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

steelgray said:
If you get a calculated SG value that is numerically low (like 4) that might mean you have trapped bubble inside the case. I didn't have that problem because my test case had a gaping hole in one side from an earlier sectioning.

The test should work fine with any cases (North American or European). I would guess that the European ones will have a lower SG - meaning proportionally more Zinc and less Copper - which is good.
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Redid the test and made sure no air bubbles and same results. But you would need a virgin case that did not have a explosion that caused some hardening (if quenched into snow or water from being ejected ) or full of impurities that reacted with the metal or corrosion from dampness. Too many factors.

But it's not a big deal to me, as I have surplus of brass.
 
Ok that is just too painful

the error in your testing / experiments is going to be more they any variance in the brass alloy.

the only way your going to be remotely accurate would be to melt down a few hundred cases into a homogeneous block, free from all impurities, then in a container that would need to have a small bore like a test tube so that the displacement would be easy to read, there is no need to weigh the water, or suspend your brass the water is the constant in the experiment.


but whatever gets you past the winter cabin fever
 
I'm glad to hear you are volunteering. However after I followed the testing procedure properly the whole exercise took me less than a minute to get meaningfully results. The accuracy would go up if I had done multiple tests and averaged things. That might take 4-5 minutes.

There are lots of retired people on CGN. I'm not one of those. However, I assume those guys could do the tests in the time that they normally spend on doing one of their gratuitously-rude posts.

woodchopper said:
Ok that is just too painful

the error in your testing / experiments is going to be more they any variance in the brass alloy.

the only way your going to be remotely accurate would be to melt down a few hundred cases into a homogeneous block, free from all impurities, then in a container that would need to have a small bore like a test tube so that the displacement would be easy to read, there is no need to weigh the water, or suspend your brass the water is the constant in the experiment.


but whatever gets you past the winter cabin fever
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steelgray said:
I'm glad to hear you are volunteering. However after I followed the testing procedure properly the whole exercise took me less than a minute to get meaningfully results. The accuracy would go up if I had done multiple tests and averaged things That might take 4-5 minutes.

There are lots of retired people on CGN. I'm not one of those, but I assume those guys could do the tests in the time that they normally spend on doing one of their gratuitously-rude posts.
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He didn't voulenteer. I'm retired and I'm not gonna do it. You need virgin brass free from impurities. I don't have a forge or using my scales to weigh something that many couldn't care less, other than to make you happy.

I tried your test, and it didn't give me the result you wanted. I have 500 plus casing for most of my calibers, one splits, or loose primer, I grab another. No loss.
 
If you regard all brass as disposable and don't really care about case longevity, then this thread isn't one that you should bother with ... really. The people who sell new ammo, made with so-so brass should really give you a big hug.

What is your plan when your last case dies?

OkayShooter said:
He didn't voulenteer. I'm retired and I'm not gonna do it. You need virgin brass free from impurities. I don't have a forge or using my scales to weigh something that many couldn't care less, other than to make you happy.

I tried your test, and it didn't give me the result you wanted. I have 500 plus casing for most of my calibers, one splits, or loose primer, I grab another. No loss.
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steelgray said:
I'm glad to hear you are volunteering. However after I followed the testing procedure properly the whole exercise took me less than a minute to get meaningfully results. The accuracy would go up if I had done multiple tests and averaged things. That might take 4-5 minutes.

There are lots of retired people on CGN. I'm not one of those. However, I assume those guys could do the tests in the time that they normally spend on doing one of their gratuitously-rude posts.
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Your passive aggressive, childish insults are becoming tiresome.
 
steelgray said:
If you regard all brass as disposable and don't really care about case longevity, then this thread isn't one that you should bother with ... really. The people who sell new ammo, made with so-so brass should really give you a big hug.

What is your plan when your last case dies?
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Even good brass fails, nothing is forever. You can only stretch and compress something for so long before it fails. I'm not chucking my brass out everytime I fire. I reload and shoot the stuff I have in circulation till failure and then ill bring in new cases. With the primer shortage, I doubt I'm gonna run out of brass.

My plan once my last case fails? Ill open up the 8 boxes of factory ammo I have.
 
Personally, I bought WAY too many primers when they were still 20-28 bucks a brick. Silly me. Strangely enough, the last brick I bought (of LRPs) was maybe 4-6 months ago at Epp's and it was around $60, I think. They had another brick for more - like $85 - which I took a pass on.

