Retiring brass

[ovenpaa]

No this is not a thread on how to make money for the twilight years, although given the number of cases I 'retired' this morning it could be. I have just relegated 600 ish .308 cases to the scrap bin, however on this occasion it was a bin marked 'AI shot brass' which suggests that deep down I may just delve into it again one day.

Anyway given that I .308 hammer brass quite hard I think the mix of Lapua and Federal I shoot with has lasted very well, certainly way of ten firings per case ans if it was not for the shiny marks on the head and some 'oops that was easy to push in' primer pockets on some I would probably still be shooting the.

I have replaced them with RWS brass so I need to do a H2o check on the new brass to see how much it varies by and then get some built to see how much the load needs tweaking by.

So when do you take your brass out of service?

[spud]

since i started annealing i havent chucked a single case


you are more than welcome to send some over dave to try and rejuvinate them if you want

[DaveT]

I generally go on both calibre and condition .....EG for 338 Lap Mag I tend to fix on 10 firings max and then discard unless something 'nasty' arises re condition first.... which it has not to date (this is mainly neck sizing I must add so brass not worked very hard) ... Why a limit of 10? No real science to that other than it is a powerful calibre and I don't much fancy taking chances with 95 grains of powder going off next to my ear!.... Have to say that the brass still looks too good to junk but you have to call it a day somwhere!

For my 308 Win and 260 Rem I look at case condition indicators but , again with mostly neck sizing and occasional shoulder bump , I am getting 20 loadings and they still look too good to chuck!

All Lapua brass which I 'mother' fairly well.

I will tend to reject load test brass if I have gone a bit too far and gotten significant ejector marks but other than that I look for neck splits , Incipient case head separation thinning (check a sampling at each reload) and web expansion (will it easily fit a shell-holder test... fairly crude?)

[ovenpaa]

I also tend to look for loose primer pockets (How loose is too loose?) Web expansion and physical damage. My lot has been retired due to excessive ejector marks.

[Steve]

I havent binned any 303 yet,but plenty of 357 when it splits.

I neck size 303 so not sure how many reloads i can expect out of them anyway.

[DaveT]

I also tend to look for loose primer pockets (How loose is too loose?) Web expansion and physical damage. My lot has been retired due to excessive ejector marks.

I guess 'too loose' is partly relative 'feel' compared to normal priming resistance but I have seen a good tip on ammosmith where he inverted a primer (anvil down) and picked it up off the bench with the primer pocket of the case....waaay too lose in my view but somewhere in between is the judgement call.