Need advice on once-fired brass I recieved *56K warning, Big pics*

Slipery

Slipery

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Hey everyone,

So about a month ago I bought some 'Once-fired, .270 brass' from a member here, consisting of Federal, Remington, and winchester brass.. There was a PMC brass thrown in there, as well as a 30-06, but those were both chucked.

So out of the 130-140 pieces of brass I bought, I threw out 15 pieces right away.. then I had an additional 55 pieces that I am not sure about.. I haven't done any reloading yet, so I don't know whether the process fixes something like this. In the 55 brass that I am not sure about, all of them had bent heads of some sort or another.. and by bent heads I mean, if you look down on the brass from straight above, the holes are not circular.. In all of my once-fired brass (.270 winchester powerpoint) that I myself fired through my own gun, all of the holes are relatively perfectly circular to the human eye.


Like I said, it is present in about half of the brass I recieved, so I don't know whether it is worth it contacting the member about it, but if they are indeed garbage I feel a bit ripped off.. It could be totally normal though. Your help would be great.

Also, at the end I will have two pictures of two primers. I am wondering if these are normal primers? One has pink stuff around the outside, and the other one has a ridge around the firing pin mark.

Pictures:














Primers






 
Those are all fine. The Full length sizing die will fix the necks right up for you. The pink stuff is sealant, you could clean it out after you deprime, or not, doesn't really matter. The bottom one, is probably a small defect in the gun it was fired in, the firing pin, most likely has a bit bigger hole than it needs, nothing for you to be concerned about.

ETA you probably also could have run the 30-06 case through your 270 die, and used it too.
 
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From what I can see in the pictures, they all look fine to me.

The primers are no concern, as they get removed and discarded anyway. The red stuff you see is a factory sealant, and tells you for sure that case has not been reloaded before.

The dings and out of round case mouths should not be a problem at all. For all my rifle, after resizing I inspect the cases again, and at that point they should all be nice and round.

Try putting them through the resizing die, I'm sure they will be fine.

Mike
 
Well, I would say the brass was definately all not once-fired out of the same gun. The firing pin strikes on the last two pictures suggest two different guns.

Now the little ripples at the case mouth indicate that the brass has never been trimmed, the red primer sealant on the FC brass indicates it is indeed once fired. I'm going to venture a guess the ammo was fired in an autoloader, likely a Rem 742. The single flattish dent on the side of the case mouth will disappear during the resizing process, I would cull the one in the last pic that seems to have the double dent. That kind of dent usually leads to premature case mouth cracking, in my experience.

I dunno, does any of this info help?
 
Wow, thanks for the quick responses guys.. Must be a slow Wensday at work =)

Good to know that these are all useable.

On another side note.. Does anyone know if certain companies have longer brass then other? All of my 'once-fired' Remington brass that I got in this deal is under 2.535, but in winchester brass that was purchased, I would say that 1/3 of the brass is over 2.540 (which means they need to be trimmed) and at least another 1/3 is getting pretty close to it, within .002".

Is that regular in once-fired brass?

Thanks everyone for the replies so far
 
Usable

All your brass looks very usable. If you really want to know if it's once fired, deprime them, the soot markings in the primer pocket should be triangle shaped. If you have soot everywhere they are twice fired.

As for brass length, yes they do vary by mfg from what I've seen. Some cases will be over max length after only one firing and other are almost under min. I guess it just depends on who is running the brass press on some days.
 
The length of once fired is dependant on many things. For starters, the brass is mass produced by the 100's of 1000's. Then, every chamber is slightly different and will contribute to a different degree of stretch upon firing.

You will want to trim the brass anyway to a uniform length. This will help accuracy and consistant crimping if you go that route.

Hate to nag but do you have a reloading manual and have you read it?;):)
 
Uniform.

Oh forgot to mention if you are interested in keeping things uniform, you should trim all your brass to the min length. After that you should be OK for a few firings. If you use a neck sizer you may even get 4 or 5 firings before you need to full length resize your brass again.

Full length resizing every time will work your brass more and it may not last as long.
 
I do have a Lyman 49th Edition, but I read through it once and I left it at a friends house.. It's been there for the last few weeks.. I was there last Saturday, but he told me he hadn't read it yet, so I should be picking it up again this Saturday ^^

I am just curious.. It seems as if the RCBS RC Supreme Master Reloading Kit I want to buy does not come with a Case Trimmer. Anyone have advice on what the best brand of case trimmer to get is?
 
I would guess that its "range pickup" brass... If so, the pedigree of the brass is uncertain, and could have been fired more than once. A telltale sign is primers of different colors in cases of the same make.
 
i found that , brass from several diferent makers are not thw way to go ,, you should use only one kind , and better yet one lot ,, the case volume will vary ,, so you will not shoot twice in the same place ,, and you will not get the performance you are looking for ,,
 
Yah, if I had to do it again, I would probably just buy 500 pieces from a retailer.

I think that maybe I will use these pieces to develop a varmint load, and I will buy some more brass to develop my hunting loads.

Thanks everyone for the help.
 
Slipery said:
Yah, if I had to do it again, I would probably just buy 500 pieces from a retailer.

I think that maybe I will use these pieces to develop a varmint load, and I will buy some more brass to develop my hunting loads.

Thanks everyone for the help.
Click to expand...


All the brass you have displayed if fine, after you start shooting and reloading you will realize that.

I only buy retail brass for my match loads for F-class. In the last 8 years everything else has been once fired.

As far a a trimmer, go on ebay or the EE here, look for Trimmer + reloading, these are hand tools and not subject to any export licences, there are also a bunch of rockchuckers on ebay now, and if you are lucky you will get a much better deal on a used press.

I have been shooting competively for 4 years, all my presses, and trimmers and half my dies come from ebay.
 
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