I'm sure many of you fellas have thousands of brass in the reloading room as I have.

In a perfect world, we would all have our brass labled by how many times fired, what charges where used, different lot #s, different weights, wall thickness, etc., etc. BUT, we all know that just ain't how it usually turns out .

I have piles of brass most of which is seperated by Headstamp and cartridge type but, some is old, some is new, some fired once, some twice, three times, etc., etc.

On my magnum cases I can sometimes see that "ring" around the body close to the case head where the walls have thinned but, I have a hard time seeing this ring on Standard cases. I just hate it when an old case splits or the head seperates.

If you rule out split necks and loose primer pockets as ways to determine if a case is stil usable, what is the best way to determine the quality of your brass???

Any tricks or tools you have come across?

Thanks for any info.

Reloader

Looking at it feeling for defects. On belted mag rifle cases I like running a stiff wire into the case to feel for a ring ahead of the belt.

All of mine are segarated by manufacturer and the number of times that they have been fired.

For straightwalled rifle brass, my 45-90 cases made it to 34 reloads without any signs of a problem. Just no damage at all.

For bottlenecked rifle brass, my 43 Beaumonts split at the neck at about 15 reloads. By 15 reloads half of my cases were shot.

For pistol loads, neck tension starts to become a problem and the cases start to develop bulges in the sides of the case after about 12 reloads. The case seems to no longer have the strength to get through a full length resizing.

p dog shooter,

I shoot and load for a variety of belted magnums, and if memory serves me right, all cases, whether factory loads or my new loads, once they are fired, show the bright ring up above the belt, and will also have some thinning of the case (incipient head separation) when the old trick of using a properly bent paper clip is inserted in the case.

Some of these cases have been reloaded up to three times, with no problem. Am I flirting with disaster? Or if I reload these cases, carefully ensuring proper headspacing, can they be considered safe? Is there a quantitative way of measuring this thinning? How much thinning is too much and how much is safe? Should every case that has ANY thinning be discarded? If so, I will have to discard every belted magnum case I own that has been fired.

Your response will be appreciated. I am genuinely concerned about this issue. Thanks!

quote:

Any tricks or tools you have come across?

Not that it helps much...but relegate it to practice/plinking/low pressure rounds after the usual inspections (feeling for thinning head, loose primer pocket, and general visual looksie over).

Brass is cheap, relatively speaking, so beware of false economy! IMHO, of course.

quote:

Originally posted by Reloader:

On my magnum cases I can sometimes see that "ring" around the body close to the case head where the walls have thinned but, I have a hard time seeing this ring on Standard cases. I just hate it when an old case splits or the head seperates.

I've seen the ring on standard cases just as often as I've seen it on magnum ones.

I think it depends on a number of factors, two of which are how hot you are making your loads and how large the chamber of your rifles is relative to the size of your sizing die. If the chamber tends toward being oversize and the die tends toward being undersize, meaning that when you fire the load it tends to "stretch" the case a lot, this tends, I think, to shorten case life. The hotter your loads, the shorter your case life is likely to be too.

I don't know how many times I've loaded some cases, but I have a batch of Remington 6mm Remington brass that I've been loading and shooting since about 1985, and most of them are still going strong -- I do get a split case mouth now and then and have to discard that case. I have 7x57 Winchester cases that I've loaded 10 times, and they are still sound. But I also have Winchester .270 cases that don't last much longer than three or four loadings.

quote:

I shoot and load for a variety of belted magnums, and if memory serves me right, all cases, whether factory loads or my new loads, once they are fired, show the bright ring up above the belt, and will also have some thinning of the case (incipient head separation) when the old trick of using a properly bent paper clip is inserted in the case.

mudstud, any thinning of the case FELT with a paperclip is cause to be concerned. I would personaly not load a case showing any wall thinning I could measure or feel.

A bright ring at the case wall / head junction is common and is no more then the wall expanding to the chamber while the solid head remains at its factory diameter. There is normally a bulge accompaning it that will also appear above the belt on a belted mag case. There was a post here recently on a die that is supose to remove the bulge on the belted cases as a regular FL sizer wont always do it and chambering problems result. This shouldn`t be confused with a ring from the case thining. Here`s a link that helps show and explain seperation.

http://www.reloadingpro.com/Case%20Conditions.htm

The main cause of case seperation is over sizeing the case. When you set the shoulder back repetedly with your die and it moves forward from firing it stretches the case, thinning it. The proper way to size is to set your die to just touch or "bump" the shoulder when FL sizeing. This will help to prevent stretching and prolong case life. I dump my cases at ~10-12 loadings "just because" and haven`t found any sign of seperation or loose primer pockets yet in my cases in years of loading. I have had neck splits from over sized chambers allowing the case to be work hardened but that`s another problem altogether.

Most pressure problems also wont show first as case seperation but as primer pocket expansion. If the pockets expand and are loose with a couple loads, you`ve been loading too hot. If the case wall is thinning and pockets are tight, you are moveing the shoulder too much when sizeing.

Thanks, gentlemen, for your responses. This has helped very much to clear this up in my mind!

quote:

Originally posted by mudstud:
p dog shooter,

I shoot and load for a variety of belted magnums, and if memory serves me right, all cases, whether factory loads or my new loads, once they are fired, show the bright ring up above the belt, and will also have some thinning of the case (incipient head separation) when the old trick of using a properly bent paper clip is inserted in the case.

