What’s in your bucket? A review of common brass dimensions
This little project started off while reading a forum question that asked which brass is better to keep and which is junk. Realizing everyone has their Ford or Chevy, I decided to evaluate a selection of typical of range pickup brass. Almost universally, when this question is asked you hear what is considered to be good stuff and almost everyone says to toss AMERC as junk (and quite often a few other well known brands), but few give a good reason why. I figured I might find an answer for myself, at least to satisfy my own curiosity.
One of the benefits of retirement is that you have a lot of “free time”. I used to think that was extra time I could use for hobbies and pursuits, now I know it really means all the time you spend doing things without any pay.
I had about 5 gallons of 45 acp range pickups I had just sorted by headstamp, and decided to put some to the sacrificial dremel. I narrowed my selection to 15 common headstamps and due to the number decided to only sample cut one of each brand (retirement has other prerequisites… like frequent naps). I randomly selected each sample based on an appearance of once fired factory brass, (culling those obviously reloaded) and having no obvious defects, dents or other stress. I picked 20 for weighing and decided to use only 10 for other external measurements. I then ran each through my RCBS sizing/decapping die. Although vibrator cleaned, no other case prep was done.
To section, I snugged the case in a table vise and used my dremel cut-off wheel to slice each in half lengthwise. I tried to cut perpendicular to the walls, through the primer pocket and leave the brand stamp readable. I used a knife to lightly scrape the burrs off the cut edges. I numbered each half for later analysis ID.
Here is the obligatory pre-mission group photo, notice that some seem to use dirtier powder:
I initially inspected them with a hand held magnifier for obvious differences but that was not enough magnification. Keeping in mind that this is a small sample and observations are only general indicators. 20 samples will provide a fair number for analysis of things like average weight and standard deviation of external tolerances but additional samples and lab quality tools would be necessary to provide better analysis and definite conclusions... Even when using only 10 cases for things like OAL and case mouth thickness, I think the results give a reasonable comparison between the brand samples… Good enough for me.
Here’s the disclaimer you all have been waiting for… I’m not a engineer, machinist, metallurgist or brass expert and I don’t know enough about its characteristics, limitations or internal ballistics to give valid advice or recommendations. Any attempt to analyze or explain anything herein is only my opinion. I present my review data in the interest of discussion, under the premise that there are certain characteristics of reusable brass designs generally accepted by most of us as desirable and this exercise may help identify or show some of those. We can discuss the data and each form their own conclusion for their purposes.
I used a 10x microscope hooked to my computer for viewing & photographing and took measurements with a micrometer and digital vernier caliper for each case in several places to try and arrive at nominal values. Data was compiled in Excel where averages and Std.Deviations were calculated.
Some cases were fairly uniform while others showed a wide range of tolerances. Even with this small sample, by comparing the tolerance range and std. deviations for each brand we can get an idea of quality and uniformity, thus determine which brand is manufactured to a “better” standard.
General visual inspection yielded the following observations;
• The flash hole on the Winchester stood out as much larger than any other brand, at least 2x larger. This is not noticeable when looking from the back down the pocket but in section it is noticeable. It may be that the cutting wheel sliced this one just right and not the other 14 but I don’t think so. Maybe it was a prepped case.
• Some cases have a much thicker web area at the case-head / primer pocket area. Again, the Winchester appeared to be the thickest.
• Some cases have a thicker, more rounded wall section at the web shoulder area while others are straighter with thinner walls joining the web. Some almost look like they were inflated by a balloon while others look made with a well formed punch.
• The floor of the case is flat in some and raised in a hump (convex) in others.
• All cases appear to have uniform wall thickness from the mouth to a point about midway down the case where the brass starts to progressively thicken to the web shoulder. The location of this point of departure varies from brand to brand. Some cases have a noticeable change in taper from this point while others change gradually and continue the thin walls much further toward the web.
Keeping in mind that this started out to see which brands were better cases for reloading and which should be discarded or at least not be used for “hot” loads, I didn’t want to get too complicated in my analysis. One characteristic considered is standards. I assumed that the major OEM’s produce a cartridge with conformance to standard specs and only a cursory verification is necessary for the little known headstamps to check their tolerance to that spec. If their measurements were similar to the major names then I assume they are generally within standards. Any anomalies should show up quickly (like the nny primer pocket depth).
External measurements were taken on cases of each brand selected like the cut cases, then sized & deprimed. 20 cases were used to average for total weight in grains but only 10 to measure thickness at mouth, head diameter at base and primer pocket depth. Averages and Standard deviations were calculated for all measurements taken in order to evaluate OEM consistency and uniformity. This is an important consideration when comparing brands with similar averages.
A primary sign of quality is uniformity. Dimensional uniformity within points of a single case and between several cases of the same OEM is what I was looking for. Brass thickness at various points and how uniform it is affects our loads in many ways. Some areas of particular interest include the case mouth, the web, shoulder walls, and the point on the side wall where brass starts to thicken. Another area of interest is the diameter of the head area just above the extractor groove (at the web) looking for excessive expansion. This critical area is where cracks, bulges and case separations often occur if the brass is stressed, thin or otherwise pressure too great.
A quick check of the OD at the mouth showed most to be .467” since they had just been resized. Most cases also had a head diameter of .471 to .473. One notable exception is the Privy Partizan cases with nny headstamp –Their 79.1g avg. weight was much lighter than most (86.1g group avg) and the head dia. was at the upper end at .474”.
When measuring thickness of the sectioned cases, the area where the case wall transforms to the web shoulder radius was the hardest point to measure accurately and this area appears to have a wide variety of profiles . Keep that in mind when reviewing the data. Probably the best way to evaluate the shoulder area is to look at the photos. Pics show each case brand next to a Winchester on the left for comparison.
one photo compares the case walls and the other shows the case head/web section.
Points measured included;
Web Thickness- Measured on either side of the flash hole from primer pocket to inside floor. There seem to be two groups, thin webs of .40-.45” and thick ones over .55”, not much in-between. IMO thicker is better.
Distance Web Floor to Mouth- Inside measurement from the case mouth to the floor of the case. Attempted to get to a flat area when side radius or center hump was in the way. Non-flat bottoms appear to account for up to .016” of difference in depth measurements. Cases with thinner webs tend to have deeper cases which may help lower pressure. This was an attempt to compare potential volume without water.
Case Wall- Cases are constructed with a thin wall from the mouth down to about midway where it starts thickening. I called that point of departure the “Seat Point”. That is the point where the bullet, if seated deeper in the case, may start bulging the case outward due to the increased inside wall thickness. My method to measure the seat point started with examining the wall under a microscope and using a fine black marker to mark the point of departure. I then used the caliper with the microscope to measure from the case mouth to that seat point and also from the floor to that seat point. In the table these two measurements are called the “Mouth2Seat” and “Web2Seat”. One might assume adding these two distances should equal the inside distance, Web2Mouth. but in most cases it doesn’t, due to various errors such as angle of caliper, minute differences in visual measure points and case floor variances.
Case Mouth - Initially I measured 3 thickness points around each sectioned case half and averaged the results. This proved to be inadequate to evaluate uniformity of each brand so I measured all 150 cases in 4 places around each case mouth to arrive at the values indicated in the table. I took the measurement past the first .05” of the mouth up to about .125”. This amounts to 690 readings for the case mouth alone and should give a fair idea of the upper case wall & mouth thickness. Taking a too small purchase on the mouth lip would only measure brass possibly thinned due to previous crimping and stretching. Too much introduces error due to case contour and caliper alignment.
I also calculated the Min to Max tolerance of all 10 cases (40 measurements)as a group. That is called Mouth-Tol in the table and gives an indication of case wall variance. Smaller is usually better. It’s not a perfect indicator as some cases may have measurements like (.01, .0095, .01, .01) or (.0095, .011, .0105, .01) while another would be (.12, .008, .0105, .011) and one brand might have 30 of its 40 measures equal .10 while another brand would be all over the map yet in the same Min-Max range. I wasn’t able to easily reflect this in the data.
Primer pockets were checked for depth only, most were in the .117”-.119” range with a few .116” & .120”. Variance of .001” could be included because I didn’t clean them. A notable exception was nny again, which measured.128” depth on all cases.
Case weight is probably one of the most often used measurements to estimate perceptions of quality. At the least, close weights are thought to indicate closer tolerances and uniformity. Each case was weighed to the nearest .1 grain on a PACT BBK-II digital scale at 70F room temperature. A 20 gram check weight was referenced periodically to verify scale accuracy.
OAL was not considered since cases had unknown history and were not trimmed. Case volumes were not undertaken and will be left for some other enterprising soul to report.
Next is the table of data comparisons...
Following are comparison pics and my general observations for individual brands with specific measurements found in the table above; if you are asked for a password to open the pics, try opensezme This is the first time I've used photobucket to host pics so I don't know what to expect.
Winchester- Avg.Wt.= 85.5g, SD=3.9 Used as the baseline standard others are compared to. Can be seen on the left in all pics below. Has the thickest web @ .075” and largest flash hole of all cases evaluated. Mouth2seat is .405” vs the group average of .38” which could allow deeper bullet seating. Although popular and widely used it surprisingly has some of the worst tolerances that rivaled AMERC.
---------------------
Federal- Avg.Wt.= 90.9, SD=0.2 While weighing I noticed two different batches of Federal marked cases. (I’m sure there are many more) One is a darker color brass with a larger flash hole. It averaged 83.2 gr. The other is a bright shiny brass and has a dot before and after the Federal name. The cut case is of the 2 dot type. These weighed more, averaging 90.9gr and their head dia. were all .470”– one of the smallest and most consistent of the batch. Both are well made with very good uniformity.
---------------------
R-P- Avg.Wt.=83.4, SD=1.0 ,
---------------------
CCI- Avg.Wt.= 85.2, SD=0.8,
---------------------
CBC- Avg.Wt.= 87.5, SD=2.5,Magtech brand-nothing remarkable, Closer examination of the inside wall showed a lengthwise crack clear through the upper ½ that was not initially noticed.
---------------------
PMC- Avg.Wt.=88.7 , SD=2.2,
---------------------
Aguila- Avg.Wt.= 85.0, SD=0.7 , Very uniform throughout with low std.deviations.
---------------------
Blazer- Only had one case. An average looking with marginal web and short bullet seat.
---------------------
GFL- Avg.Wt.= 84.7 , SD=2.6, Thick walls at mouth & wide variances. Not one of the top choices.
---------------------
Geco- Convex floor, short seat and thin walls & thin web . I thought Swiss brass was supposed to be good? Maybe made of a super alloy?
---------------------
AMERC- Avg.Wt.=94.1, SD=3.7, The mouth is typically thicker than average. The floor at the web has a dished area tapering into the flash hole which gives it a wavy profile that is difficult to measure. The web is the thinnest of the bunch but the wall at the web shoulder is the thickest. Comparing to others, there is a lot less brass thickness in many critical areas even though the case weighs the heaviest and its SD is lower than Winchester. AMERC also has the largest head and mouth thickness variances. They must think tolerance is a good thing as they give you plenty of it. Everybody’s favorite-(to discard) What’s there not to like about this one?
---------------------
WCC 71- Avg.Wt.=89.9, SD=0.5, This one surprised me. I expected either the same as Winchester or a bit beefier since its MilSurp. What I found was, despite similar numbers, it appears to be a slightly different design. The walls taper more gradually, appearing thinner further down toward the shoulder, Has a .054” web, a small flash hole and flat floor with smaller radius at the shoulders. There is a canneluer ring around the case at about .31” from the mouth but the walls do not start thickening until .425” and then not by very much at all-I had to really split hairs under the microscope to select a point I thought was where the transition began. The walls and shoulder area looks thinner than many but the table numbers say on average it is not. I wonder if this is typical brass or a special alloy.
---------------------
PMP- Avg.Wt.=84.7, SD=1.4, Dims typical and average
---------------------
TZZ- Avg.Wt.=85.2 , SD=1.1, Case mouth a little on the thick side. Good Mouth2Seat & web, other dims average
---------------------
nny- Avg.Wt.=79.1, SD=0.9, ppd=.128, hd=.474, A very light case with thin but uniform walls. Convex floor and thinner web type. OD of head largest of the group (.474”-also PMP) and very deep primer pockets (.128”). Could these be ideal for open bolt guns?
---------------------
Well there you have it, not totally scientific, but enough info hopefully for you to draw your own conclusions next time you look in your brass bucket. Use the table above to pick your favorite range pickups for potential reuse.
Although these measurements help us see there are differences in various case brands, they really don’t answer some important questions…
When is the case mouth too thick?
What thickness is too thin at the shoulder?
How thick should the web be?
Does this one’s alloy mix allow it to be thinner?
Will this one stretch more than that one?
Unfortunately I can’t answer those questions. These are all engineering questions few if any of us will be able to answer. Other than standard specs, about the only guide we can use to make our guess is what the major OEM’s measurements are and what has worked in the past... oh yeah and what the guys on the internet say.
