To this day, I have never found a load as consistent in every way as that one was. A few years later, Norma powder once again disappeared from the American market – it seems to do this periodically, reappearing a few years later with a new importer – and I hoarded my remaining MRP, reserving it just for that rifle.

Norma ammunition and components is now imported by Black Hills Shooters Supply in South Dakota (www.bhshooters.com). While Black Hills is not a retailer, they should be able to direct you to someone who is.