Brass sorting question

FortHunter

FortHunter

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hey i have a question about brass sorting, ive been reloading for 30-06 and most my brass is 3 or 4 times fired. I have been sorting all my brass by times fired. Is that necessary or can i pile it all together just as long as i check for pressure signs?
thanks FH
 
FortHunter said:
hey i have a question about brass sorting, ive been reloading for 30-06 and most my brass is 3 or 4 times fired. I have been sorting all my brass by times fired. Is that necessary or can i pile it all together just as long as i check for pressure signs?
thanks FH
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Not neccesry, but I would keep on doing it. That way you know which brass is older and which cases to be extra careful with. Once a batch has been fired several times and many of the cases have loose pockets or necks spliting you can retire the whole batch. Instead of weeding out brass piece by piece.
 
Being a devout recoil whimp, I rarely load really hot loads; I find the brass lasts for a long time. You can prolong the life by annealing the necks once the first neck cracks are noticed.

I find one lot of brass gives me really good results with my .270, so I do keep it separate.
 
One thing to consider is that if you keep your brass sorted, when you do finally notice one with something like incipient head separation, or you have an actual failure, you then know which other ones you should be concerned about and perhaps inspect more closely (or discard pre-emptively). It can also help you manage your purchases -- if you know you have X amout of brass nearing its service life, you can decide when and with what to stock up. I also tend to try to buy brass in lots, so I like to keep those lots together for reloading for extra consistency.

I sort by both number of times fired and headstamp for this reason.
 
all my brass is the same headstamp bought it at two different times and its all mixed together now so its too late to sort it by lots. when you guys restock on brass do you buy 1x fired, brand new brass, or factory ammo and shoot it off? i reload for 30-06 and i use it for hunting and to practice with in the off season. Ill use factory ammo for practice but dont want to hunt with it.
 
I use 50 round plastic ammo boxes for ammo. I sort brass by head stamp and then sort by weight. Depending on quantity of brass, I sort rifle by 1 gr increments, or by 0.5 gr. The weighed brass goes in the 50 round boxes. I piece of masking tape inside the lid shows the weight of those cases.

I keep using the brass until I get a failure, then I toss the rest of that box. My 308 brass lasts at least 10 times without so much as a mouth trim. One box lasted over 20 X with one trim. I stopped counting the reloads and eventually tossed it when some pockets were loose. Winchester brass.

I use masking tape on boxes to show caliber, bullet and primer on top of lid and varaitions in powder charge on the side.

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My rule of thumb for bottle neck rifle brass, excluding cracks, splits, loose prinmer pockets, etc. is after 4 trims, toss it.
 
sunray said:
My .30-06 brass gets sorted into processed/primed and unprocessed. Sorting doesn't matter much for a hunting rifle.
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I have a cans for fired unprocessed brass and boxes for processed brass. I only shoot targets for practice and hunting purposes. This has worked well for all the 30.06, .270 and .243 brass we have. I have a fair amount of brass and only scrap individual cases as required.
 
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