Handgun Brass Prep?

[Rick N Bama]

This may be the wrong forum for this & if it is, please forgive me.


Will some of you fellows elaborate on how you prep your handgun brass? I’ve never done more than tumble clean mine & maybe clean out the primer pockets ever few loadings. I’m wondering if fully prepping the brass (even annealing it) will have much effect on accuracy. Any tips or hints will be greately appreciated.


Thanks,

Rick

[kodiak1]

Rick I handle mine pretty much like rifle brass.
Tumble, resize or necksize clean primer pocket, measure size if needed, prime and load.
The two times I tried to anneal I had a horrible time and got po'ed so I haven't been annealing.

I did though buy one of the Hornady annealing kits and I am going to try it.

I know about the standing them up in water and tipping them but I wasn't happy with the evenes of the heating that way.

Ken.

[Leftoverdj]

You gotta be a lot better shot with a pistol than I am to worry about that stuff. I load them, shoot them, and throw them away when the necks split. If brass replacement were a problem, and I really needed to anneal, I'd use the water method and a little lazy susan (revolving stand).

[SharpsShooter]

Tumble, Size & Decap. I clean primer pockets with a small wire brush in my Dremel. It is super fast that way. Prime & load as normal.

SS

[nicholst55]

I once went to great trouble prepping a batch of .45 Auto brass for an informal competition. It was all from the same lot, and I deburred the flash holes, trimmed it to uniform length, cleaned the primer pockets, etc. I even hand weighed all the charges. That lot of ammo shot real well. Not well enough to make me want to repeat all that work though.

Now I just tumble it, and run it through the Dillon.

[Maven]

I do most of the above, but also trim new brass to a uniform length. In the .357mag., brass is trimmed to 1.25" for use with Ly. #358429, as per Brian Pierce's recommendation, so that I can roll crimp it properly. Btw, I used to inside neck ream certain brands of once-fired .357mag. brass, e.g., Win., when a jacketed bullet wouldn't enter the case. Sometimes all that I needed to do was remove the roll crimp, but many times the case needed reaming to the depth of the reamer itself.

[gray wolf]

I do believe that all handgun brass is not the same. By that I mean all calibers don't react the same way. some will stretch more than others. If it gets out of hand and you think your crimp will be effected or it may not chamber then trim it. I have found that primer pockets can be a little forgiving and let you prime a couple of times without cleaning. If they look dirty to me or I think I may not get a good primer seat I clean them. As for softening the brass I have never found the need. Most pistol brass goes a long way before it splits If I see cracks or splits I ditch it.
pistol brass is easy to come by in most cases and not worth taking a chance or the trouble involved in annealing it. 45 acp in most guns will not stretch and in many cases it gets smaller.
Most people I know and have known do not do to much with 45 acp. Clean it load it and shoot it.
Clean brass is nice and will save your dies from scratches.
Use good judgment when reloading and always be safe. When in doubt I always go by the book. I have found the advise here is very good and the guy's know there stuff.
I may add that when I load rifle cases I do take more time and look at more things than I do for pistol. But I never try to cut corners and risk missing a safety issue.

[Flinchrock]

Trimming to more or less uniform length ( plus or minus a couple thou ) helps keep your crimp ( taper or roll ) more consistant. Constisantcy (sp) equals accuracy! I get better results keeping everything as consistant as possible, whether it's muzzleloaders, .45ACP or .300 Win Mag.

However, for practice plinking, I mostly use my older brass that has already been trimmed and then I just tumble and load!

[mike in co]

saying pistol brass is sorta like saying automobile, fruit, veggie's. tooo many vaariables.
target/ipsic/plinking....different levels of accuracy required.
i dont do pistol target......my process works for nra action/ipsc/idpa/50yd steel.

9mm, 40s&w,45acp........not much work but do use controlled lots of brass.

9x21 , 38 spcl, 357 mag, and 44 rem mag.........

all are trimmed to length, internal debur(let the sizing die debur the outside)

38/357/ 44rem get roll crimped.....

9mm/40s&W/9x21/45acp get very mild taper crimp....typically just enough to take the case mouth back to spec.

if its winter when the brass gets here, i often resize and trim to lenght...any caliber....just to keep from going wacko.........

mike in co

[Bass Ackward]

Handgun brass is a pretty simple generalization for me. I look at it many different ways. If you are trying to take a low pressure cartridge, your setup already. Like 45 Colt or AR or 38 Special. If your trying to take a high pressure cartridge and shoot it slower with PB, you are going to have dirty chambers and poorer ES than you otherwise would. Your gun will require cleaning more often to avoid loading problems. Since you are running low pressures already, you could lose obturation on the base if you lose enough pressure that you were counting on and lead and your powder will burn erratically.

So here are my categories:

Jacketed: No. Nothing special. This is new brass until it ain't and then it moves to cast use. It gets trimmed for uniformity and the grooves, inside the neck from crimping in the canelure, removed if they aren't trimmed off.

Cast / GCs: Probably nothing special to a slight anneal when needed as this is mid level to full power stuff anyway. If the chambers shoot clean, it's fine.

Cast / Plain Base: Whole new ball game. I always anneal 357s and 44s which are the only high pressure calibers I shoot much and debur the flash hole. It helps with consistent ignition. Anneal helps with bullet run-out of loaded PB ammunition. Most often nose punch fit is the actual culprit, but brass anneal minimizes this. I've had it cut .011 of bullet run out off of unannealed brass. Since the base is your guide, if the nose is running out, your base is now too.

[AZ-Stew]

Good stuff so far.

New, unfired brass for revolvers (which is about all I ever shoot) is trimmed to length, then lightly deburred inside and out. I seldom shoot full power loads any more, not because I can't take it, but because I don't see any reason to beat up the guns. Since I'm shooting medium loads, I seldom ever have to trim again. If you want consistency and accuracy in revolver loads, the brass MUST be trimmed to a consistent length to ensure consistent crimping. If the crimps aren't consistent, the powder won't burn consistently.

Once-fired factory load brass is also trimmed and de-burred. I have seen some of these with unbelievably bad consistency in length. The factory crimping machinery must automatically adjust for it.

I don't think I've ever done anything to auto pistol brass. Load and shoot. Can't see putting a lot of effort into it. I'm just going to lose some of it anyway. This is why I shoot revolvers. I know I'm going to get all my brass back.

Regards,

Stew

[Rick N Bama]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I know I posted a question that was probably too generic but I thought I would get more opinions that way & it seemed to work.

The reaon for my post was that I have been wondering if annealing my 357mag brass might help with the sooty cases I'm getting from a certain boolit & powder combo. In developing a load using a Lee 358-158RF (bevel base removed) along with surplus WC820 powder, I started getting flattened primers while the cases remained sooty. In fact, I seem to have reached a peak pressure point with the combo & still my cases are sooty with flattened primers. I was wondering if maybe my brass was a bit work hardened & would benefit from the annealing process.

I used to shoot some informal Benchrest & we spent a lot of time on prepping our brass for loading. Heck I even cleaned it by hand to prevent the case mouths from being hardened (maybe) by tumbling. Anyway I discovered handguns & cast boolits & the rest is history:) Actually I found BR shooting to be a bit stressful
while the handguns are quite relaxing.

Thanks again for the replies.

Rick

[Lloyd Smale]

I shoot way to much to worry about prepping brass. I keep it in 5 gallon pails for most handgun calibers. All mixed brass. I shoot it pick it off the ground tumble lit run it through the dillon and repeat, when they split they go in the trash.