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Posted: 2/14/2011 7:04:50 PM EDT
I went to the range today and picked up quite a bit of 9mm brass (yes, I did shoot a little too  )
How do you guys work with ammo you pick up for the range? It's hard to tell how many times it's been fired, do you just check it after every time it's shot? Also, I picked up quite a bit of RP brass. A few of them were RP +P. Am I going to need to pay any special consideration to this when I load? |
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Well cull out the AMERC headstamp brass to the scrap bucket. Separate NATO headstamp once fired brass and S&B brass so you can resize it and then decrimp the primer pocket. Sort again to remove any berdan primed cases, and those other calibers that tend to sneak in, e.g 9x19 MAK and 380 ACP |
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Well cull out the AMERC headstamp brass to the scrap bucket. Separate NATO headstamp once fired brass and S&B brass so you can resize it and then decrimp the primer pocket. Sort again to remove any berdan primed cases, and those other calibers that tend to sneak in, e.g 9x19 MAK and 380 ACP Also watch out for 9mm br.c. headstamp. Same thing as .380, I think, but harder to catch while sorting. |
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All my 9mm pickups get treated as once fired, unless I see a reason to believe it's a reload, such as markings on the case, or an off colored primer (like a nickle primer in a winchester case). 9mm is so plentiful that if I am ever in doubt I just pitch it. I keep mine separated by number of firings and that's it. So right now all I have is 2 buckets. One is 1x fired, the other is 2x, once I'm out of 1x (if that ever even happens!) then I'll move on to 2x brass. A lot of people would call it overkill, but whatever.
As someone already said A-MERC goes straight to the scrap bucket, and so does anything crimped. As I said before, 9mm brass is plentiful, it's not worth my time to ream these. Other than that I load just about everything I find. |
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As someone already said A-MERC goes straight to the scrap bucket, and so does anything crimped. As I said before, 9mm brass is plentiful, it's not worth my time to ream these. Other than that I load just about everything I find. Damn, I wish I had that problem! I try to get every piece of brass possible. I'm also a cheap ass and haven't gotten a primer pocket reamer yet, but have found crimped cases to be little problem with an RCBS hand priming tool. If the case gets caught on the crimp, I can rotate the case 1/4 turn, and it will seat the primer just like all the rest. Seems to work for the ~150 Nato cases I've had mixed in my first 1K of 9mm reloads. I know, I know, I need to get the proper tools... 
EDIT: I just realized that I forgot about the thread at hand. I throw all the brass in the tumbler to get it clean (my reloads and any pickups). I then go through inspecting every headstamp (I've found some odd brand of foreign brass from the early 70's to be impossible to reload and cull them immediately). If the cases make it through my hands and into the bucket for more processing, I figure they're good to go. I reload on a single stage, so these cases will pass through my hands another 3 times before I'm ready to drop powder and seat a bullet, so I'm more than confident in my ability to catch a bad case that gets through the first inspection. Long story short, I pick it up, clean it, sort/inspect it (where it's deemed OK), and it gets thrown in the bucket with the rest. I don't care about # of firings as much as I care about the condition of the brass. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
| 9mm brass is about like .45 Auto brass in that you'll lose it before you wear it out. I treat it all the same after the initial sort and I only sort to toss garbage. Corroded, crimped, split, crushed or puckered primer get canned. Beyond that 9mm brass is 9mm brass. Tumble and load. |
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Thanks for the advice. I picked up about 200 cases last night, the majority of it RP, Winchester, Blazer, FC, and I wanna say CBC? (I'm not at home right now, I'll verify later) There were some other randoms that I threw in a separate bag.
