Old Brass

Travel240z

Travel240z

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How many times can you reload brass? I have talked to some people that reload until failure, others 5 to 8 times, and finally some people only once.

For me I am just about to set up for reloading 40 S&W pistol ammo. I have saved all my brass for a couple of years now so it is all factory produced once fired. (might have a few spent casings from someone else while picking up my brass)
 
Iam on my 4th or 5th time with my .45 brass, but its getting a little ratty looking as my 1911 likes to put a small dent in the case everytime it ejects. and I beleive Iam on my 3rd time with my 308 brass, and its holding up just fine.
 
Case life is practically a non-issue with pistol brass. You will probably lose it before you wear it out. Every once in a while, a case will crack starting at the mouth. This is when you scrap the case.

If there is nothing visibly wrong with any type of case- cracked necks, loose primer pockets, incipient head separation, etc, then it will survive at least one more firing.
 
There is a huge range of times, depending on internal pressure (pistol genereally is relatively low pressure compared to rifle), case stretch, how far the shoulder is set back, etc.

If a necked rifle case is full length sized (meaning that it is squeezed down to factory dimensions) repeatedly, it will break quite soon, especially if it is a hot hunting round.
If the same case is run at fairly low pressure, and only neck sized enough to grip the bullet, but left unsized for the body, it will last a while.
Note that a neck sized case should only be used in the same gun it came out of.
 
Craig0ry said:
oh? all my .308 brass was never orignally shot from my rifle.
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that is OK - when you buy someone elses once fired brass you simply full length resize it on the first load, after you have shot it out of your firearm then switch to neck sizing.

I am on about the 8th reload on a set of 40 brass doing FL resizing and visual inspections show no signs of the brass falling apart...I dont know when to quit... but physical failure of course may make the call for me.
 
Until your inspection of the brass reveals something you don't like. I have brass that has been reloaded 10 or more times. Other brass in the same caliber only survives one reload.

Use your best judgment and err on the side of caution.
 
I have a friend who has reloaded 6.5x47 Lapua 37 times so far. Still no problems.
I have read in a gun mag were they loaded 308 over 40 times before brass falied.
 
Pistol brass is almost indestructable. I never wore any out myself, but I did buy used some used 45 ACP brass and most of the stuff stammped "Amerc" has primer pockets too loose to use.

Rifle brass is a different story altogether WAY higher pressures. I recently helped a frend load develop a 284. We uswed the same 20 piece of brass for a total of 5 firings. the primer pockets were toast after 5 firings (Wichester Brass). I have Lapua 6BR brass that is still going strong after dozens of firings.
 
Obtunded said:
Pistol brass is almost indestructable. I never wore any out myself, but I did buy used some used 45 ACP brass and most of the stuff stammped "Amerc" has primer pockets too loose to use.
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That's odd. Every piece of AMERC .45 that I've some across, the primer pockets have been too tight :confused: . Oh well.

To the OP, I've lost track of some of my pistol reload count. Most times 'cause it gets dumped into a large bucket after it's clean (re: 9, 40 & 45). I'll bet some of the cases are easily on their 5 reload, if not more. The odd time when I'm doing final shake out of the media, I'll hear what sounds like a bell in the mix. A little searching and I'll find a split case in there.

(E) :cool:
 
If you plan on loading .40 reasonably, it will be good for so many reloads you will forget about counting them. Get careless, bell the case mouth excessively, or crank up the powder/velocity so there is some "snap" to the loads - that is why there are manuals, and manufacturerer's websites - and your case life will plummet. Folks who are only getting one or two reloads from quality brass are not doing it right. Period. Typically excessive pressure, and/or excessive working of the case.
 
It all depends on pressures generated by loads,brass quality,chamber size,method of resizing,bullets used and if cases are annealed periodically.
I'm using cast bullet ,light loads with Red Dot,annealed cases and so far cases last me 4 years or so and i hope they will last 4 more
 
Take some pistol brass and roll it around and jingle it in the palm of your hand. If there are any casings with cracks, the sound will be different than if there are all good brass. I try to remember to do that before I put them in my little old Thumblers Tumbler. Some of my .38 Special brass has been fired many, many times.
 
When I started reloading, oh so many years ago, a gunwiter in a gun rag embarked on a test for the definitive answer to the question of how many reloads?
It was during the heyday of PPC, so the cartridge of choice was the .38 Special. Long test, thousands of rounds, wound up shooting a box each of about five different headstamps, cast bullets, target loads, careful case mouth belling, no annealing ever, first failures - split case mouths - at around 80 reloads, and several boxes went well over one hundred reloads before he gave up, and took his newly developed proficiency with a PPC revolver on the road to the regional and national matches!

I expect self-loading pistols will eat cases a bit more quickly, although I have never bothered to track re-loads that carefully, and certainly pushing to the old IPSC "major" (plus a safety margin so the chrony didn't DQ you) shortened case life a bit. Bottlenecked rifle cartridges of course have much more demanding internal ballistics to deal with, either headspacing on a rim,or on their shoulder, and having the pressure try to flow the case body into the neck, but still, benchrest competitors go the whole season on less than 100 cases, and just hate to throw away any cases as long as their groups stay tight.
 
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