Mixing Brass?

LeeEnfieldNo.4_mk1

LeeEnfieldNo.4_mk1

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I have found myself with an assortment of small amounts of different manufacturers brass. This is a result of buying a few boxes of whatever type of ammo I could find. All of it is once fire commercial. up until now, I have been sorting ammo into makes, then into firings. But I was thinking of just sorting into number of firings instead.

anyone else so this? Anyone have any reason to advise against it? This would not be for precision reloads, just everyday target loads. Calibers in question are 9mm and .223.
 
Different brands of bass with have variances in case wall thickness and weight. This will play on case capacity. For example if brand A has a thicker case walls then it would be likely to have less capacity than brand B, therefore brand A would yield a higher pressure given everything else is equal with the load. You can test this by using water or powder and filling the cases all the way flush and then weighing/measuring them. Id suggest checking that out. Also depends on how close to max pressure you are with your loads. Case neck thickness also plays on the amount of grip your brass has on a seated bullet and also affects pressure. A nice few precision guys will go so far as to sort brass by weight, even if it is the same brand. All depends on the level of accuracy your looking for and amount of time you have to reload. For me personally my 300 win loads are back about 1.0 grains from where i see pressure signs. At that level i am able to use both Remington and Winchester brass for the same lad without issues for my circumstances. Best to check out your case capacities and maybe back off on your powder charge. Some guys may recommend to start over again at 10% below max which is the safest, but i think if your capacities are close from brand to brand just dropping a little and then working back up would be the way i would do it.

Just my 2 cents, I'm not an expert, just what i have found in my experiences. Cant speak much for the pistol loading but rifle rounds has worked that way for me. please correct me if i'm wrong.
 
223 I would at least sort by head stamp as it is a high pressure cartridge - the other reason it when i check head stamps I take the time to give the casing a good once over as AR-15's can be very hard on cases

9mm Match ammo - Common head stamp
9mm Practice ammo - Range brass - quick once over to check for defects, steel casings, and berdan primers
 
for pistol rounds i mixed and don't keep track of anything because i don't feel like colouring my cases to find out how many times it's been fired. it's all just practice ammo so it really doesn't matter, for certain situations like my testing how many firings i can get from steel cased ammo i keep track. for my 500mag i keep track for case annealing reasons. for 223 ar plinking i would mix brass and not keep track, but for anything above that i would.
 
Spawn-Inc said:
for pistol rounds i mixed and don't keep track of anything because i don't feel like colouring my cases to find out how many times it's been fired. it's all just practice ammo so it really doesn't matter, for certain situations like my testing how many firings i can get from steel cased ammo i keep track. for my 500mag i keep track for case annealing reasons. for 223 ar plinking i would mix brass and not keep track, but for anything above that i would.
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Bingo. Accuracy rifle rounds - sort. Practice, plinking rounds (including 95% of all handgun reloads) - find something useful or relevant to do. Mind you, I rarely load to the max book weights and definitely keep track of how many times I've fired each .303 British case.
 
For me it all depends on caliber. For pistol calibers I don't sort or keep track of firings, I either end up losing them or throwing them out once the primer pockets open up or the case mouths split. For magnum revolvers cartridges I sort brass and nickel plated and by number of firings. For rifle I sort brand and number of firings.
 
Doesn't make a lick of difference for non-match ammo. Case capacity doesn't make much difference for match ammo either. Even though as mentioned, the capacities are slightly different.
Won't matter at all for 9mm.
 
LeeEnfieldNo.4_mk1

For short range practice with your 9mm and light to medium loads many shooters just use mixed range pickup brass without sorting. But I still sort by headstamp because the taper crimp can be effected by the thickness of the case.

For your .223/5.56 cases you can used mixed brass "BUT" the case capacity does matter, below is my mixed brass load for my AR15 carbine for "short range" practice with 25 grains of H335.

"PLEASE" note that there is 6,000 psi chamber pressure difference possibility between brands of .223/5.56 cases with 30.6 being the largest case capacity in grains of H2O and 28.8 being the the smallest case capacity.

Below is a American military Lake City case with 30.6 grains of H20 capacity and the lowest chamber pressure.

308_zpsf81bb4cc.jpg


Below is a cartridge case with 28.8 grains of H2O and the highest chamber pressure and 6,000 psi higher than the case above.

