Your oldest reloading brass?

[jonk]

I have some brass that I bought in an antique store; 200 rounds of 30-06 dated from the 20s through early 40s, and 300 rounds of 8mm Mauser formed from 06 brass, mostly FA stamped, from the early 1900s through the 1920s. The oldest date is 1904- an old 30-03 case! It all came with original primers and all went bang, and has been reloaded a fair amount since. It's pretty fair stuff too, especially the 30 1932 NM cases that were in the batch.

That's my oldest reloading stuff; the oldest ammo I've shot is from 1894. 8mm Kropatschek.

How about you all?

[ktw]

I have a couple hundred WWII military '06 cases, "DEN 42" and "SL 43" headstamps, that I still use.

-ktw

[76 WARLOCK]

My aunt worked at Remington arms in Denver and helped make the DEN42 brass, the location is now the Denver Federal Center.

[JMax]

I have a few FA18 45ACP cases that are still in use.

[mike in co]

45 A C P U. S. C. Co. (19)17

[KCSO]

I still have a cigar box of cases I got with my first trapdoor many years ago. I quit reloading this stuff but it is all FA between 1878 and 1884 and a good share of it was tin cased with paper tube carbine loads. I originally had about 100 rounds of brass and some factory loads and I shot the factory loads off in 1966. As the brass cracked or swelled at the base I threw it back in the cigar box. Most of this was reloaded until 1979-80 and for the most part with a tong tool.

[Dale53]

I have a bunch of balloon head .44 Special cases that I am continuing to load and use. I have no idea how old they are but I am sure that they pre-date WW II. I load only target loads in them as I fully understand that they are not as strong as modern solid head cases.

Dale53

[Char-Gar]

I have a lot of FA - 01 30 US brass I still use for light cast bullet loads.

[dubber123]

Heck, I don't feel bad at all with my 1918 dated .45 ACP., after seeing some of the dates on all of your brass!

[NVcurmudgeon]

Sometime in the early 1960s I fired some ancient ammo through an 1879 Argentine Remington Rolling block. That stuff had to be pushing eighty years old, but about one in four went bang.

[mike in co]

I still have a cigar box of cases I got with my first trapdoor many years ago. I quit reloading this stuff but it is all FA between 1878 and 1884 and a good share of it was tin cased with paper tube carbine loads. I originally had about 100 rounds of brass and some factory loads and I shot the factory loads off in 1966. As the brass cracked or swelled at the base I threw it back in the cigar box. Most of this was reloaded until 1979-80 and for the most part with a tong tool.


dang kcso..i forgot all about MY cigar box....gotta go look at those dates

[Bent Ramrod]

I use some of the Stevens proprietary caliber brass (.22-15-60, .25-21) and .25-20 Single shot that must predate WWI. Also I'm still using the last survivors of a batch of 40 WRA balloon-head small-primer .44-40 brass that I load with black powder. I just like the feel of the old days, I guess.

I shot up about 50 US Cartridge Co .25 Stevens Rimfire cartridges once. Black powder loads, again probably before WWI. About 45 of them went off the first snap, three went off the second try and one the third. They were plenty accurate for offhand shooting, too; good as I would have done with modern .22 RF. I'm still impressed.

[Maineboy]

I have some Krag brass marked 30 Army. I don't know how old it is, but it looks good and shoots (light loads only) great.

[JDL]

Well dang, I thought my .300 Savage and .30-30 Rem-Umc were old until I read this post! -JDL

[Bad Water Bill]

I guess I will have to let my Savage 22 high power small primer stuff grow some more wiskers. BWB :castmine:

[Blammer]

2002 is probably my oldest brass....

[HollandNut]

Until our house burned down in May I had a pack of 20 45 ACP's from 1918 , and a bunch of cordite loaded Kynoch ammunition ..

[STP]

No dies needed for a cased set 1st Model Maynard in .35-30 and .55 shotgun.
Yes, plenty of cases included...(185?)

[MN91311]

I have several hundred WWII era 30-06 fired brass which I bought back in the seventies from a local small dealer. They were all SL 42 43 44, I think. At the time I cleaned up some and reloaded them in original 30-06, and also formed some into 7x57 with a RCBS trim die.

The 30-06 worked fine, but the 7x57mm cases split at the neck about every third case. Needed annealing, I guess.

I still have all of them, and I will soon be forming some of the same brass into 8x57, with annealing this time.

These old military cases were kind of greenish, with fired primers still in them when I got them. Not really corroded, just greenish surface deposits, which came off with walnut tumbling. Cleaned up pretty nice. No primer pocket problems with full power jacketed bullets.

This time around it will be cast bullet use primarily. Lower pressures. For my info, are cases this old safe for full-power jacketed loads, considering their age and primer type used originally ?

