Sorting Brass

summerside sniper

summerside sniper

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I was at Hirsch Precision today and we were talking about reloading. When it came to brass, Peter was telling me that he sorts by company and how technical some ppl get when dealing with thier brass/components. I can understand why sorting by company can be so important (wall thickness for ex.), but for me is it really something I should be doing? I'm simply out, plinking, trying to improve my shooting ability (partly for work), and I do some competition at my range only right now. I can understand that if I was doing precision shooting, than yes, I would be more cautious of how I sort and deal with my brass; but for what I'm doing right now, is it really a big concern?? Essentialy, for the average Joe shooter, how technical should you be for sorting brass, aside from 1st fired, 2nd fired?
 
A few pieces of found military 223 brass managed to get in with my regular 223 brass after the last trip to the range, possibly during cleaning. Didn't notice until I tried to press in a primer :-/
 
Some brands of brass cases may be 20 grains heavier than some other brand. They are all the same size on the outside, thus the heavier ones are smaller on the inside, meaning less capacity for powder. In a bottle neck case, where the loading is right up to max for that rifle in a light weight case, loading the same amount of powder in a heavy case, could make a considerable over load. Not that it will be likely to blow your action up, or any such thing, but it may be heavy enough to stick the bolt, or loosen the primer. The heavier cases may take two grains less powder to get the same pressure.
In the opposite case, going from heavy to light cases, the light ones will just have a little less pressure and velocity.
I sort the brass by weight, rather than brand, because weight is all you are worrying about, regardless who made the case.
 
Sort this!

Rifle cases I cannot make a comment. However, sorting pistol cases, like .38special is a complete waste of time. There is of course one exeception. If you are going to fire wadd cutters in .38special cases, don't use +P cases. Sort them out and leave them at the range for someone else.
For 9mm cases, leave the following types at the range: S&B, WCC and anything with the NATO stamp...
 
BLARGON said----What's your tolerances with the weight? +/- 1 grain or less than that?
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If I was a bench rest competitor, maybe I would be that fussy. Or, if my load was a far out whumper that I wouldn't tell you guys about, I also would have the cases within a grain. But for ordinary, normal load plinking or hunting, I wouldn't worry about two or three grains, or so, difference in case weight.
I just took a box of Federal 30-06 once fired cases. They were shiny like new, having just been fired at a range and returned to the box.
There was 1.7 grains variaton in the first ten I checked.
I have noticed in the past that R-P were heavy cases, maybe something like 20 grains heavier than W-W. When I said I sort by weight I found that W-W, the old CIL and Norma were all close enough to group as one. There was another brand, I forget if it was Federal, or not, but one other brand matched R-P, so they could go together.
Someone said for pistol cases, forget it. Agreed. Also, I am loading 45-70 for the Marlin 1895 and GG. All my loads are so much lighter than the rifles will stand, and so much space remains after the powder is in, that I couldn't care less about case variation. As a matter of fact, I have two brands of new cases that vary 20 plus grains in weight, and I am interchanging them, not even looking to see which case I load!
 
hatman1793 said:
Rifle cases I cannot make a comment. However, sorting pistol cases, like .38special is a complete waste of time. There is of course one exeception. If you are going to fire wadd cutters in .38special cases, don't use +P cases. Sort them out and leave them at the range for someone else.
For 9mm cases, leave the following types at the range: S&B, WCC and anything with the NATO stamp...
Click to expand...

OK. I'll bite.

Why not use +P for wadcutters?

And what's wrong with Western Cartridge Company brass?
 
for rifle i would say definately- winchester has thinner walls, and the only case failure( head separation) i've ever had was a winchester-typically i shoot remington as it seems to be the only brass i can get in 500/1k lots with any regularity, but that's typically the supplier/retailer's fault- i stay away from ivi because it sticks in my dies, even with lube, and i use a DILLON 550-
as far as pistol goes, i think it's a waste of time, but i disagree on the nato & wcc stuff- it feeds in the beretta just fine, and a case is a case
 
hatman1793 said:
Rifle cases I cannot make a comment. However, sorting pistol cases, like .38special is a complete waste of time. There is of course one exeception. If you are going to fire wadd cutters in .38special cases, don't use +P cases. Sort them out and leave them at the range for someone else.
For 9mm cases, leave the following types at the range: S&B, WCC and anything with the NATO stamp...
Click to expand...

The +P designation on the headstamp is for ammo type designation. The brass is the same, be it plated or not.
 
WCC & +P cases

Winchester makes terrific brass. Winchester in particular makes military brass for our armies and uses the designation WCC in this configuration, sometimes with a NATO stamp on it too.
WCC brass usually is very tough and strong and has the primer crimped into the case. Plus the WCC primer pockets are very tight. All of this plays havoc with reloading.
Some manufacturers of 38special +P brass have thicker walls from about halfway down the case, to the base. Since wadd cutter bullets go into the case almost 90%, when the bullet encounters the thicker walls, they don't give as much and tend to bulge a bit. This bulge often stops the round from chambering.
My advice is to use regular 38special brass for wadd cutters or semi-wadd cutters, but don't use +P designated brass for wadd cutters.
 
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