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Posted: 6/4/2009 8:25:36 PM EDT
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How many times fired is too much for a piece of brass?
Yesterday, I found ~75 pieces of .223 brass at the range. LC and REM headstamp, with the primers backed out some. Obviously they were somebody else's reloads. I picked them up anyway, and brought them home to my scrap bin. I also threw my brass from that day into my scrap box, considering they have been reloaded 5-7 times on the warm side. Am I being too cautious, and wasting brass here? I would hate to have a case failure from overworked brass, especially from range pick-ups that have been loaded hot who knows how many times. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to develop a plinking load to the minimum velocity (like WOLF  ), so the brass can be reloaded safely 40 or 50 times.
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| Since this case seems to wear out by developing loose primer pockets, I'd load them if the primers are held firmly. FWIW, I'm always willing to give range pickup pistol brass a try if the mouth isn't cracked. However, I don't load picked up bigger rifle brass because it certainly can separate. |
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Partially backed out primers indicate that the shoulder was bumped back too far or the rifle had excessive headspace.
Be wary of them,, if it's 223, the punch out the primer and look down the mouth of the case while shining a strong flash light through the flash hole,, it will show you a ring half way down the case. If it's a dark ring, toss it, if it's just a ripple, use it, if the primer seats strong. After awhile you can easily tell good from bad. On bolt gun brass it's a totally different area where the case separates. 'Borg. |
| I don't think being cautious is a bad thing, better being safe than sorry. If somebody that reloads left them there, It might be for a reason. I'm still new to reloading and I only pick up a few pieces each time and use them to set my dies, then I don't waste brass that I know where it came from. But, that's just me. |
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If I find brass that has been reloaded (rifle specifically), I just toss it in the recycle bucket since once fired is pretty plentiful. I figger if a reloader left it on the ground, he was done with it for a reason. That's what I used to do because I didn't want to trim brass.
There's no big risk to reloading it, however. A case separation isn't a big deal. Just pull it out with a chamber brush and continue on. |
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Quoted:
If I find brass that has been reloaded (rifle specifically), I just toss it in the recycle bucket since once fired is pretty plentiful. I figger if a reloader left it on the ground, he was done with it for a reason. That's what I used to do because I didn't want to trim brass. There's no big risk to reloading it, however. A case separation isn't a big deal. Just pull it out with a chamber brush and continue on. See I disagree with doing that because I am more than willing to reprocess brass that is twice fired as alot of people are buying factory reloads. If it looks OK, no case head separation rings, and tight primer pocket then it's GTG for me. |
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