I have been a range brass scrounger for many years and I have just recently returned to reloading 45 ACP.I am finding many "types" of brass in my pile of range brass including Winchester,R-P,Federal etc but also CBC,PMC,Tulammo,TZZ,Fiocchi USA,Aguila and G.F.L. Anyone here that has been loading these brass types ?If so are there any that you just throw away because they give reloading or firing problems?

AMERC goes straight into my recycle bucket.

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Science plus Art

Personally the only sorting I do is between large and small primer brass, and make sure I don't get any Berdan primed brass. Otherwise I just make sure and get a good taper crimp on the finished rounds.

Years ago I was doing a lot of reloading for a couple of Thompson submachine guns. I have literally shot and reloaded some 45acp brass so many times you couldn't read the head stamp any more.

One trick I learned was to take a handful and shake them if I heard a ringing sound like a bell I knew I had a split case in the mix.

AMERC is all ****. Throw it away. Don't waste your time with it. S&B will likely have slightly tight primer pockets and you may have to ream them a tad to be able to seat primers reasonably easily. I have never tried to reload any TULA so I have no opinion on that. Other than that it is all good.

Thanks everybody!Yes the AMERC goes in the trash.I have also found by sizing and flaring a bunch of brass that pretty much everything sizes the same except R-P and Aguila.All the Remington brass I have is thin as is the Aquila and I am concerned about bullet pull with them.I will try some and see what happens .

Bullet pull??? As in neck tension?? That is only a concern in loading precision rifle.

I've seen TULA brass where I worked;it was sold as reloadable and quality was not too bad.Manufactured in the Balkans,Bosnia I think.
Qc

Other than watching for the small primer pockets, I pitch SB (Seller & Beloit), as the primer pockets have no bevel and seating new primers causes you to have malfunctions in your press. If you want to individually ream a bevel on every piece of SB brass that's up to you.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Watch for Federal marked nt. Which is non toxic. It has small pistol primers. Sure mess up your loading rhythm.

I've reloaded all the brass you mention, with no problems that could be attributed to a particular make. I treat the S&B brass much the same as military brass, use a countersink to chamfer the primer pocket mouth. Works quite well for me...

Your case mouth deburring and chamfering tool will fix up those primer pockets, too.

GFL brass is used in Fiocchi ammo and I have loaded 500 pieces of their .38 Special wadcutter brass 11 times so far with one case lost to splitting, so I wouldn't worry about those cases.

Remington brass works well for me in .45ACP so I wouldn't be concerned about wall thickness with it.

Ed

This!

Lately A.P. (Armscor) as well due to inconsistent rim diameters. Some wont go into shellholders and some too small for the same shellholders.

Also only Large primers only for my 45 ACP brass.

Quote:

Bullet pull??? As in neck tension?? That is only a concern in loading precision rifle.

Oh but I beg to differ!Shooting 200 meter rams with a .44 mag or .357 many years ago showed that not to be so,especially using the slower pistol powders.I have even seen the evidence of poor bullet pull and poor accuracy in a 45 acp at 50 yards.Granted,shooting at steel plates at 15 yards with a powder like Bullseye you will hardly see the difference.

If everything feeds and shoots normally that's true. But I like a cartridge where the bullet won't go in or come out easily. I've ejected rounds in guns and had the round disassemble, usually leaving the bullet in the barrel and powder in the action. This has especially been true in compact 9mm with very short leades.

Also, some bullet designs are worse about this.

I suspect that I have some brass that is so thin, I consider it 'one shot' and it really isn't fit to reload. I find many of these already cracked.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

My thoughts exactly.

I laugh at the sign at my range that says, "Pick Up Only The Brass That You Shoot".

At my club, leaving brass on the grounds is considered littering and grounds for membership termination. We have cans marked for the purpose of disposing of unwanted brass hung in several places on each range. Here's a shot from the 100-yard rifle range that shows some of those containers.



We had a member slip and fall on discarded brass several years ago. He was seriously injured from how he landed on the concrete but fortunately did not sue the club but our attorney told us if he had, our insurance company would have done all they could to settle out of court and then cancel our policy. No member-owned club can afford that kind of risk but I know many do nothing about slob members.

We pretty much have a policy that states that if you brought something to the club with you, take it home with you.

Ed

The first time I took my wife shooting I started picking up brass...more than I shot. She asked why, and I told her I was replacing all the brass I had lost over the years . Ever after she was the brass scrounger almost to the point I got scared we'd get kicked out . She was the same way shagging lost golf balls too

I can see neck tension being an issue at extended ranges but not so much at the distance most people shoot a 45acp.