I went through all of them last night and briefly looked at them, but not very closely. If they were deformed I tossed them, I got rid of a few 9x18 and other junk, but otherwise they were thrown in bags by headstamp. I like to reload batches of the same headstamp rather than mix them, so am I alright keeping them all together? Or would I be better off throwing them all together and going by once or twice fired? Also, is Blazer ammo generally more dirty than others? I have a bunch that I got on sale, and when I pick up the Blazer brass it looks like it's been playing in the mud compared to other brass I pick up. Is this due to the powder it uses? And if I clean it thoroughly, will it be cleaner once I reload it? |
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Thanks for the advice. I picked up about 200 cases last night, the majority of it RP, Winchester, Blazer, FC, and I wanna say CBC? (I'm not at home right now, I'll verify later) There were some other randoms that I threw in a separate bag. I went through all of them last night and briefly looked at them, but not very closely. If they were deformed I tossed them, I got rid of a few 9x18 and other junk, but otherwise they were thrown in bags by headstamp. I like to reload batches of the same headstamp rather than mix them, so am I alright keeping them all together? Or would I be better off throwing them all together and going by once or twice fired? Also, is Blazer ammo generally more dirty than others? I have a bunch that I got on sale, and when I pick up the Blazer brass it looks like it's been playing in the mud compared to other brass I pick up. Is this due to the powder it uses? And if I clean it thoroughly, will it be cleaner once I reload it? Most people I know of do not sort by headstamp. I did when I started out, then I realized it really doesn't matter. I sort for rifle, but not pistol. From what it looks like to me, blazer brass always looks identical to the FC champion brass when they are once fired. Usually don't look too dirty to me, in fact it's usually cleaner than the WWB brass. As for the outside, they'll get nice and clean with tumbling. The inside... not so much. My cases get a bit more carboned up on the inside with each firing. Nothing to worry about though. |
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Thanks for the advice. I picked up about 200 cases last night, the majority of it RP, Winchester, Blazer, FC, and I wanna say CBC? (I'm not at home right now, I'll verify later) There were some other randoms that I threw in a separate bag. I went through all of them last night and briefly looked at them, but not very closely. If they were deformed I tossed them, I got rid of a few 9x18 and other junk, but otherwise they were thrown in bags by headstamp. I like to reload batches of the same headstamp rather than mix them, so am I alright keeping them all together? Or would I be better off throwing them all together and going by once or twice fired? Also, is Blazer ammo generally more dirty than others? I have a bunch that I got on sale, and when I pick up the Blazer brass it looks like it's been playing in the mud compared to other brass I pick up. Is this due to the powder it uses? And if I clean it thoroughly, will it be cleaner once I reload it? Most people I know of do not sort by headstamp. I did when I started out, then I realized it really doesn't matter. I sort for rifle, but not pistol. From what it looks like to me, blazer brass always looks identical to the FC champion brass when they are once fired. Usually don't look too dirty to me, in fact it's usually cleaner than the WWB brass. As for the outside, they'll get nice and clean with tumbling. The inside... not so much. My cases get a bit more carboned up on the inside with each firing. Nothing to worry about though. Is there any difference between the headstamps? I've got 1000 cases sorted now, so I'll just leave them, but I'm just used to sorting my .223. I don't have the dies yet to reload 9mm, but I'll be getting them in the next couple months and want to be sure I'm good to go when I do start. |
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The only real difference between the headstamps that I've noticed is things like resizing effort. I find that WIN sizes pretty hard, Blazer and FC size pretty easy but feel a little sticky when extracting them from the die. The smoothest to resize for me has been PMC and S&B. I have no idea if that means anything or not. Also I have noticed that the FC champion brass seems to be fairly prone to splitting on the first firing. I've found quite a few split open down the length of the case. I consider it nothing to worry about. It seems like the weak ones shit the bed on the first firing and the rest are gtg after that.
Supposedly there are miniscule differences in case capacity between some of them... I don't care... If it looks good, I load it. |
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CBC is Magtech's headstamp-it's good brass. Unless you're going to do something particularly hot with that 9mm brass, it won't hurt to put it all together in one big bunch. Blazer brass does tend to look pretty dirty, but that won't have any affect on how the brass performs. In other words, it's fine to reload.
