Is US factory ammo intentionally made with one-use brass?

steelgray said:
I know that AIA made their L-E pattern guns in 7.62x389 and 308 win. I know that many owners of the AIA 308 guns got them rebarreled because they didn't group well. I assume this was because AIA used .311 blanks for both their 7.62x39 and 308 guns. I bet that people would do well to keep the original barrel in their "308" win AIA gun but use a .311 expander ball and load 308 brass with .311s - when using those guns. I could have bought a used AIA 308 gun a month ago for around $1,200 but took a pass. The 7.62x39 gun is great.

On the matter of where the barrels came from tiriaq is right that it was eventually determined that the barrels and some other parts were sourced from Vietnam. That was a big deal because once that was determined, the US blocked imports of the finished guns. That basically destroyed AIA's business plan - as AIA was counting on lots of US sales to cover their costs. They ended production, early as a result.

I've read that a special target model used NOS minigun surplus barrels. The have some special treatment or coating. AIA never said where the other barrels came from but, US customs said VIETNAM. So yeah, some Vietnamese AK factory is a good guess.
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Note that AIA rifles are not marked "Made in Australia". They did not qualify as Australian made. To do so, over 50% of the cost of production had to be incurred in Australia. Even with the higher wage levels in Australia, they couldn't make 50%. Not too long ago, there was a display of Vietnam made defense articles at a trade show. One of the firearms was an AIA pattern No. 4 type rifle in 7.62x51. Nothing to do with AIA even though it was an AIA pattern rifle. Wolverine tried to find out if these rifles were available - no luck. I very much suspect that very little of the AIA rifles was actually manufactured in Australia, rather than being outsourced in Vietnam or elsewhere in SE Asia. That is why the stocks are teak. Nothing wrong with this model of production. The Parker Hale Mauser action sporting rifles are in this category. Spanish barreled actions assembled in Italian stocks.
 
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Guy uses poor reloading practices. Doesn't measure his cases after firing, full length sizes, and complains that, "brass ain't what it used to be" when he gets case head separation after 5 firings. Is that an accurate summary?
 
Tokay444 said:
Guy uses poor reloading practices. Doesn't measure his cases after firing, full length sizes, and complains that, "brass ain't what it used to be" when he gets case head separation after 5 firings. Is that an accurate summary?
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I have over half a dozen guns that shoot 303 British including several semis so - while I have a set of Lee Collet dies - I don't use them.

I prefer the flexibility that the ammo I load can get along with any of my 303 British guns. I'm not a retired person, unlike so many of you and really don't have the time to keep track of which ammo can fit which 303 British gun. If you avoid using fussy brass cases - that insist on being neck sized and have to be matched to that particular gun things are a lot handier.

On a typical trip to the range I might take an Ellwood Epps custom No4 Mk1*, my Dad's 1918 BSA MkIII* and a deluxe 555 Mohawk - and ONE lot of 303 British reloaded ammo. Using brass that can be FL sized without crapping out makes life a lot better - IMO

I've done about a dozen FL reloadings of my Herters brass and the loaded rounds in my shooting box look like brand new factory ammo - with no signs of any expansion rings or any of that nonsense. I like that.

So no I don't say ""brass ain't what it used to be" when he gets case head separation after 5 firings" because I know better than to use junk brass in the first place.

Why do you bother using junk brass that you have to pander to - or make excuses for?
 
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recce said:
You really don't like retired people do you? It seems to be a reoccurring theme in your threads.
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For being not retired has more time to do things then I do . I get Tired reading all this. There's a bunch of Herters 303 brass in and upcoming auction hope he's planning on buying it.
 
I’m doing it wrong, but it’s the ammo companies making one time use brass and retired peoples’ fault.
I don’t use junk brass. I said I only load Lapua and Alpha brass, and anneal every firing. I have 23 firings on my 6BR brass.
 
