reloading commercial reloads

jon1985

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I am in the research process of my reloading plans and have a question. I have been shooting Wolf commercial reloads and have been saving the brass to reload. I believe its plated in something because its bright silver in colour but not steel or aluminum.

Anyways, my question is, when I put the empty casings on end on a flat surface some are slightly longer or shorter then others. Most are very close, but there is some variance. If I understand what I have read so far correctly, then the amount of space in a casing under the projectile will contribute to the overall velocity/pressure created by the load. If the cases are all slightly different will this cause an issue when I go to reload them myself?

Thanks for any input, hope it makes sense.
 
If your reloading setup got the bullets seated to the exact same oal every time and your brass had the same internal dimensions then you should have close to the same pressure with each round. There would be a bit of difference because some cases would have more grip on the bullet. The other thing that will be effected by different case lengths is the amount of crimp from round to round. For example if you set up your crimp die for the longest case length, the shorter ones wouldn't have as much crimp. On the opposite end if you set up your crimp die for the shortest case your longer ones would be crimped more.

All that being said I've never trimmed any of my straight walled brass, 99% of my loads are just plinking so I'm not concerned at all about case length and getting consistent crimp etc.

I'd be curious if there was a precision bolt action in a pistol calibre and if that would make a difference like it does with rifle rounds. I suspect it would.
 
even when I get to competing Im not doing bullseye shooting so I cant imagine accuracy will be affected that much by the difference.

Not sure, I bought 1000rnds of wolf 9mm when SFRC first got it in and it was/is nickle plated
 
I am in the research process of my reloading plans and have a question. I have been shooting Wolf commercial reloads and have been saving the brass to reload. I believe its plated in something because its bright silver in colour but not steel or aluminum.

Anyways, my question is, when I put the empty casings on end on a flat surface some are slightly longer or shorter then others. Most are very close, but there is some variance. If I understand what I have read so far correctly, then the amount of space in a casing under the projectile will contribute to the overall velocity/pressure created by the load. If the cases are all slightly different will this cause an issue when I go to reload them myself?

Thanks for any input, hope it makes sense.

Depends on the calibre and what it's being used for. For 9mm, I bought guages and trimmers and have never used them. Some of it has been reloaded 6 times without issue.
For the .44, I guaged and trimmed every single piece of ~2000. And have never checked them since. Loaded some yesterday for the 14th time.
 
I never worried about case length when reloading 9mm Luger but I recently bought an Alfa Proj Model 9251C revolver and many of my reloaded cartridges would not allow the cylinder to close. Trimming all cases resolved this issue. I use a Lee Quick Trim Die and Cutter and it works well...
 
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