… and I wanna say CBC? … I went through all of them last night and briefly looked at them, but not very closely. If they were deformed I tossed them, I got rid of a few 9x18 and other junk, but otherwise they were thrown in bags by headstamp. I like to reload batches of the same headstamp rather than mix them, so am I alright keeping them all together? Or would I be better off throwing them all together and going by once or twice fired? Also, is Blazer ammo generally more dirty than others? I have a bunch that I got on sale, and when I pick up the Blazer brass it looks like it's been playing in the mud compared to other brass I pick up. Is this due to the powder it uses? And if I clean it thoroughly, will it be cleaner once I reload it? Quoted:
AMERC brass is very crappy. Off-center flash holes, inconsistent primer pocket diameters, rims that just aren't right… I don't trust a company that can't keep something like a flash hole slightly close to centered to have properly prepared the brass to handle cartridge pressures. The only thing I've used AMERC brass for is making dummy rounds-and I was careful to measure the things before I actually assembled them.
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As someone already said A-MERC goes straight to the scrap bucket, Damn, I wish I had that problem! I try to get every piece of brass possible. |
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Quoted: Quoted: AMERC brass is very crappy. Off-center flash holes, inconsistent primer pocket diameters, rims that just aren't right… I don't trust a company that can't keep something like a flash hole slightly close to centered to have properly prepared the brass to handle cartridge pressures. The only thing I've used AMERC brass for is making dummy rounds-and I was careful to measure the things before I actually assembled them.Quoted: As someone already said A-MERC goes straight to the scrap bucket, Damn, I wish I had that problem! I try to get every piece of brass possible. I was responding more to the other part of what I quoted him about tossing anything with crimped primer pockets. I know about AMERC's reputation and am glad that I've only found one of them in the ~3800 9mm cases I have. Quoted: What is A-MERC? Is that a specific headstamp? Yep. It has "AMERC" on the case head. Avoid it if you can. |
| I reload thousands of 9mm and .223 from range pickups, so much I haven't had to buy brass for those in years. I pick em up, tumble and reload until inspection shows a split case or head sep. I don't load at max because my guns run perfect at their loads, so I don't experiment with it. I am just glad I am able to get so many pick ups from the public ranges I frequent. |
I only pick up Win 9mm. In fact I ask WWB shooters if they reload and if not can I have their brass ................. they end up picking it up for me  . Still haven't begun reloading 9mm yet though
My other calibers are 38 and 357 revolver so fortunately no need to hunt for those haha eta: for rifle I only pick up my own as that is prepped for match usage and I keep track of firings. I may actually go heavy next time on the lemishine and purposely turn them pink to make them easier to find. |
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Here's my haul from today! I just glanced and there seems to a good mix! I'll tumble them then hand sort. How do you guys store and separate your range brass? http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p216/dnmccoy/2f51f136.jpg Nice work. I pulled about 200-300 9mm, .40, and .45 when I was there the other day. But I did lose 2 of my .223 in the snow, never to be found by me 
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Quoted: Here's my haul from today! I just glanced and there seems to a good mix! I'll tumble them then hand sort. How do you guys store and separate your range brass? http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p216/dnmccoy/2f51f136.jpg I use these 2qt and 4qt containers from walmart. I think they're Rubbermaid (and made in the USA).   |
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Here's my haul from today! I just glanced and there seems to a good mix! I'll tumble them then hand sort. How do you guys store and separate your range brass? http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p216/dnmccoy/2f51f136.jpg I use these 2qt and 4qt containers from walmart. I think they're Rubbermaid (and made in the USA). http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c352/WIZZO499/DSCF9257.jpg http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c352/WIZZO499/DSCF9176.jpg What'd you pay for those? I'm gonna have to pick some up. Much more effective than ziploc bags... |
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eta: for rifle I only pick up my own as that is prepped for match usage and I keep track of firings. I may actually go heavy next time on the lemishine and purposely turn them pink to make them easier to find. Making them different in order to make them easy to find is a great idea. BUT, save your lemishine. I have used quite a bit when I first started. It only makes them shiny. Only the tarnished ones turn pink. But if you could paint them fluorescent orange or something .......
JKM |
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