288_zps26698a67.jpg


The max rated chamber pressure for the .223/5.56 is 55,000 psi and you can see above my highest chamber pressure would be 50,000 psi, and good to go with mixed brass. This load is nothing more than blasting ammo for under 100 yards and I would never use mixed brass for shooting small groups at longer ranges.
 
sunray said:
Doesn't make a lick of difference for non-match ammo. Case capacity doesn't make much difference for match ammo either. Even though as mentioned, the capacities are slightly different.
Won't matter at all for 9mm.
Click to expand...

sunray, you are a very dangerous person for giving out reloading information and this posting shows this very clearly. This is "WHY" loading data varies so much in reloading manuals because of the components used in each manual.

In my opinion this has been the dumbest thing you have ever said in this forum and you need to rethink your stupid comments.

So learn this sunray, the smaller the case capacity the more the load effects the chamber pressure and this also applies to pistol calibers and their "MUCH SMALLER" case capacities.

For the rest of you reading this if you do not know it by now sunray is an accident waiting for a place to happen and his postings need to be ignored for your own safety.
 
If you were running max or close to max loads it may be a concern. Just plinking light loads I don't see the harm. You could find your smallest capacity case, work up a load for it and then the other cases would have less pressure and you would still be safe. Not the best accuracy but probably ok depending on what you are using it for.
 
The CGN threads are absolutely loaded with unproven theories. some one says something on here, without knowing whether or not is true, and soon everybody and his second cousin are quoting it as gospel truth.
Remember when everyone on here was telling every body else if they used ball powder and/or a large rifle case, especially in cold weather, they had to use a magnum primer. And then Boomer, at my suggestion, did his testing in severe cold temperatures of northern Manitoba. Oops, that theory suddenly died!
Now all the rage is on case capacity and what you must and must not do, to keep your rifle from blowing up in your face.
In the current thread on this, sunray is basically correct regarding rifle reloading. In normal conditions a difference in case capacity is a nothing. For years I loaded a lot of 30-06 ammunition, loading them to where they had the velocity the 30-06 was designed for, which is 180 grain bullet at 2700 fps. I used every kind of brass going and paid no attention, whatsoever, to the weight of the case. I never had a sticking bolt, or any other indication of excess pressure. And I did win some trophies in shooting competitions.
Within the last year I did a little test. I took five 243 Winchester cases which weighed 168 grains each and loaded them with 46 grains of H414 powder and seated a Sierra 75 grain bullet in them.
I then took five Federal cases, which weighed 180 grains each, put in 46 rains of H414 powder and seated the same type of 75 grain Sierra bullets in them.
I then fired each group over a chronograph.
Velocity equals pressure and pressure equals velocity, so according to you guys, the heavier Federal cases, with less powder capacity, should have had higher velocity.
So much for your unproven theories, here is the actual results.
The lighter 168 grain Winchester cases averaged 3491 fps.
The heavier Federal cases averaged 3468.
 
Hmm, Thanks for the info. I figure ill mix 9mm since I don't load anywhere near max loads, and its just plinking ammo anyways. But for .223 and other bottlenecks ill sort.
 
H4831 said:
The CGN threads are absolutely loaded with unproven theories. some one says something on here, without knowing whether or not is true, and soon everybody and his second cousin are quoting it as gospel truth.
Remember when everyone on here was telling every body else if they used ball powder and/or a large rifle case, especially in cold weather, they had to use a magnum primer. And then Boomer, at my suggestion, did his testing in severe cold temperatures of northern Manitoba. Oops, that theory suddenly died!
Now all the rage is on case capacity and what you must and must not do, to keep your rifle from blowing up in your face.
In the current thread on this, sunray is basically correct regarding rifle reloading. In normal conditions a difference in case capacity is a nothing. For years I loaded a lot of 30-06 ammunition, loading them to where they had the velocity the 30-06 was designed for, which is 180 grain bullet at 2700 fps. I used every kind of brass going and paid no attention, whatsoever, to the weight of the case. I never had a sticking bolt, or any other indication of excess pressure. And I did win some trophies in shooting competitions.
Within the last year I did a little test. I took five 243 Winchester cases which weighed 168 grains each and loaded them with 46 grains of H414 powder and seated a Sierra 75 grain bullet in them.
I then took five Federal cases, which weighed 180 grains each, put in 46 rains of H414 powder and seated the same type of 75 grain Sierra bullets in them.
I then fired each group over a chronograph.
Velocity equals pressure and pressure equals velocity, so according to you guys, the heavier Federal cases, with less powder capacity, should have had higher velocity.
So much for your unproven theories, here is the actual results.
The lighter 168 grain Winchester cases averaged 3491 fps.
The heavier Federal cases averaged 3468.
Click to expand...

