The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Not N540, but the principle is more or less right - they are hot loads. Have to be to get the distance.

as for the antisocial angle though, much rather have an f class shooter next to me than a t*@t with a muzzle brake!

I've used my privi brass 5 times in my .308 and they still seem okay.

They've been full length sized once, then neck sized after that.

They've been used with average weight loads of Varget, N550, N150 etc.

Got about 200 sitting in the garage waiting for a clean and reload number 6 :)

To answer the OP, as Dodgyrog says, 10 plus.
I have some 303 HXP brass that I have been using for lead to 300yd loads and I have lost track of how many times they have been reloaded.
Would take a guess at 20 plus. Some just crack around the head area where they have stretched so get binned.
I decided, when I got into fullbore reloading, to stock up on brass. In 303 I bought 500 factory FNM and got another 1000 once fired cases of a chum. Only have one 303 and these get neck sized via Lee collet die. FNM used for fmj loads and the 300 HXP cases used for lead.
Have similar brass quantity for my Schmidt.
My soon to arrive 260 remington already has 500 new Lapua cases waiting.
HTH
Tony

I think that I bought my 44-40 in 1984 along with 200 Remington cases. They are only used with light loads for up to 100yd shooting. They must have been reloaded somewhere between 60 and 100 times. When a few start to split at the neck, I simply anneal the whole lot. Numbers gradually dwindled due to the odd split and losses in the long grass, so I bought another 100 this year to top them up. I am 71 years old----I don't expect that I shall need to buy any more,
Fred

I don't keep track of how many times I reuse cases, just bin them when they split. I have a few hundred .223 Remington cases bought 8 years ago with my Speedmaster that are only now beginning to crack. I could not hazard a guess as to how many times they have been reused, but they have always been full length sized, the Speedmaster AR type chamber does not seem to like neck sized brass. I have seen several people have major jamming problems with neck sized brass in Speedmasters, I don't know if this is peculiar to SGC rifles or it it's common to AR types in general.

One other useful thing to remember is to let all those people with spare cash use Lapua etc expensive brass and use the stuff they don't.
I took some RWS and Sako brass off of a guy who had shot factory rounds and was THROWING IT AWAY!!!!
I also reload berdan primed MEN and DAG 7,62 and American boxer primed 7,62 brass - all obtained for free. It's good brass and can give a lot of use and the good thing about it is that I don't care if it wears out as I have 1000's of them - all for free!
One other good point is that the load of powder used in military brass can be 5 to 10% lower to achieve the same velocity.
It's a win win win scenario for me.

Oh? We were told reloading Berdan primed brass was too difficult...

meles meles wrote:Oh? We were told reloading Berdan primed brass was too difficult...

I spread the rumour so I get more free brass which is quite easy to reload.

meles meles wrote:Oh? We were told reloading Berdan primed brass was too difficult...

Oddly....

I am a cartridge collector. Quite keen but not anal enough to collect live.

A few months back I added another 7.62x51 RG case to my collection...dead common except for one thing.

It was boxer primed (I think it came from RUAG as it goes as it was deffo loaded abroad).

John (Arthur Daley) MH was pedalling them en masse but was kind enough to let me have one for the box.

Quite a lot of it is boxer these days.

Some of my original privy brass did 10ish, I still have a handful that I am re annealing regularly (In a mixed batch) to see how far they can go.

The throat in my M67 is generous and the necks widen quite a bit so it is a good test.

The brass hardly moves in my Dolphin (Ta Mik).