Hope this is useful for some of you
This little project started off while reading a forum question that asked which brass is better to keep and which is junk. Realizing everyone has their Ford or Chevy, I decided to evaluate a selection of typical of range pickup brass. Almost universally, when this question is asked you hear what is considered to be good stuff and almost everyone says to toss AMERC as junk (and quite often a few other well known brands), but few give a good reason why. I figured I might find an answer for myself, at least to satisfy my own curiosity.
One of the benefits of retirement is that you have a lot of “free time”. I used to think that was extra time I could use for hobbies and pursuits, now I know it really means all the time you spend doing things without any pay.
I had about 5 gallons of 45 acp range pickups I had just sorted by headstamp, and decided to put some to the sacrificial dremel. I narrowed my selection to 15 common headstamps and due to the number decided to only sample cut one of each brand (retirement has other prerequisites… like frequent naps). I randomly selected each sample based on an appearance of once fired factory brass, (culling those obviously reloaded) and having no obvious defects, dents or other stress. I picked 20 for weighing and decided to use only 10 for other external measurements. I then ran each through my RCBS sizing/decapping die. Although vibrator cleaned, no other case prep was done.
To section, I snugged the case in a table vise and used my dremel cut-off wheel to slice each in half lengthwise. I tried to cut perpendicular to the walls, through the primer pocket and leave the brand stamp readable. I used a knife to lightly scrape the burrs off the cut edges. I numbered each half for later analysis ID.
Here is the obligatory pre-mission group photo, notice that some seem to use dirtier powder:
I initially inspected them with a hand held magnifier for obvious differences but that was not enough magnification. Keeping in mind that this is a small sample and observations are only general indicators. 20 samples will provide a fair number for analysis of things like average weight and standard deviation of external tolerances but additional samples and lab quality tools would be necessary to provide better analysis and definite conclusions... Even when using only 10 cases for things like OAL and case mouth thickness, I think the results give a reasonable comparison between the brand samples… Good enough for me.
Here’s the disclaimer you all have been waiting for… I’m not a engineer, machinist, metallurgist or brass expert and I don’t know enough about its characteristics, limitations or internal ballistics to give valid advice or recommendations. Any attempt to analyze or explain anything herein is only my opinion. I present my review data in the interest of discussion, under the premise that there are certain characteristics of reusable brass designs generally accepted by most of us as desirable and this exercise may help identify or show some of those. We can discuss the data and each form their own conclusion for their purposes.
I used a 10x microscope hooked to my computer for viewing & photographing and took measurements with a micrometer and digital vernier caliper for each case in several places to try and arrive at nominal values. Data was compiled in Excel where averages and Std.Deviations were calculated.
Some cases were fairly uniform while others showed a wide range of tolerances. Even with this small sample, by comparing the tolerance range and std. deviations for each brand we can get an idea of quality and uniformity, thus determine which brand is manufactured to a “better” standard.
General visual inspection yielded the following observations;
• The flash hole on the Winchester stood out as much larger than any other brand, at least 2x larger. This is not noticeable when looking from the back down the pocket but in section it is noticeable. It may be that the cutting wheel sliced this one just right and not the other 14 but I don’t think so. Maybe it was a prepped case.
• Some cases have a much thicker web area at the case-head / primer pocket area. Again, the Winchester appeared to be the thickest.
• Some cases have a thicker, more rounded wall section at the web shoulder area while others are straighter with thinner walls joining the web. Some almost look like they were inflated by a balloon while others look made with a well formed punch.
• The floor of the case is flat in some and raised in a hump (convex) in others.
• All cases appear to have uniform wall thickness from the mouth to a point about midway down the case where the brass starts to progressively thicken to the web shoulder. The location of this point of departure varies from brand to brand. Some cases have a noticeable change in taper from this point while others change gradually and continue the thin walls much further toward the web.
Keeping in mind that this started out to see which brands were better cases for reloading and which should be discarded or at least not be used for “hot” loads, I didn’t want to get too complicated in my analysis. One characteristic considered is standards. I assumed that the major OEM’s produce a cartridge with conformance to standard specs and only a cursory verification is necessary for the little known headstamps to check their tolerance to that spec. If their measurements were similar to the major names then I assume they are generally within standards. Any anomalies should show up quickly (like the nny primer pocket depth).
