Good day all.

Local match canceled for this weekend so whiling an afternoon away loading replacements for loads that my old notes showed needed tweaking.

Sorting though several thousands of pieces of 223/556 brass that I'd deemed scrap. Just to double check.

Lots of Federal cases with split necks and quite a few Federal cases with loose primer pockets.

Many GFI (Fiocchi I belive) cases with flash-holes so far off center they look comical.

Quite a few Winchester range pick-ups that refused to clean-up in the wet tumbler and I worried they had lost any maluablity, they had become brittle with too much eposure.

Just wondering what you guys think is the toughest brass.

Lapua or alpha also you should be annealing after every use.  Lake City is good also for 5.56

Once fired and it is toast? The only brass I leave on the ground has been fired five times. I suppose other people do the same.

Lake City brass is of very high quality. I have a lot of IMI and Winchester brass that is very good too.

I am picky about brass life. I have a process that never lets me fire any piece of brass more than five times, including the original fireing. I do not anneal, ever. Five times and it gets recycled. People who want to anneal can get many more cycles than I do. Right now, brass is relatively cheap.

Because I have been involved for decades, I have a large supply on hand for my most used firearms. Someone getting started might feel challenged.

I can say without any doubt, things will not get cheaper. I have hunting rounds that I feel I am under supplied with. .270, 8x57mm Mauser, .300 Winchester Magnum. But the truth is I am old, and my days are limited. I have more than enough once fired cases for each of these calibers to provide ammo for any hunt.

In anything but 223, if lapua doesn’t make it I don’t shoot it

I think brass is mostly the same, by design.  

The real difference is the rifle and its cycling and whether it has burrs on the extractor or ejector.

Also, the load inside the case is important.  Heavy powder charges and/or heavy bullets mean short case life.