It is correct the ammo must be assembled correctly and I would attribute bullets pushing in or falling out an error in the reloading process more than the brass. At least I have never had an issue even with open bolt machine guns.

GFL is Fiocchi: Giulio Fiocchi, Lecco, Italy.
http://www.igman.com/ammunition/codes
TULA is made at Tulskiy Patronniy Zavod (Tula Cartridge Plant) in Tula, Tula District, Russia.
Home of the famous military arsenal as well.

Attached Images

GFL44SWRheadstamp.jpg (160.5 KB, 34 views)

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NEMO
"Everything 44"

Agree. I like a good, consistent neck tension on my handgun brass because of powder burn consistency. If neck tension was of no concern when reloading handgun ammo, why resize the brass (99% will rechamber w/o sizing)?

Also, bullet tension is important in semi-auto pistols. You don't want to jam the bullet further into the case when it's fed into the chamber. It can raise pressures dramatically in small, straight-wall, high pressure cartridges.

We have TWO huge Brass pails at our Range and for someone who is getting started in reloading, they can have a "field day" cleaning it out. Most guys I know and shoot with NEVER had to actually buy Brass - and if you ask shooters who do NOT reload, they are usually more than happy to stick the empties back into the original boxes and hand them to new shooters.

I have all the Brass I will ever need and now when I come across boxes of once fired Brass I just hand them off to the new guys.

I do caution new reloaders to scrutinize what they pick up and discard the suspicious cases. I always recommend sticking to Federal, Winchester, Remington, CCI, & Shooting Star and leave behind the bargain basement stuff. Free Brass is never worth doing damage to either yourself or your firearm.

My rule is that if it's not Brass it goes in the Trash.
I just acquired about 500 Brass cases of 223 from the Range and am in the process of making sure it's good to go.
About the only other things I do is separate the large Primer Hole from the Small ones,I dont really care much about the Make as long as it's in good shape to reload.

I admire those that would work the primer pockets on auto pistol brass. I would just chuck it! Maybe it's just me...

Today in the Range Buckets (steel 40 gallon garbage cans) there were hundreds and hundreds of once fired Factory .38 Special, .45asp and .223 rounds. It is so common that most don't even bother getting their hands dirty in the bucket anymore.

One new Reloader showed up as we were preparing to leave and was having a good o'le time picking out what he wanted - he spend so much time scavenging through the Range Buckets I don't even know of he shot - might have after we left.

Anyone reloading a popular cartridge (.38 Spl, .45 acp, 9mm, .223, etc) can usually easily find more than enough Brass without ever having to buy any - at least around my neck of the woods.

And then there are the 3 or 4 different size flash holes in 45acp to worry about if target shooting.

None of my 45s are picky & i'll load anything but amerc or anything with an internal step. I also reserve RP brass for lead or coated lead, they are a bit thin for 0.451" jacketed. I also donate all small primed stuff, not worth the hassle.

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

Whoever decided to make a 45acp with a small primer should be publicly flogged. Short of that, I've yet to meet a brass 45acp case I couldn't successfully reload.

The small primer brass reloads fine as well, but it makes for some coarse language when you stumble across one you failed to segregate from the rest.

At our range we have cans also for unwanted brass and I always look to see if there is anything in them worth reloading. If there is I take it if not I leave it. It is surprising to me about the amount of 223 brass that I have found there. I guess a lot of AR-15 shooters don't reload and on range visits they shoot a lot of ammo. I don't like it when they have steel case mixed in with the brass cases. If it's a big lot of mixed steel and brass I leave it alone.

I've never seen an AMERC headstamp, so I don't know anything about it although I think I have seen just about every other headstamp listed in Wikipedia. While I have had problems with various pieces of brass, I have not had enough problems from any particular headstamp to label it "troublesome", although the off-center flash holes I frequently encounter in some brands like Perfecta and CBC could be troublesome for people who don't decap as a separate step.

I sort my cases by headstamp, but because I only load .45 ACP for practice and self-defense, not accuracy over long distances, it is really more for cosmetic reasons than anything functional.

In the case for .45 ACP, you have to also sort by primer size to avoid the kinds of frustration others have already posted about. Since every other pistol round I load uses small pistol primers and small primer .45 brass often sells at a discount, that's what I buy when I buy once-fired brass.

I usually suggest that new Reloader's stick to the major manufacturing Co's Brass (Winchester, Remington, Federal, Starline, etc.) I also let them know about Primer Pocket differences an the .45 acp cartridges, .223 vs 5.56, and steel, aluminum and as many variances as I can.

For plinking that most seem to do, just about anything will do.
Match loads are a different matter altogether.
Neck tension is important, so many match shooters sort their brass. I stick to Remington for example.

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-jwk-
US Army '72-'95