Are they any better than brass in situations where alignment is less than perfect, or the pipe is slightly deformed, or is of an old standard with slightly different and non-standadr O.D. as some 1/2" pipe seems to be?
I've used both. Brass is of course hard to do up, but is a must (IMHO at least) on chromed pipe to ensure it bites.
For the most part I stick with brass. But you may have a point - copper might be a little more forgiving being softer.
I have a small stock of copper olives.
When fitting a chrome towel radiator recently I found the copper olives supplied with the (crap) valves didn't allow a watertight seal. On examining the olives I found then much thinner than those in my stock of copper olives. Replacing the olives with thicker/wider ones allowed a satisfactory joint to be made.
The quality of the olive is equally important.
I will be replacing the valves soon when I remove the radiator to tile behind it.
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