verdict on used shells

Boltcarrier

Boltcarrier

CGN Regular
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a fine gentleman and member of CGN, calibrecarstairs is kind enough to share a bunch of information on reloading books with me, and from one of the Lyman reloading books, the writer indicated that first fired shells should not be used at all except for those fired by yourself.


"""CAUTION: Never load cartridge cases from an
unknown source, i.e. cases picked up at the range or
sold as once-fired brass. Use only brand new brass or
cases obtained as the result of firing factory ammo in
your firearm. ""

well, i just bought several hundred units of first fired shells from CGN WTS, so they were not fired by me.


i examined the shells and they appeared to be in good condition, albeit that there's no way to know if they were first fired or not, just have to trust the seller.

but the question remains whether i should be using these shells..
 
I have been using "used" brass for over 50 years now, from different sources, such as range pick up, bought at gun shows, gifted ect. Suffered only 1 (one) case head separation in the many 1000's of reloads both handgun and rifle ammo that I've reloaded. This was a Surplus 5.56mm fired in a Wylde chambered rifle!!!
I think the "warning" is because of the Protect your Ass" society we live in!!!
Your mileage may vary!
 
I have loaded and used a fair amount of someone else's "previously fired" brass in my rifles - given to me, sold to me or picked up in a gravel pit. As well as points above, I tend to pay attention to the effort needed to insert a primer. For neck splits, etc., can sort of "re-juvenate" the neck and shoulder of the rest of the batch by annealing, but not much can be done once the primer pockets get slopped out - multiple firings, "hot" loads or whatever. So if the primers go in "too easily" - that brass is pretty much done - whether that was from once fired or twenty previous firings. I do not know of any way to recover from "loose pockets", so that brass is discarded.
 
No problem with used brass. As said above inspection is mandatory. A lot of my brass comes from unknown guns. I sort through it and check for any damage. I reload for 40 some calibers with minimum of 100 or more cases per caliber. To buy new would be a bit of money. I try saving money when I can. The only problem I had was with a batch of Imperial 303 British, second reload and a ring around the head could be seen. If you see damage stop using that brass.
 
Buying and selling fired brass is one of the best ways to save money reloading. When someone says once fired , I take it with a grain of salt in many cases as the gun show guys cant prove it. That being said good cleaning, full length resizing, trimming, and careful examination will provide good usable brass. Before brass "comes apart" there is usually small signs. I shoot a bit of cast bullets and the loads used are very easy on brass and will last many many firings. Some brass , like 303 British or 300 win mag can have issues after a few loadings, depends on the load and and re sizing methods.
 
My bag of picked up brass from the range (pistol and rifle) each week would disagree with you. I inspect every piece of brass I pick up, so tossing out questionable ones is not a factor for me. 10 yrs been do this.

To me it is like winning the lottery each week. Bonus is all scrap goes to local recycler in which the weight credit I get goes to buying pure lead for casting.
Win, Win, Win
 
Years ago a chap gave me a bunch of 308 Win nickel plated brass he recovered from the Range discard bucket ...which I recognized as my own 11 times fired discarded a few days prior. (I had marked some pieces with a sharpie). I had tested the NP brass which started splitting necks at 13 recycles so I always discarded after 11 reloads. Since that time, I have always crushed the necks prior to discard.
 
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