Raton57 said:
For being not retired has more time to do things then I do . I get Tired reading all this. There's a bunch of Herters 303 brass in and upcoming auction hope he's planning on buying it.
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I don't know about that but I have 80 Herters's cases that are still like new, so I'll probably let that stuff go to someone else. I may get around to buying 50 or 100 new 303 br. PRVI cases soon. They also look promising. I thought I sold the last of my US commercial 303 brass that originated from factory ammo, but I've since found a few dozen of those, I'm using them when I'm shooting in weather where losing cases is inevitable.
 
steelgray said:
I wonder if you have any ideas what alloy could be used to make cartridge cases with a specific gravity of about 10? I'm quite sure of my SG calculations ( I did them multiple times). I just don't know how to interpret them.
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To get an alloy of copper-unknown with a specific gravity of 10.5, the unknown metal must obviously be much denser than that. A 50-50 blend of Cu-UK would have density of 10.5 if the density of UK=12. Elements of the periodic table with density of 12g/cc or more are:

Ruthenium, Rhodium, Palladium, Hafnium, Tantalum, Tungsten, Rhenium, Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold, Mercury, Uranium, Neptunium, and Plutonium.


I suggest you have to ask yourself what is more likely: a major manufacturer of disposable cartridge cases is using an alloy of 85% copper - 15% gold (or some other metal of similar price and rarity), or did you make a mistake in your measurements?

I will throw out another idea for you to chew on: your premise that a stronger case would be superior in some way is not true. The forces generated by expanding powder gases easily overwhelm the cartridge case no matter the strength of the material. For the most part, containment comes from the heavy steel parts of the gun, not the brass. Excessive headspace will lead to head separations even if your cartridge case is ten times the strength of 70-30 brass.
 
recce said:
You really don't like retired people do you? It seems to be a reoccurring theme in your threads.
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Yup. Just because a person is retired. Doesn't mean they have the time or want to play this stupid game. And what does the person win? Nothing as it only boosts someone ego.
 
steelgray said:
Do your own testing. It is easy to do the test - just like its easy to criticize, with no sound basis. You'll get the results if you make an honest effort. Please post your results here.
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You forgot to post the LINK again. Lol


BattleRife said:
To get an alloy of copper-unknown with a specific gravity of 10.5, the unknown metal must obviously be much denser than that. A 50-50 blend of Cu-UK would have density of 10.5 if the density of UK=12. Elements of the periodic table with density of 12g/cc or more are:

Ruthenium, Rhodium, Palladium, Hafnium, Tantalum, Tungsten, Rhenium, Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold, Mercury, Uranium, Neptunium, and Plutonium.


I suggest you have to ask yourself what is more likely: a major manufacturer of disposable cartridge cases is using an alloy of 85% copper - 15% gold (or some other metal of similar price and rarity), or did you make a mistake in your measurements?
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Don't tell the Russians! They'll buy up all our Herters brass to get their Plutonium back!
 
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Tokay444 said:
I’m doing it wrong, but it’s the ammo companies making one time use brass and retired peoples’ fault.
I don’t use junk brass. I said I only load Lapua and Alpha brass, and anneal every firing. I have 23 firings on my 6BR brass.
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There is no one time brass made my any company except the Aluminium and steel case.
The 6BR, along with 6Ppc, .30 BR and any of it’s derivative are very forgiving cartridge. Only Lapua and Alpha make it (Petersen?).

By the way, Alpha brass flash hole is bigger than Lapua and test between the too show Lapua perform better.

Dies for those calibers have tight tolerances as are the chambers for those calibers. Nothing to do with military and hunting rifle chambers.

So you cannot compare it with any other American Company brass. Only Remington did some years ago.
Load up your Lapua 6BR brass with a full case of RL15 and a 105-108 bullets, you will see no more than 5-6 firing of that case.

The Lapua brass is dimensionally more accurate brass than any out there, that were the quality is. But the composition of their alloy is like any other..no better.

There is more competition won with American made brass..from Military brass -commercial brass than any European made brass and this going back in the 1880 on precision matches held in Bisley, England were American won hand down many matches over decade. Look at all service rifle competition in the US, they are won on US made commercial and military brass.
 
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I am not metallurgist at all - just some reading. So Phil Sharpe invented 7x61 cartridge - convinced Norma to make ammo - was originally head stamped as "7x61 Re" - apparently for "RE -loadable" - but not certain for that. Heavier brass cases - thick walls and head - as Phil Sharpe designed it. Circa mid 1960's (?) Sharpe had passed away and did not have much more say about it - Norma engineers faced with Remington 7mm Mag - wanted to up the velocity in their 7x61 - so is written they altered alloy or processing - created identical exterior dimension case - but walls thinner and cases lighter weight - now head stamped as 7x61 Super - so larger interior volume than original, but exact same size on outside, and alleged to be the same strength. Did not quite catch up to the 7mm Rem Mag - although the Schultz and Larsen rifles likely had 26" barrels and the Rem rifles likely had 24" barrels - so likely not much actual difference when fired - at a time when about only guys like Phil Sharpe had home owned way to measure velocity - most people simply went with what sales propaganda told them - was very uncommon for anyone to verify the factory claims. I think Remington won - is a very poplar round today - actually unusual to find anyone who uses 7x61 any more.

