Managing brass usage.....

lapadat

lapadat

Member
Rating - 100%
228   0   0
Location
BC
Guys

How important is it to maintain an accurate record of firings for each piece of brass?

Couldn't you just carefully INSPECT each piece during the reloading process to ensure it is free of any deformities/pressure signs, etc? and continue shooting until these signs appear? Does it really matter if one casing has been shot 3 times or 7 times if there are no issues?

Thanks in advance

lap
 
Depends on the level of shooting that you do.

Most people would be well served by doing as you suggest. If you are into serious target shooting, neck turning, using really rare brass or making wildcat brass and want to keep track of firings between anealings or want the utmost in consistentcy then keeping better track is going to be helpful.

Shooting hot loads that trash brass in only 3 or 4 loadings might be another good reason.

Regardless you should inspect each case each loading as some pieces will fail faster than others.
 
Haven't kept cartridge use records, ever. Never had any issues not doing it either. Get a cracked neck, pitch that one and anneal the rest.
 
I always keep a record of firings. For range use it is less important since a split neck will not be of any great importance but when it comes to hunting ammo the effects of failed brass can be very important. The example I will give you is something that happened to a friend of mine, he was reloading 308 Win. for his Tikka 595 and he lost count of how many times he reloaded the brass and not wanting to throw out any of the brass he tried to milk out as many firings as he could, he was sorry becuse on his hunting trip the first shot he took at a Whitetail buck caused the brass case to separate and rendered his gun out of comission since the half of the case stayed seized inside the chamber. He learned his lesson well that day and now religiously counts his firings for all his reloads, it was a good thing it was only a whitetail and not something that bites back. In the end it is not worth taking chances that can harm the gun or you just for the sakes of a brass case.
bigbull
 
lapadat said:
How important is it to maintain an accurate record of firings for each piece of brass?

Couldn't you just carefully INSPECT each piece during the reloading process to ensure it is free of any deformities/pressure signs, etc? and continue shooting until these signs appear? Does it really matter if one casing has been shot 3 times or 7 times if there are no issues?

Thanks in advance

lap
Click to expand...

There is a definitive life for brass. I don’t really know what the max round count is as I have never reached "the limit". The highest round count I have was 19 times (for a typical batch of 50 brass) and I finally decided that was not worth the while to push to the end. As a rule of thumb, I discard the brass after 12-15 rounds.

This is the procedures I use:

1. I tumble the brass each time so that I can better examine the case for cracking and body thinning. At that time I also check the case length and trim it where necessary.

2. As I neck-size my brass, I full length resize mine every four rounds.

3. Every eight rounds I anneal the neck to soften the brass.

I keep the round count written on a masking tape attached to the tray where I keep the brass. That way I know many rounds I have used the brass.

The longevity depends a lot on how hot you load your rounds and how you take care of your brass.

Have fun!
 
I have never really kept track but I do know I had some .308Win RP cases that made at least 15 trips through the rifle. I have never had to throw away a case due to a split neck. I find when the primer pocket start to open and the primers seat softly those cases go into a practice pile and are not use of competition. After they are fired in practice I chuck them out.
 
I've just started but I keep track of mine.

When they (.308 federal) got to 12 firings (Full length sized each time) I checked for head seperation. Sure enough, it had begun.

Tossed them and started new (with lapua and a neck sizer) with confidence.
 
I keep track of the number of times fired. I keep them in mtm boxes sorted by number of firings. I neck size and anneal when the brass gets hard to work or around 4-5 times fired.
I have had a few head separations but found them by inspecting the cases when polishing.
I don't have any expensive brass, but so far Winchester has had the longest life and Federal the shortest.
 
I keep track of # of firings and # of trimmings. My brass seems to last forever, but most of my loading is in low pressure straight (slightly tapered actually) wall cases.

I think the number of trimmings is a more important stat than # of firings. I don't trim anything more than 3 times.

Chris.
 
In a 22-250 of mine the brass life ranges from 34 reloads to 52. Mainly Winchester brass is used. Originally did have some Norma brass but that was only a couple hundred.
When the neck splits it gets tossed. Other than that I neck size only and trim about after 15 reloads. This is with IMR4320 at 34.5gn and 55 gn bullets.

I have been using this particular combination for the life time of 3 barrels equalling 19,000 rounds.
Ron Smith is in the process of manufacturing number 4 s.s. barrel for me.

Caliber and load characteristics will determine your brass life.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom