Quote:
Originally Posted by HorizontalMike
Ivan the Butcher,
You bet. I just ran an inflation calculator and came up with $628.02 for the K 10 scope! Shoot... I would probably knee-jerk paying that kind of $$$ today, and seriously "think" about whether I really, really really needed it... 
And did you notice the load?! My father used a load of 21gr of IMR4198. Hodgdon lists/posts 19.3gr 3,152fps 49,000 PSI as the max load for this combination! This was a rather hot load then as well as now. A few of the reloads had their necks crack at the tapered crimp, but that did not seem to be an issue when I discharged them.
 I only wish I had had the forethought to have saved the brass from that day, since it had rather unique Remington markings. FWIW, I had not thought about reloading at the time and did not even think of such things... 
FWIW, I cannot tell if these reloads are "virgin" reloads with the then new Remington "Empty Primed Shells" or a repeat reload later.
The best that I recall is that my father was NOT an avid reloader and had help/assistance/urging from a more experienced reloader at the time. If that is/was the case, then I would surmise that the reloads pictured below, are "new" reloads using the then new Remington empty primed shells. Very hard to tell some 65yr later with all the lead hair and discolored brass... just saying. 
V___Below___V you may be able to make out a crimp area crack in the brass:
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As a reloader myself I would say those cases had been fired and reloaded before. Certain signs such as the black ring at the junction of shoulder and neck are usually indicators of powder gas from firing. Case tumblers were not as common years ago and most of the older fellows I knew usually just wiped their cases off when reloading them. If they got really dirty they might use a dip in a chemical cleaner (still have part of a bottle of concentrate that came with some reloading gear an old fellow gave me years ago when he gave up loading his own) to get the cases cleaner. I suspect your dad put a few rounds downrange with those cases years ago.
Interestingly a few years ago I came across a few boxes of old factory primed brass in a few different calibers (leftovers from an old gun store that had closed years ago). There were a couple of those same style 222 boxes you showed earlier in the batch. Oddly the 222's had an odd copper colored primer, don't know if that was standard for that caliber in primed brass or if it was just a peculiarity of that particular lot. They didn't get much interest at a couple collector shows so I ended up selling them to a friend who loaded 222 and he used them, said they shot fine with his favorite load of 4198 powder.