So brass makers can and have altered process to get differing result, I think. Hard to imagine war-time ammo done like that - when making train loads, likely cost per unit starts to filter in. And perhaps the rifles were made the same way - "good enough for government work" - I did see older ad - at a time when Rem 700 or Win Model 70 retailing $129 to $149, those Schultz and Larsen (and Weatherby) rifles were listed in same ad at $349. So is my impression that war time milsurp production is not going to be anywhere similar to commercial stuff - in "race to the bottom" though - most modern stuff that I have recently bought (rifles) is damn sight poorer than WWI run-of-the-mill "good enough". But latest modern stuff no doubt much cheaper to produce - is up to user to decide, if still made to be "good enough".
 
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Potashminer said:
So brass makers can and have altered process to get differing result, I think.
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There is no question they have. If you look at my avatar photo, that is a crack through the neck of a commercial .308 case, and it will give you an idea of what the microstructure of a modern brass case looks like. In comparison, I have a 1944 Dominion Cartridge .303 case, the microstructure in the neck looks nothing like that. It has big, equiaxed crystals with pronounced twinning, features that look like textbook brass but you will never see in a modern case. In the 1950s and 60s Olin sponsored a bunch of research into drawing steps to produce microtextures in brass, and manufacturing changed a lot after that. It changed again somewhat with the SCAMP project in the 70s and 80s. If there has been any major developments since then I am not aware of them.
 
Janeau said:
There is no one time brass made my any company except the Aluminium and steel case.
The 6BR, along with 6Ppc, .30 BR and any of it’s derivative are very forgiving cartridge. Only Lapua and Alpha make it (Petersen?).

By the way, Alpha brass flash hole is bigger than Lapua and test between the too show Lapua perform better.

Dies for those calibers have tight tolerances as are the chambers for those calibers. Nothing to do with military and hunting rifle chambers.

So you cannot compare it with any other American Company brass. Only Remington did some years ago.
Load up your Lapua 6BR brass with a full case of RL15 and a 105-108 bullets, you will see no more than 5-6 firing of that case.

The Lapua brass is dimensionally more accurate brass than any out there, that were the quality is. But the composition of their alloy is like any other..no better.

There is more competition won with American made brass..from Military brass -commercial brass than any European made brass and this going back in the 1880 on precision matches held in Bisley, England were American won hand down many matches over decade. Look at all service rifle competition in the US, they are won on US made commercial and military brass.
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I should have wrapped quotes around the first sentence.
The rest of your post isn't entirely factually accurate, and 6BR isn't the only caliber I shoot.
 
Scotty454 said:
Get one, like... A reasonable specific gravity test result? Not likely.
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Ground hogs

Oh I tried but my bucket of water is frozen and the little buggers are still under the snow

but we don't have ground hogs here anyways, (Richardson ground squirrels, or Marmots are as close as you get)

but if the OP wants to derail his own post what the hell.....
 
I think that Ganderite provided one of the most use comments of all, in relation to the original focus of this thread, way back at post #81 where he said:

Ganderite said:
I used to work for a major manufacturer (CIL) that made millions of rounds of ammo a week.

I recall that a lot of attention was paid to getting high quality brass, because poor brass could cause the entire run of ammo to get scraped if it was seamy, had inclusions or otherwise bad brass.

I don't ever recall anyone ever mentioning "reloading". All the attention was on the first shot.

Brass from different manufactures is different. Some is better than others in terms of softness, annealing, weight variations, neck thickness, etc.

And brass changes from time to time. Winchester went from a 4 draw process to 5 draw (308Win) and the result was 2 different cases that looked identical.

At a minimum, you want brass all either new, or fired once and all from the same lot number.
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I've also mentioned that there are people in other non-CGN posts who say they have actually contacted Remington, Winchester, etc. on this subject and have got letters back saying "we don't endorse the reloading of cartridge cases from our loaded ammunition."
 
^ yes we know. This is the 3rd time you said that in your own thread.

Its already proven that it's more liability reason, and money reason. Than making them one time use. Reloaders don't buy their ammo.
 
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