Brass hoarding... er.. storage, yeah that's it.

diopter

diopter

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Seems I am always trying to get the gun room organized and tidy, and failing miserably.
Keep finding old brass shot many years, some even in the previous century.

I did a thought exercise in the spare 20 minutes I had to myself this morning to put some logic into it.

Each caliber's brass has 9 stages they can be in.
1 Dirty
2 Cleaned
3 Sorted- This can lead to five other stages per caliber by brand or 4 types of primer(45ACP small or large), Boxer or Berdan 7.5x55)
4 Deprimed
5 Primer pocket cleaned
6 Sized
7 Primed
8 Loaded

This means you may need 8 storage containers per caliber you load for on a single stage press.
On a progressive press you're may be down to 3 or 4 containers per caliber.

Then there are the calibers you might use to form obsolete calibers from, say 8x57 to 6.5x58P or 8mm Lebel to 10.4 Swiss, 32-20 to 7.5 Swiss Ordnance Revolver...etc..

I'm loading 5 main pistol calibers and 10 rifle, to date.

Edited: forgot the 303 Br
 
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I don't consider myself a hoarder, I think of it more as well prepared. Although I only have 3 rifle calibers and 2 for pistol, my system is simple, and I keep loaded ammo separate. I usually keep dirty brass in coffee cans or pails, and the cleaned stuff in ziplock bags or repurposed ammo trays (9mm trays hold 223 prepped brass and stack nicely on the shelf, same with 45 trays for 308).

My steps for rifle is:
1 Dirty brass
2 Cleaned and sorted (and deprimed, primer pockets cleaned and inspected)
3 prepped (sized, trimmed, chamfer and de-burred)

For pistol, it is:
1 Dirty Brass
2 Cleaned brass (i will deprime before cleaning)

Loading 9mm and 45 with the progressive, I don't waste time sorting headstamps. I don't waste time with small primer 45, and just end up giving it a buddy.
 
I keep all my brass (only rifle) in their own MTM cases, and record every step on little pieces of paper taped the inside lid.

20160128_215856_zpsnuocaclu.jpg
 
My 223 brass is sorted in cardboard boxes. I have a box that it all goes into before the tumbler. Coming out of the tumbler I inspect for damage then it goes into zip-lock bags sorted by headstamp. My Federal 1F collection needs 5 of the large zip-lock bags. From there I size it and then sort it by length into smaller cardboard boxes before it gets loaded and stored in the plastic MTM boxes or if I'm just making bulk plinking/practice ammo I throw the loaded rounds in an ammo can.
45ACP and 9mm get similar treatment but I don't sort it by length or even trim it, just look for damage and make sure it's large primer (45acp) and then load it. Small primer 45 gets thrown in a bag and given away to friends.
All others get their own plastic case for storage.
I also sort based on number of firings keeping batches of brass together and loaded in batches of 50 or 100 depending on caliber.
I should take a pic of my loading bench, I've been trying to get all my Fed 223 brass through the sizer and trimmed and the bench barely has any room left on it :p
 
Your solution;

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19L / 5 Gallon Orange Home Depot Logo Bucket (Stack-able).

Dirty Fired- 1, 2, 3, 4, etc times
Cleaned and Ready to be loaded- Fired 1, 2, 3, 4, etc times
Or
Any other step you need to have depending on the press you are using or brass you are reloading
 
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diopter said:
Seems I am always trying to get the gun room organized and tidy, and failing miserably.
Keep finding old brass shot many years, some even in the previous century.

I did a thought exercise in the spare 20 minutes I had to myself this morning to put some logic into it.

Each caliber's brass has 9 stages they can be in.
1 Dirty
2 Cleaned
3 Sorted- This can lead to five other stages per caliber by brand or 4 types of primer(45ACP small or large), Boxer or Berdan 7.5x55)
4 Deprimed
5 Primer pocket cleaned
6 Sized
7 Primed
8 Loaded

This means you may need 8 storage containers per caliber you load for on a single stage press.
On a progressive press you're may be down to 3 or 4 containers per caliber.

Then there are the calibers you might use to form obsolete calibers from, say 8x57 to 6.5x58P or 8mm Lebel to 10.4 Swiss, 32-20 to 7.5 Swiss Ordnance Revolver...etc..

I'm loading 5 main pistol calibers and 10 rifle, to date.

Edited: forgot the 303 Br
Click to expand...

Maybe you're overcomplicating it. I load for over 40 cartridges, hell will freeze before I require 8 separate storage bins for each one.

For most of the cartridges I don't shoot thousands of rounds per month, 1 appropriate sized bin or container is enough. I segregate using plastic bags within the bin as required. Large freezer bags work well and are cheap and reusable.
 
I use old coffee tins for brass storage, they don't get too heavy when full, are of a reasonable size, and stack easily. All of my brass is sorted by headstamp at the moment, most of my .223 is in this condition, but I do have 1200 rounds loaded and several hundred more brass prepped. I also have 600/700 .38 spl cases loaded. Most of my .308 brass is prepped but only 20 are loaded atm.
 
I use freezer bags as well to sort tumbled/clean brass. 7.62x39 spam can crates to hold all the bagged brass.

Akro bins for cases in various stages of reloading.

I also have empty Cascade soap pod containers to sort deprimed cases for wet tumbling.
 
Everything is sorted in all stages therefore when i re-load im not starting from the beginning. I tumble store. De-prime store. Expand,clean primer pocket, champher and de burr, prime store. Re-load, store in ammo box , lock up until ready to use. Its just the way i like to do it.
 
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