[kodiak1]

Got me some 308 that have to pre WWII not as old as a lot of the stuff on here.
Had one batch of 32-40 my brother in law got from his Great Grandpappy he was complaining that only 14 of the 20 fired in the box that he had gotten could I pull the bullets and reload them? Sure no problem they were Black Powder that was so hard it wouldn't ignite had never seen that style of box before in my life time.
Told he should keep them on the shelf at home as a memento to Great Grandpappy whom had bought the rifle new in 1894 if my memory serves me right.
Thought that was OOOOOld stuff.

This is a cool thread, Good one jonk.
Ken

[STP]

MN91311,
I no longer trust the older surplus 30-06 brass for full loads. New brass is cheap insurance for that sort of thing. At the least, don`t use that stuff in "low numbered" Springfield 1903`s...either Springfield manufacture or Rock Island. That`s the stuff nightmares are made of....
Most of the 1903 incidents where attributed to poor quality brass, bore obstructions, or trying (by accident) to fire the 8mm Mauser and others in the `03. The recivers were brittle, but the "pressure incidents" back into the reciever/magazine area is what revealed the problem. (See Hatcher`s Notebook for the details.)
You sure don`t want something similar to occur while shooting offhand with a rifle featuring a hinged floorplate... your HSA account will take a notable hit.

[pumpguy]

My oldest stuff is barely hitting puberty compared to some of you guys. I bought a big can of .38 specials a couple weeks ago. The oldest stuff in it was military loads marked '52.

[w30wcf]

UMC headstamped .30-30's (pre 1910) with the small rifle primer pocket. I dissected the original cartridges, annealed the cases, removed the mercuric primers and replaced them with 7 1/2 Remingtons. :-D :Fire:

Also some UMC headstamped .45 Colt brass (pre 1911) that I use for b.p.

w30wcf

[No_1]

I have 6k nickel 45 acp marked FA 42.

[floodgate]

Kodiak1:

"Got me some 308 that have to pre WWII not as old as a lot of the stuff on here."

Uh, I hate to have to tell you this, but the .308 did not come in until 1952.

floodgate

[Kraschenbirn]

Almost all of my milsurp 7.62 NATO and 30-06 are late '50s - early 60s headstamps and I doubt that any have been reloaded less than 4-5 times. Just finished ('bout an hour ago) neck-sizing/trimming about 200 twice-fired TW67 7.62s that I'm planning to reserve for CB loads in my .308 M700.

Bill

[Newtire]

Have some '06 brass dated 1898-just kiddin...Denver 42 & 43 is as old as I have. I was thinking about retiring it but seeing what you guys still shoot...maybe not. I have some WRA55 and lots of LC 67/68 I got from Mr Grinch on this board plus a few hundred more from a deal a long time ago. I love that stuff.

[1Shirt]

Can't match dates and age for what I am still reloading, but have a fair number of collector cases that date way back. However, am still loading 243 and 6.5x55 Herters Brass. Not much of that left around.
1Shirt!:coffee:

[Kraschenbirn]

Can't match dates and age for what I am still reloading, but have a fair number of collector cases that date way back. However, am still loading 243 and 6.5x55 Herters Brass. Not much of that left around.
1Shirt!:coffee:

No .243 or 6.5x55 but I've got (2) 20-round boxes of late '50s Herter's .308 factory loads (150 gr JSP) on a shelf above my reloading bench...right underneath a full (blue and yellow) box of Super-X 150 grainers with a $3.98 K-Mart price sticker on the end flap.

Bill

[johnly]

How about a old round of 450-577 with a brass foil case. This stuff is so old, that they didn't have numbers invented to put on the cases.:-D

John in Oregon

[nicky4968]

I don't have anything as old as those listed here. However, I do have 5 Winchester .30-40 Krag rounds with round primers. I have one Remington/UMC with a 200/220 grain round nose with a lot of exposed lead headstamped ".30 Gov't". They're older than I am. That's all I know.

[Ricochet]

I don't have any really old stuff. I'm now reloading 1941 and '42 mixed headstamp .45 ACP that I got from Cheaper Than Dirt a few years back; it came out of Civil Defense stockpiles.

I've got Remington .45-70 brass that I've reloaded I don't know how many times since it was bought as factory ammo in 1973.

[WineMan]

I have some 30-40 Krag with a headstamp of FA 04. I assume it is Frankford Arsenal 1904. There are also some commercial brass marked 30 US Army and REM-UMC 30 US of unknown date.

All the brass looks like new.

Dave

[oneokie]

Have a 30-40 marked FA 1-03,
7.62x54 marked Remington 16
Also have 45-70 UMC with the S-H letters and the u on the primer. Have heard that this was loaded for the Gatling gun, true or false?