Some of these cases have been reloaded up to three times, with no problem. Am I flirting with disaster? Or if I reload these cases, carefully ensuring proper headspacing, can they be considered safe? Is there a quantitative way of measuring this thinning? How much thinning is too much and how much is safe? Should every case that has ANY thinning be discarded? If so, I will have to discard every belted magnum case I own that has been fired.

Your response will be appreciated. I am genuinely concerned about this issue. Thanks!

Mudstud:

I don't know how hot your brass is reloaded, but in reloading 300 and 338 mag cases, I have had cases that have been reloading 6 times or more.

IN fact I have not had any mag brass really die on me yet, but I tend to shoot non magnum cases a lot more often than I shoot the magnums. Most of my magnum shooting is done with downloaded ammo.

However, I also play with loading them hot to see what the upper limits are on them. I get enough mag brass from non reloaders at the range, that I have not bought mag cases in years. So that shows the times I do shoot them. If I had to guess I would say I shoot maybe 500 to 600 rounds of mag ammo a year is all. Versus 5 to 7000 rounds of non mag and non 22 rimfire per year.

If the neck starts to split on you or the primer pocket gets loose, then I'd scrap that brass.

I sort my brass into lots of 25 using zip lock freezer bags and put a 3x 5 card in the bag and keep track of how many reloadings and what loads each batch was. ( hot or non hot). I have noticed in keeping records like this, that once two or three pieces have neck splits then a whole bunch will soon follow.

Like recently I did a history on a lot number of 22/250 brass, and recorded when it was neck sized versus full length resized. All but one piece made it to 10 resizings. 4 more died at the 11 th resizing, then 7 more at the 12th resizing.

So I am setting my life span of 22.250 brass at 10 firings and then just scrapping the lot number.

This takes a little time if you shoot a lot of different cartridges like I do. However it avoids the mess that Reloader refers to, and after it is set up and maintained, it sure is nice to have certainty on a subject that had a lot of uncertainty before. My brass all goes into plastic freezer zip lock bags ( buy your own and your wife won't get pissed at you stealing her's). Then the zip bags of brass goes into plastic storage boxes from Walmart that cost like 98cents per box. I use a sticker off of shipping labels, to mark the caliber on the box, and life is a lot simpler now. Actually it was pretty inexpensive to organize a lot of the brass, especially when one considers how much we spend on everything else for shooting.

Cheers and good shooting
seafire

FWIW - a small jewlers file works well to mark a small "notch" into the rim of the case head (just deep enough to be visible) after each reloading.

At a glance, you can tell how many times a particular case has been resized.

quote:

Originally posted by Reloader:
I'm sure many of you fellas have thousands of brass in the reloading room as I have.

In a perfect world, we would all have our brass labled by how many times fired, what charges where used, different lot #s, different weights, wall thickness, etc., etc. BUT, we all know that just ain't how it usually turns out .

I have piles of brass most of which is seperated by Headstamp and cartridge type but, some is old, some is new, some fired once, some twice, three times, etc., etc.

On my magnum cases I can sometimes see that "ring" around the body close to the case head where the walls have thinned but, I have a hard time seeing this ring on Standard cases. I just hate it when an old case splits or the head seperates.

If you rule out split necks and loose primer pockets as ways to determine if a case is stil usable, what is the best way to determine the quality of your brass???

Any tricks or tools you have come across?

Thanks for any info.

Reloader

I'll bet if you set your FL die to where it ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE touches the shoulders of your cases when you size brass that whas been fired in your rifles, you will stop having head separations (unless we are talking about lever action rifles or the SMLE)!!

While I don't have 1000's of cases to worry about.......I still use a simple rule......when in dought throw it out!

quote:

I'll bet if you set your FL die to where it ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE touches the shoulders of your cases when you size brass that whas been fired in your rifles, you will stop having head separations (unless we are talking about lever action rifles or the SMLE)!!

I have only had one case head seperation, that was a 7RM case that ahd been collet sized. They can seperate no matter what especially, if you shoot warm loads through them frequently. I do agree w/ you about the FL sizing shortening the life.

I think I may try the paper clip trick, never tried that one. Jewelers file sounds pretty good as well.

Reloader

quote:

Originally posted by CDH:

quote:

Any tricks or tools you have come across?

Not that it helps much...but relegate it to practice/plinking/low pressure rounds after the usual inspections (feeling for thinning head, loose primer pocket, and general visual looksie over).

Brass is cheap, relatively speaking, so beware of false economy! IMHO, of course.

Excellent advise....I always hunt with new brass.....the other stuff is for dog shooting and paper punching.

Just send all your cases to me, I'll return the useful ones...

On first being told about the wire down the case trick, I think I was supposed to feel for an obvious "grove". I never could feel one.
So when a case had a very obvious ring on the outside I'd pick the worse and cut it just above the mark. Never could find anything that way either. The only partial circumference cracks I've ever had was with too
much headspace and totaly FLS'ing. Now I know better. Got the rifle fixed and now measure for
needed partial FLS or neck size.
John L.