H4831

Case weight is not a good indicator of case capacity because you do not know where the weight is located, and 1.8 grains diffrence in H2O internal case capacity in two different brands of .223/5.56 cases changed the chamber pressure 6,000 psi. The rifle doesn't case how much the case weighs all that matters is the size of the boiler room and the pressure the powder generates "inside the boiler room". And this is "WHY" you measure case capacity with fired cases because they have taken on the shape and volume of the chamber.

casecap_zps3f8bb2c9.jpg


223-556weight_zps3566d29a.jpg


Second, the military uses magnum type primers for better ignition in cold weather and the military used far more test equipment than you or Boomer has ever had. I'm not trying to be insulting but when the military does it and the reloading manuals tell you to use magnum primers there is a reason and its not for anyone without proper test equipment to scoff at or say it isn't needed. And you of all people should know ball powders have more deterrent coatings to slow down the burn rate and lower peak flame temperature that make them harder to ignite.

Below is the same primer Remington used in the 5.56 when Remington ran our Lake City Army Ammunition Plant to light off Winchester ball powders and the 7 1/2 is called a baby flame thrower.

5Remington75_zps2b532d7c.jpg


The CCI BR4 is their bench rest primer and doesn't compare to the Remington 7 1/2 primer and that is for a reason.

3CCIBR4_zpsa43a3c3a.jpg


The military and the reloading manuals and firearm manufactures do not use "unproven theories", they use the proper test equipment to get their results.
 
Well Ed, it doesn't matter how many pictures you show of magnum primers giving more power than do standard primers, or how many books state you need a magnum primer for certain powders, like ball types and in cold weather. What does matter is what happens in the real world, when you load your rifle and shoot.
Boomer may not have had lab conditions carry out his tests, but he did test various calibres, including one larger than the vast majority of us will ever shoot. His tests included ball powder and the tests were carried out in severe cold weather.
The tests showed there was only little difference between the velocity of loads fired with standard or magnum primers. And in most cases the standard primers gave a bit more velocity, as well as being the most consistent between shots. And this was true of his largest cartridge, loaded with a ball powder!
If present day hand loaders sort their brass, it is virtually always sorted by weight. My little test with the 243 proved that in the real world of shooting, a difference in weight of 12 grains per case, actually performed opposite to what the theories state it should have!
In other words, such small amount of weight difference, and maybe a greater weight difference, can be completely ignored, in regular day to day shooting.
 
H4831

The Remington 7 1/2 primer photo I posted above isn't a magnum primer, and the box is labeled "Bench Rest Primers". The reason I posted the photo is because Remington ran Lake City Army Ammunition Plant from 1941 until 1985 and the 7 1/2 primer was used to light off Winchester ball powder loaded in the 5.56 NATO ammunition and it had to pass cold weather test requirments.

If you want "real world" test results then read the milspec requirments for 5.56 ammunition.

http://www.everyspec.com/MIL-SPECS/MIL-SPECS-MIL-C/download.php?spec=MIL-C-9963F.025766.pdf

And below is what the major reloading manuals tell you which is the same as the Quickload information pictured.

quickload-primers_zps810bbb9f.jpg


And one of the reasons people buy Lapua brass is quality and uniformity, competitive shooters don't bother weighing their Lapua brass because it is so uniform.

223-556weight_zps3566d29a.jpg


Please look at the Powley computer below from the early 1960s and you will see the words case capacity in grains of water, so again it is the size of the boiler room and not the weight of the boiler that matters for uniformity.

Powleyfront-a_zps8b5952eb.jpg


What I object to is your attitude and using terms like "unproven theories" when you do not have the test equipment to even make these statements and insinuating you know more than the military, ammunition manufactures and reloading manuals. And then you make the statement about your Winchester and Federal cases, "The lighter 168 grain Winchester cases averaged 3491 fps. The heavier Federal cases averaged 3468." when case weight can have very little to do with internal volume and chamber pressure and "YOUR" case weights proved nothing.

And when I see BC by someones name I do not think of arctic testing and instead think of wet weather testing, so do us a favor and drop the attitude. The firearms manufactures, ammunition companies, the military and reloading companies do far more extensive "real world" testing than you or anyone else will ever do, and they have all the proper test equipment.

I load a lot of ball powder and I use Remington primers because I want my ammunition to work properly in cold weather and if you also look at the CCI 34 and 41 military rifle primers you will see they are magnum primers. So I will go with proven reoading information and not "unproven theories" and internet myths by people without the proper test equipment or proper testing methods.
 
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