Differences of opinion on brass
I was at a high power match recently and those of us in the pits got to discussing reloading. One fellow said that he throws away his brass after 4 or 5 reloads. I thought this to be silly. My position was and is that if you trim and the brass shows no signs of incipent case head seperation externally or internally, the primer pocket is tight, and has no other cracks, bulges, etc., then the brass can be reloaded pretty much forever, especially if the neck is annealed now and again. Frankly, I've fired some milsurp brass 10X now or so and still has no signs of trouble.
I suppose it is a matter of opinion but what do you all think?
"...hit your enemy in the belly, and kick him when he is down, and boil his prisoners in oil- if you take any- and torture his women and children. Then people will keep clear of you..." -Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, speaking at the Hague Peace Conf
I suppose it is a matter of opinion but what do you all think?
"...hit your enemy in the belly, and kick him when he is down, and boil his prisoners in oil- if you take any- and torture his women and children. Then people will keep clear of you..." -Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, speaking at the Hague Peace Conf
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A friend I shoot with in the USPSA with just replaced his .40 brass after 5 years. He didn't keep perfect records but estimates that it was in the neigborhood of 20 reloads. Not Light loads either, about 40,000 psi on standard R-P brass. All of a sudden about 20% cracked.
A man with a gun is a CITIZEN, a man without a gun is a subject.0 -
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Except for driving tacks, I just keep loading until the brass shows signs of incipient failure. On handgun casings, if the primer pocket seems a little loose, I set those shells aside in a separate box as part of my loading process, run a colored marker across the heads when boxed, and when I'm sorting out fired cases for the next loading, those go in the scrap bucket. On rifle brass, same deal with primer pockets, more obvious defects go straight to the bucket. Unless the brass is something exotic and/or expensive, I trim it when I first reload, to ensure uniform length. Once it has stretched, after several trips through rifle & press, I accumulate the brass until there's enough to bother and trim a pile at once, color code the heads and away we go. I don't ever recall trimming any common rifle brass a second time . . . by then, the pockets are stretching or cracks have appeared in the necks or near the head. For 99 plus% of shooting purposes, the inherent variations in conditions, firearm & shooter will outweigh any introduced by minor variations in age / length of brass . . . or at least that is my experience & opinion. 0 -
Some brass just seems to go obviously bad after a few firings, others do not. I can only speak of pistol brass--it should be good for a dozen reloads or so if it's good stuff and isn't loaded too hot. A lot of my brass is auto and it sometimes flies away prematurely.
Three Precious Metals: Gold, silver and lead0 -
I believe that the brass under discussion is for use in high power competition, which would seem to indicate the use of the best ammo you could field. For pistol loads and plinking, it really does'nt matter how many times the brass is loaded if the cases are still sound and withing OAL spec. For HP competition, why introduce a possibility of variable results due to the ammo? 0
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