Sorry if this is a dumb question, but have been doing a lot of loading with my 257 roberts, frontier brass. Is there a rule of thumb on how many times you should reload the same brass?


thanks

You can move brass about .1", total, before most of it will start cracking. If your fired neck is .01 larger than your neck with a bullet seated, that's .01. However, necking it down in a standard size neck usually moves it about .015 (the expander ball bumps it back up to the right size, about .002 to .003 neck tension). 6 or seven times that .015, and you are at your .1" total, and cracking necks.

If you have "bench rest tolerances", i.e. .002 clearance, and about .001 or .002 neck tension, you can figure on twenty to thirty firings. HTH, Dutch.

I had that same question...

So I started putting my brass into lots of 50 and keeping a record of that lot on a 3 x 5 card... I store the brass in a large 1 qt freezer bag per group of 25 or 50.... In it is also the 3 x 5 card...

I tried this with a lot of 22/250 and 243. I got 10 reloads out of the 22/250 which was Remington brass. I got one neck split at the 11th loading, and ended up with about 7 neck splits at the 12th loading.... My conclusion was 10 loadings for the 22/250.

The 243 brass was Winchester, and I did the same thing... The 243 brass went to 12 loadings before I had a neck split... the 13th time I had like 6 neck splits.... My rule of thumb is 10 there also...

Start looking at the necks for cracks at about 7 or 8 loadings....


cheers
seafire

quote:

Originally posted by Maxx:
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but have been doing a lot of loading with my 257 roberts, frontier brass. Is there a rule of thumb on how many times you should reload the same brass?
thanks

It really depends on a number of things;of these
is how hot you load them, how you FL or neck size and how often you anneal. I have 257roberts brass that the necks are splitting. I started using this brass in 1972. I may be cheep but I'm not lazy. After the necks split I use them on my short wild cats. Zero splits on those since 1982 and I can not tell you why.There have been ,however a few expanded primer pockets. Point being ; you take care of the brass and it will serve you a long long time.If you are looking for a rule of thumb go with Seafire. I have some military 06 brass vintage 1943 that I'm still using on some of my wild cats. that's 62 years man. roger

I have some 22-250 brass that has 15 loadings into it. This is the last time,No problem with the necks cracking but I have had a head seperation. I knew they were close the last time I loaded them. Some of my 300WM brass has 6 loadings and still looks good no shiney ring around the base and no neck splits..yet. I do look them over carefully each time, after tumbleing.

Thanks for all the great info,

I got 6 reloads on Remington 6mmRem brass before the necks split, half the time I only partial neck sized them. Jay

You'll probably think I'm lying, I have 100 cases of 357 Maximum (Remington) that I have been using with 38 Special level loads for 2.5 years, those cases have seen at least 5000 rounds, and I have 44 Mag Starline brass that has seen equal use, low pressure loads as well. I recently purchased a 38-55 barrel for my rifle, I have 10 cases that I have been reloading over and again, keeping records and at 45 loadings, lost a case to neck splits. I've annealed the rest but have not as yet fired that lot to see how the annealing affected the case life. I have lost a few of the 357 and 44 brass along the way due to the case splitting either at eh neck or along the body but have not annealed any of them. I have been sizing the neck area only, keeping the belling of the case mouths to a minimum.

shelves of books could be written on this one...just too many varibles to even venture an accurate answer...but lets just say for the fun of it, in a .257 Robts. loaded below max a couple of grains in a good chamber and full length resized each time then between 5 and 10...neck sized Maybe a few more but then again maybe less....then there is annealing, trimming, cleaning and a host of other varibles.

Best advise is load them until you see signs of fatigue in a few more than several then toss them and buy another 100 in bulk...brass is too cheap to mess with.

The rcbs casemaster will tell you everything you want to know about the condition of a case/loaded round,,,even rimfire rounds if you have the time.I found in my .223 cases I get a internal crack about a 1/2" above the head in military brass after a few firings,,,and I bought 1k of once fired lake city once,,1/3 failed to pass the casemaster,,One that read really bad,but looked "good" on the outside I was able to easily snap in half bare handed,,not what you want in a rapid fire round.Good luck,,Clay

I too shoot a .257 Roberts and load to the +P pressures and not beyond. Yes I also use frontier brass (it's actually Winchester) and while there is no right answer to the question asked I'll just say that these cases I have have been full length sized and fired at least six times now. Some are on their seventh reloading. Since this is a hunting gun this is the last firing for these cases. Out they go and I'll buy a bag of 50 Winchester brass and start over.

On my varmint rifles I shoot until I see evidence of splits or case separation and then pitch the entire lot. Neither of these conditions do I consider unsafe but don't want to mess with obviously fatigued and cracked casings. Some of my .223 cases are close to 15 firings and still look fine.

A lot of good info on watching out for the signs of cases giving way. I have used the same cases for my 7.7 jap 7-10 rounds without any signs of failing. This is shooting 44 grains of IMR-4064 powder through them. I have never anealed any but will before next shooting. This may sound real crazy to some, but I found when I backed off the FL die until it just barely cammed over when working the press the cases lasted longer with out any problem. Like the feller said, "take care of your cases"