External measurements were taken on cases of each brand selected like the cut cases, then sized & deprimed. 20 cases were used to average for total weight in grains but only 10 to measure thickness at mouth, head diameter at base and primer pocket depth. Averages and Standard deviations were calculated for all measurements taken in order to evaluate OEM consistency and uniformity. This is an important consideration when comparing brands with similar averages.
A primary sign of quality is uniformity. Dimensional uniformity within points of a single case and between several cases of the same OEM is what I was looking for. Brass thickness at various points and how uniform it is affects our loads in many ways. Some areas of particular interest include the case mouth, the web, shoulder walls, and the point on the side wall where brass starts to thicken. Another area of interest is the diameter of the head area just above the extractor groove (at the web) looking for excessive expansion. This critical area is where cracks, bulges and case separations often occur if the brass is stressed, thin or otherwise pressure too great.
A quick check of the OD at the mouth showed most to be .467” since they had just been resized. Most cases also had a head diameter of .471 to .473. One notable exception is the Privy Partizan cases with nny headstamp –Their 79.1g avg. weight was much lighter than most (86.1g group avg) and the head dia. was at the upper end at .474”.
When measuring thickness of the sectioned cases, the area where the case wall transforms to the web shoulder radius was the hardest point to measure accurately and this area appears to have a wide variety of profiles . Keep that in mind when reviewing the data. Probably the best way to evaluate the shoulder area is to look at the photos. Pics show each case brand next to a Winchester on the left for comparison.
one photo compares the case walls and the other shows the case head/web section.
Points measured included;
Web Thickness- Measured on either side of the flash hole from primer pocket to inside floor. There seem to be two groups, thin webs of .40-.45” and thick ones over .55”, not much in-between. IMO thicker is better.
Distance Web Floor to Mouth- Inside measurement from the case mouth to the floor of the case. Attempted to get to a flat area when side radius or center hump was in the way. Non-flat bottoms appear to account for up to .016” of difference in depth measurements. Cases with thinner webs tend to have deeper cases which may help lower pressure. This was an attempt to compare potential volume without water.
Case Wall- Cases are constructed with a thin wall from the mouth down to about midway where it starts thickening. I called that point of departure the “Seat Point”. That is the point where the bullet, if seated deeper in the case, may start bulging the case outward due to the increased inside wall thickness. My method to measure the seat point started with examining the wall under a microscope and using a fine black marker to mark the point of departure. I then used the caliper with the microscope to measure from the case mouth to that seat point and also from the floor to that seat point. In the table these two measurements are called the “Mouth2Seat” and “Web2Seat”. One might assume adding these two distances should equal the inside distance, Web2Mouth. but in most cases it doesn’t, due to various errors such as angle of caliper, minute differences in visual measure points and case floor variances.
Case Mouth - Initially I measured 3 thickness points around each sectioned case half and averaged the results. This proved to be inadequate to evaluate uniformity of each brand so I measured all 150 cases in 4 places around each case mouth to arrive at the values indicated in the table. I took the measurement past the first .05” of the mouth up to about .125”. This amounts to 690 readings for the case mouth alone and should give a fair idea of the upper case wall & mouth thickness. Taking a too small purchase on the mouth lip would only measure brass possibly thinned due to previous crimping and stretching. Too much introduces error due to case contour and caliper alignment.
I also calculated the Min to Max tolerance of all 10 cases (40 measurements)as a group. That is called Mouth-Tol in the table and gives an indication of case wall variance. Smaller is usually better. It’s not a perfect indicator as some cases may have measurements like (.01, .0095, .01, .01) or (.0095, .011, .0105, .01) while another would be (.12, .008, .0105, .011) and one brand might have 30 of its 40 measures equal .10 while another brand would be all over the map yet in the same Min-Max range. I wasn’t able to easily reflect this in the data.
Primer pockets were checked for depth only, most were in the .117”-.119” range with a few .116” & .120”. Variance of .001” could be included because I didn’t clean them. A notable exception was nny again, which measured.128” depth on all cases.
Case weight is probably one of the most often used measurements to estimate perceptions of quality. At the least, close weights are thought to indicate closer tolerances and uniformity. Each case was weighed to the nearest .1 grain on a PACT BBK-II digital scale at 70F room temperature. A 20 gram check weight was referenced periodically to verify scale accuracy.
OAL was not considered since cases had unknown history and were not trimmed. Case volumes were not undertaken and will be left for some other enterprising soul to report.
Next is the table of data comparisons...
