Should I be sorting my range brass by brand?

MuthaFunk

MuthaFunk

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I just started reloading .45 ACP and while picking up my PMC brass I grabbed a bunch of Federal, Winchester, some S&B.

So far I've taken the time after cleaning them to sort them into 50 round batches before I reload them. Is this step really required or am I just wasting my time?

What do you do and why?
 
If accuracy / precision is the game I would defiantly sort, for plinking I don't think it matters that much but there may be some varience between brass for loading in the press and some are easier than others (primer pockets etc) so it's a good idea IMHO
 
When I was reloading for my long guns and shooting for accuracy (all in the same hole or clover-leafing the five rounds) at longer ranges I did it all the time. I figured that the internal volume between manufacturers may vary a bit. I never did find out if that was true or not and I didn't discover any definable difference in my accuracy between manufacturer.

Now that I am shooting Cowboy Action and my rounds can be off by an inch or two I find that it really doesn't matter all that much.

I guess it is up to what you want to do with it.
 
I've always done it, but I think it's one of those things where if you THINK it matters, it does.

Mike Venturino wrote an article about shooting with Clint Smith at his school with .308's on steel targets at ranges out to 700 yds. Clint loads unsorted range pick ups with a run of the mill powder measure, occasionally checking it's accuracy to plus or minus a couple of 10ths of a grain.

Dave Scovil of "Handloader" magazine occasionally reports on a friend's accuracy shooting one hole groups using .45 ACP range pick ups from a ransom machine rest. I stopped worrying about it after that.

My wife, on the other hand, insists that I sort out her Star-Line and WW brass from my Norinco, GI military (yes, I remove the crimp), Federal, Sellier-Beloit, etc. Why? Because she once had a failure to go into battery with some of my mixed brass which turned out to be an error in seating depth, nothing to do with the brass. Lately she has deigned to shoot my mongrel brass with good results in her Ruger SR1911.

Another pet peeve of mine is the belief that you need to trim your .45 ACP brass to uniform length as the cases MUST head space on the case mouth. In "Hatcher's Notebook", he talks about shooting .380's in 9mm pistols and other such combos, getting acceptable accuracy if not function. The extractor holds the cases in position sufficient for a primer strike and the round fires.
 
Even for IPSC I never sort (just look for case cracks). Makes 0 difference to performance for what I require. If it's brass/nickel and cylindrical, it gets used.....practice, Lvl 1's, 2's and 3's

Rifle target shooting, yes.
 
I sort out the S&B brass exclusively. I have found that it has really tight primer pockets.

Using a hand primer is a be-otch with S&B IMHO. I recently did a bunch of 357 and separated them from the rest just so I knew what I was up against numbers wise.

Otherwise for pistol I see no advantage

YMMV

Shoot straight - chrisco
 
When I shot IPSC I only used once fired ir new in competitions. Thats it.

for pistol, practice rounds, don't waste your time, short of sp and lp.

for predision rifle, I would
 
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