360 vs 260 brass: which should you buy?
Machining it on a lathe, mill, or drill press? Buy C360: the lead makes chips break clean and threads cut true. Bending, spinning, or deep-drawing thin stock? That's C260 cartridge brass. Our rack is C360 in flat, round, hex, and square bar; true C260 jobs are a sourcing quote, not a rack pick.
Which brass should you buy, 360 or 260?
One question settles it: what's touching the metal? If it's a cutting tool (lathe, mill, drill press, tap), buy C360 free-machining brass. If it's a forming tool (press brake, draw die, spinning lathe on thin stock), that's C260 cartridge brass territory. Most shop jobs are cutting jobs, so most of the time the answer is 360.
That's also the honest shape of our rack. C360 is what we stock and cut: flat bar, round bar, hex bar, square bar, and some sheet. We carry only a couple of C260 items as of June 2026, because true C260 work wants sheet and strip, and that's a sourcing conversation, not a rack one.
What makes 360 brass free-machining?
Lead, about 3% of it. The lead doesn't dissolve into the brass; it sits throughout the structure in tiny pockets and snaps the chip as the tool cuts. So C360 makes short, clean chips instead of long stringy ones, holds size, and threads beautifully. It's the 100 mark on machinability charts: every other alloy gets scored against it.
The trade is ductility. The same lead pockets that break chips also break bends, so ask C360 for a tight fold and it cracks instead of flowing. Keep any bend gentle, with a generous radius, or design the bend out and machine the angle instead. If the part earns its living being formed, that's a C260 job.
What's 260 brass for?
Forming. C260 is cartridge brass, roughly 70% copper and 30% zinc with no lead, the alloy ammunition cases are deep-drawn from. Nothing in it interrupts the grain, so it flows instead of cracking: deep draws, spun shapes, tight bends in thin sheet, stamped parts. It work-hardens as you form it, then anneals back soft for the next pass.
On a lathe it's the opposite story: gummy cuts and long stringy chips, because it was never built for the tool room. Real-world C260 is mostly sheet, strip, and coil bought by forming shops. That's why our rack doesn't carry much of it, and why we treat C260 jobs as sourcing requests instead of pretending the rack covers them.
Can you solder or braze 360 and 260 brass?
Yes to both, on both alloys. Brass takes tin solder, silver solder, and brazing rod happily, with the right flux and a clean joint. The one wrinkle is C360's lead: it can stop the filler wetting evenly, so file or scrub the joint bright and use a touch more flux than plain brass would need.
Two practical notes. Brass melts sooner than steel, so work at the cool end of your rod's range and pull the heat the moment the filler flows. And overheated brass boils off zinc as a white fume, so braze with ventilation and back the torch off when the surface starts to shimmer.
What brass do we stock, and what does it cost?
C360, in the shapes machining work actually orders: flat bar, round bar, hex bar, square bar, and some sheet, all on the brass rack. Type your length in inches on the product page and the price shows up. Every cut is free, to ±1/8″, and volume discounts of 5-15% apply automatically as the order grows.
| From the rack, 12″ piece | Price (CAD, June 2026) |
|---|---|
| C360 hex bar, 5/16″ across flats | $15.15 |
| C360 hex bar, 1/2″ across flats | $15.38 |
Read those two prices again: the 1/2″ hex carries more than twice the metal of the 5/16″ and costs 23 cents more. On small brass, cutting and handling are most of the cost, so stepping up a size is usually cheap. That's the cut-to-length model working in your favour; here's how buying by the inch works if it's your first order. Order by 1pm Atlantic on a business day and it ships the next business day, up to 96″ a piece anywhere in Canada.
What's the difference between brass and bronze?
Brass is copper plus zinc; bronze is copper plus tin. At our counter the pair that matters is C360 brass and C932 bearing bronze, and they solve different problems. C360 is the one you machine into fittings and hardware. C932 is the one that lives as a bushing or wear sleeve against a moving steel shaft.
| C360 brass | C932 bearing bronze | |
|---|---|---|
| The recipe | Copper and zinc, with lead for machining | Copper and tin, with lead for slipperiness |
| Colour | Bright yellow | Reddish brown |
| Buy it for | Machined fittings, valve parts, decorative hardware | Bushings, bearings, thrust washers, wear surfaces |
| On our rack | Flat, round, hex, and square bar, some sheet | Rotocast tube and round bar |
| Sample price (CAD, June 2026) | 1/2″ hex, 12″ piece: $15.38 | 1″ slice of rotocast tube: $24.77 |
If the part spins, slides, or carries a shaft, spend the extra on C932. If the part gets machined, threaded, and admired, C360 does it for less.
What if your job really needs 260?
Then don't force 360 into it. A deep draw or a spinning job will crack leaded brass and waste the stock. Send the drawing or a plain description through a quote request and we'll source the right C260 sheet or strip; sourcing runs 2-21 days, and you'll see the price before you commit. Weighing a different pair entirely? Our 6061 vs 6063 aluminum guide settles the same buy-this-or-that question for aluminum.