Following are comparison pics and my general observations for individual brands with specific measurements found in the table above; if you are asked for a password to open the pics, try opensezme This is the first time I've used photobucket to host pics so I don't know what to expect.
Winchester- Avg.Wt.= 85.5g, SD=3.9 Used as the baseline standard others are compared to. Can be seen on the left in all pics below. Has the thickest web @ .075” and largest flash hole of all cases evaluated. Mouth2seat is .405” vs the group average of .38” which could allow deeper bullet seating. Although popular and widely used it surprisingly has some of the worst tolerances that rivaled AMERC.
---------------------
Federal- Avg.Wt.= 90.9, SD=0.2 While weighing I noticed two different batches of Federal marked cases. (I’m sure there are many more) One is a darker color brass with a larger flash hole. It averaged 83.2 gr. The other is a bright shiny brass and has a dot before and after the Federal name. The cut case is of the 2 dot type. These weighed more, averaging 90.9gr and their head dia. were all .470”– one of the smallest and most consistent of the batch. Both are well made with very good uniformity.
---------------------
R-P- Avg.Wt.=83.4, SD=1.0 ,
---------------------
CCI- Avg.Wt.= 85.2, SD=0.8,
---------------------
CBC- Avg.Wt.= 87.5, SD=2.5,Magtech brand-nothing remarkable, Closer examination of the inside wall showed a lengthwise crack clear through the upper ½ that was not initially noticed.
---------------------
PMC- Avg.Wt.=88.7 , SD=2.2,
---------------------
Aguila- Avg.Wt.= 85.0, SD=0.7 , Very uniform throughout with low std.deviations.
---------------------
Blazer- Only had one case. An average looking with marginal web and short bullet seat.
---------------------
GFL- Avg.Wt.= 84.7 , SD=2.6, Thick walls at mouth & wide variances. Not one of the top choices.
---------------------
Geco- Convex floor, short seat and thin walls & thin web . I thought Swiss brass was supposed to be good? Maybe made of a super alloy?
---------------------
AMERC- Avg.Wt.=94.1, SD=3.7, The mouth is typically thicker than average. The floor at the web has a dished area tapering into the flash hole which gives it a wavy profile that is difficult to measure. The web is the thinnest of the bunch but the wall at the web shoulder is the thickest. Comparing to others, there is a lot less brass thickness in many critical areas even though the case weighs the heaviest and its SD is lower than Winchester. AMERC also has the largest head and mouth thickness variances. They must think tolerance is a good thing as they give you plenty of it. Everybody’s favorite-(to discard) What’s there not to like about this one?
---------------------
WCC 71- Avg.Wt.=89.9, SD=0.5, This one surprised me. I expected either the same as Winchester or a bit beefier since its MilSurp. What I found was, despite similar numbers, it appears to be a slightly different design. The walls taper more gradually, appearing thinner further down toward the shoulder, Has a .054” web, a small flash hole and flat floor with smaller radius at the shoulders. There is a canneluer ring around the case at about .31” from the mouth but the walls do not start thickening until .425” and then not by very much at all-I had to really split hairs under the microscope to select a point I thought was where the transition began. The walls and shoulder area looks thinner than many but the table numbers say on average it is not. I wonder if this is typical brass or a special alloy.
---------------------
PMP- Avg.Wt.=84.7, SD=1.4, Dims typical and average
---------------------
TZZ- Avg.Wt.=85.2 , SD=1.1, Case mouth a little on the thick side. Good Mouth2Seat & web, other dims average
---------------------
nny- Avg.Wt.=79.1, SD=0.9, ppd=.128, hd=.474, A very light case with thin but uniform walls. Convex floor and thinner web type. OD of head largest of the group (.474”-also PMP) and very deep primer pockets (.128”). Could these be ideal for open bolt guns?
---------------------
Well there you have it, not totally scientific, but enough info hopefully for you to draw your own conclusions next time you look in your brass bucket. Use the table above to pick your favorite range pickups for potential reuse.
Although these measurements help us see there are differences in various case brands, they really don’t answer some important questions…
When is the case mouth too thick?
What thickness is too thin at the shoulder?
How thick should the web be?
Does this one’s alloy mix allow it to be thinner?
Will this one stretch more than that one?
Unfortunately I can’t answer those questions. These are all engineering questions few if any of us will be able to answer. Other than standard specs, about the only guide we can use to make our guess is what the major OEM’s measurements are and what has worked in the past... oh yeah and what the guys on the internet say.
Hope this is useful for some of you
Last edited:
