When auction 1X pistol brass you have purchased comes with some cases decapped? Along with that, how to tell if case is 1X fired or many times, that would be good to know......r in w.

Some decap before tumbling or cleaning.....not really much way to tell if it is/once fired...

Unless there is factory primer sealer on them

First guess is he started to decap to sell it that way for his own use or whatever and got tired.

Sometimes you can see the sizing marks on brass that has been resized which if it was decapped it might have been. However after that pretty much impossible to tell 1x from 5x.

Primer pockets can tell you alot. How much resistance when priming.
Sometimes the firearm it is fired in will leave some sort of extractor or ejector mark. Count them. 1X fired means 1X extractor mark.

With the brass shortage, I ordered some "once fired" brass from a guy in Utah.

In the first loading I had a case separation. Took it that day to the gunsmith, who got the case out, and said that he would be shocked if that brass was once fired.

This was with a new .300 Winchester Mag and a just below max book charge.

Now, I won't post the guys name. I called him after the incident and found that the brass in question came from a local police range. The cops do not reload for their service rifles, but it isn't uncommon to have someone shoot their person guns at the range. I suspect it was brass from something like that.

Long story short, be very, very careful about once fired brass from an unknown source.

I had .300 WM brass separate on the first firing in a TC Encore with a headspace issue so it could also be the gun... It was only one round out of every 20 or so, but there were separation rings on nearly every case. So even if it's legitimate once fired, it could still be "bad"

NEJack: Did you work that load up or did you "assume" your rifle could handle a near max load fired in a different rifle with different components (and, certainly, different lot numbers of components).
Did you full length size the cases? Did you verify head space?

It is hard to say but here is what I know.
1. Normally when people reload rifle brass they chamfer the case mouth ID. No chamfer ---it has not been reloaded. A bright chamfer---. Maybe it has just been chamfered but not reloaded. If could have been chamfered reloaded and chamfered again also.
2. Look for sizer die drag marks on the out side of the case where they iron down the bulge just ahead of the solid case head. No sizer marks most likley it has not been reloaded.
3. Rem 700 extractors leave a little divot in the rim each time they jump over the rim. So if fired only once they should have only one divot with a 700. Other actions may or may not mark the brass.
4. Hot loads will often leave horse tracks (circles) on the case heads in actions with with plunger ejectors. Only 1 or no horse tracks means it has probably been fired only once.
5. Factory primers are usually brass or copper colored. Most handloaded primers are nickle plated. If your brass has nickled primers it has beeb reloaded at least once.

Sometimes you can take an eye loupe and look at the chamfer,the rim divots, the horse tracks (round and square or rect or Mausers) and the primers to figure out how many times fired and the overall condition.

The main thing is the web ahead of the solid head should not have seen more than one or two firings and none should be over loads or over size chambers.

quote:

Originally posted by ray in Wenatchee:
When auction 1X pistol brass you have purchased comes with some cases decapped? Along with that, how to tell if case is 1X fired or many times, that would be good to know......r in w.