Newbie here has about 600 "once fired" brass (Fed.Match fired by me). My question is: which is the better way to manage the brass.

1.) Do most prefer to continue reloading the same 40 pieces of brass until they start to fail in a group way?
1A) If loading that way, should I throw out the whole batch of 40 brass when one or two fail, or should I just replace the failed ones and keep reloading the original 40 until individual failure?
or
2.) Should I rotate the entire 600 cartridges until all 600 have been shot twice, shot 3 times, etc., etc.? I ask this bearing in mind that brass may not be available AT ALL in the future sometime, and a mass brass failure of your whole supply would be highly regrettable.

Please don't just say "1" or "2", as I would like to hear you justify your choice as well as your logic. Thx

Need more information. Caliber? Rifle or pistol? Straight wall or bottle neck. High pressure or low? Use: hunting, self defense, match, plinking...

I usually start out with 50 or 100 cases and consider that a unit. I will prep all 100. Then I will load whatever number I need to do whatever it is that I want to do: different powders, different bullets, different primers, etc. I don't reload all of them nor do I load all the different powders and all the different bullets, etc at one time. I will work with one or two different powders. Then I will work with one or two different bullets. After I have fired each case, it goes to the back of the line and I use some more of the prepped cases for my next trial. Once all of the cases have been fired, I prep them again and start over.
I find 100 is a good number to start with as that give you enough brass to work with and the re-prepping isn't too daunting.

I randomly shoot and load at will without regard to a system. Seems to work over the past 50, years and many thousands of rounds. I know, a "system" might be better. Now, with my double rifles and low stock of brass stuff, I shoot all of it, then start over. I only throw out the bad ones; they all don't fail at once.

I pick a convenient lot size such as 20, 25, 50 or 100 what ever works. If you need sighters you might pick an odd number for match shooting.

If the brass is hard to find then I take very good care of the brass. When the neck feel hard I will anneal the necks. I setup the FL die to give the longest datum length and still premit reliable chambering. This might be .000" clearance in a range only bolt gun, .001 or .002 for a hunting rifle bolt gun, and .002 to .003 for an autoloader, pump or lever rifle.

The close fit will help the brass last longer.
In any event I take care of the brass and shoot it until the primer pocket starts getting loose from so many primers being pressed in and out.

Here is where it gets tricky.
If you use a system and count reloads you will probably not believe how many loads you get. It will be at least 20 and some cases may last 50 reloads - if you do not use high pressure loads.

I throw all the same brass into a box pull a hand full out reload it throw the fired cases into another box. When one gets empty the other full I start over.

Goodkid1,
I use your #1

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
I throw all the same brass into a box pull a hand full out reload it throw the fired cases into another box. When one gets empty the other full I start over.

This....except on my brass I assign lot numbers to remind me what bucket they came from to track how many times it's been loaded

I start with 100 cases for each "rifle". I then load those in rotation. Annealing all at the same time trimming etc. Very seldom do I get to the point of starting to have case failures. When I do get to that point (not just one failure) I toss the whole batch and start over.

I assign batch numbers to the brass in lots of 100. So, in your case I would have six lots. I would prep one lot and keep it in reserve in case of a shortage or a quick hunting trip etc.. The rest I would use a lot at a time.

In a perfect world, where all these cases are going to be fired from just one firearm,and the dies for this firearm are never changed at all, and all the cases that fail, do so in exactly the same way, then it might be safe to assume that all the rest of the cases in that batch will fail like wise in approx the same timeline. I will always determine what caused the case failure for each individual case until a definite pattern is evident. Guess what I'm trying to say is that it could very well be that cases time to fail, or it could be that your lugs have set back, or any number of reasons, all depending on how that case fails. Sorry to be a pain and different on this, but it's just something to consider.

I usually sort my brass by rifle and "lot". Since I have multiples of several caliber rifles, it keeps them straight so I don't mix brass between rifles. I usually start with 20-40 per rifle, prep the brass and begin loading for that rifle. Once fired cases usually get neck sized from there on out. Except for 308 and 30-06, I try to anneal the necks every 5 loadings to keep them workable. My 308 and 30-06 do not seem to need it. I do this as well for my 223 bolt rifle, but not my ARs. The AR bound ammo I just full length resize and fire. I may anneal the 223, if I ever think we will run out, but not likely, as I see it.

This is for rifle only.