case life

[ballkeeper]

i know it depends on loads,etc but roughly how many times do you reload your 310,222 an 223 cases

[dromia]

It depends on your load, loading technique and type of case.

I have 310 cadet cases that have been reloaded 30 plus times and I will expect them to just keep on going, the cases are straight walled, never get resized, trimmed or crimped and is a low pressure round

My 222 cases will not last that long on full pressure loading and will need annealing so maybe a dozen times, I never crimp. It is a bottleneck case that needs sizing down each time and trimmed occasionally, even with my low pressure indoor rounds the neck sizing will mean that they will need annealing from time to time but they will last a lot longer than the full stoke loaded cases.

Different manufacturers seem to have different qualities to their brass and some will go for longer than others.

So depends, you are really comparing apples and oranges with a round like the 310 Cadet against the .222".

[ballkeeper]

thanks dromia,
just trying to get a rough idea costs etc really on each of the cals that interest me ,
so far i ve only been reloading .38s/357 to the rang limets, had been resizing /crimping them every time

[dromia]

You need to crimp if the round is going in a tubular magazine. The 310 Cadet bullet is heeled to it doesn't need case resizing for bullet retention to hold it in place and as it was designed for single shot Martinis, magazine and feeding robustness isn't necessary.

[Mattnall]

My 223 cases with a moderate target load have had 13/14 firings (depending upon where they are in the rotation) and I've just started to get the odd split neck, about 1 every weekend's competition (about 200-250 rounds) and just as often no damaged ones at all.
When this attrition rate reaches a more regular occurrence I'll bin the lot.

[ballkeeper]

matt,there lasting well then,

annealing how often would it need doing guys

[Maggot]

Not worth the aggro to be fair. You can pick GGG once fired up for peanuts, shoot it half a dozen times and bin it. Aside of annealing life will depend whether you full size of neck only and if you full size how much. My AR needs very little to cycle nicely. On tother hand I arsed up a while back and was separating cases in 4-5 firings...Ah! Sorted but I always keep a Sep case extractor in the butt trap just in case.

[Mattnall]

matt,there lasting well then,

annealing how often would it need doing guys

I haven't annealed any of my cases.
I'm not pushing them super fast and as they need to fit several rifles I f/l size each time. I guess if I was trying to push the speed to the limit it'd be harder on not only the cases but the rifles as well.