OkayShooter said:
Even good brass fails, nothing is forever. You can only stretch and compress something for so long before it fails. I'm not chucking my brass out everytime I fire. I reload and shoot the stuff I have in circulation till failure and then ill bring in new cases. With the primer shortage, I doubt I'm gonna run out of brass.

My plan once my last case fails? Ill open up the 8 boxes of factory ammo I have.
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Brass is disposable

I have thousands of cases, and many different calibers, I have enough brass that I often sell my range brass by the pound to other reloaders.

There is enough brass that I'm certain that there will be a big pile at my estate sale when I kick off

Brass is cheap and plentiful
 
jethunter said:
I shoot it, lots. I spend upwards of $3 k on load components every year and I shoot all of it. Being a smart ass isn't improving your credibility.
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Guess he doesnt know, that you used to have a commerical business casting bullets. One simply doesn't cast without testing them.
 
steelgray said:
I'm glad to hear you are volunteering. However after I followed the testing procedure properly the whole exercise took me less than a minute to get meaningfully results. The accuracy would go up if I had done multiple tests and averaged things. That might take 4-5 minutes.
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Phhhttt .... NO. you got A result. Doesn't mean that result is correct, accurate or "meaningful". You haven't even compared your single sample result for that particular case to any other cases or even brands, good or bad quality. You'd need to do several hundred tests for a bunch of different case brands to have any hope of a statistically relevant result. That you got A number and compared it to a chart of numbers doesn't mean sh!t ... statistically. You don't even know how accurate your scale is. Just because a scale puts out a number to X decimal places does not mean the scale is capable of accurate measurements to that many decimal places.
 
steelgray said:
If you regard all brass as disposable and don't really care about case longevity, then this thread isn't one that you should bother with ... really. The people who sell new ammo, made with so-so brass should really give you a big hug.

What is your plan when your last case dies?
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Newsflash .... 99% of reloaders think of brass as basically disposable or at least a consumable entity.
 
woodchopper said:
Brass is disposable

I have thousands of cases, and many different calibers, I have enough brass that I often sell my range brass by the pound to other reloaders.

There is enough brass that I'm certain that there will be a big pile at my estate sale when I kick off

Brass is cheap and plentiful
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I have more 9mm brass than I know what to do with. I basically don't bother picking it up anymore.

A friend gave me a 20L pail full of 223 brass. I am going blind and developing arthritis processing it all. He also gave me a 20L pail full of 38 Special brass. My joints are failing from cycling the press so much. Brass quality is not a problem that concerns me.
 
I got rid of what I thought was the last of my so-so mixed commercial 303 British brass a few weeks ago. I listed it honestly, saying that it had been fired several times by me and had an unknown history before that. Still, it sold in a short while for $45 for 100 cases and even after I immediately pulled my ad, I had several more people contact me about it. I have since found some more and may list that soon (not my Herters stuff). This seems weird, especially when I know you can buy brand new PPU 303 British brass - with an encouraging gray hue (i.e., potentially having adequate Zinc in the brass alloy) for 57 bucks for a bag of 50.

The last time I saw multiple buckets of 303 British was 30 years ago - at Cohen and Cohen in Ottawa. It was being sold as scrap.

I Dont Care About You said:
I have more 9mm brass than I know what to do with. I basically don't bother picking it up anymore.

A friend gave me a 20L pail full of 223 brass. I am going blind and developing arthritis processing it all. He also gave me a 20L pail full of 38 Special brass. My joints are failing from cycling the press so much. Brass quality is not a problem that concerns me.
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I shoot my so-so mixed commercial 303 British brass until it splits or it becomes too damaged to reload. Never had a case head separation. Why do you insist on perfect brass when it's obvious you are scared to death of reloading anyway. Buy commercial ammo and leave the rest of us alone.
 
There is a big price difference between $45 / 100 and $114 / 100.

I was gonna buy some of the PPU brass but found around 500 cases for approx $0.50 a case. That'll do me for quite a while and I can spend the money saved on projectiles.
 
When I lived in the UK, I was a brass snob because the guys who got me into handloading told me to only use lapua.
Now I use anything I find at the range that takes a boxer primer and I have bucketfuls of it. Federal, Winchester, Remington, PPU, etc
 
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