in .45 Colt: whatever ends up in the empties bag. Some of mine are over 10 years old. I do anneal them evey couple of years mostly to play with the annealing machine.
in .45 Colt: whatever ends up in the empties bag. Some of mine are over 10 years old. I do anneal them evey couple of years mostly to play with the annealing machine.
NRA Life
USPSA L1314
SASS Life 48747
RVN/Cambodia War Games, 2nd Place
PPU ie Privi Partisan is my #1, closely followed by Starline then Winchester.
Favorite head stamp? TW-54.
common calibers of range brass
LC 5.56, WCC, Win, R-P
45ACP = WRA,WCC,Match,WMA,Win,R-P, Federal,Speer
9mm = WMA,WCC,Win,R-P
all others either shoot n if lost no big deal.
it's range pickup....
Other brass of choice:
Lapua 308,338
TW-74 5.56
WRA 308, LC-77-79 Match, IMI
FA-64, LC-68-69 in 30/06
50 BMG any LC
just some....
-Rock
Thanks for the replys so far, even the ones that are not serious! I find very few 9mm, 40S&W and 45ACP with TW54, Lapua or even Starline headstamps but I'll be watching for them!
I have 9mm's and 40's by the 5 gallon bucket and I'm sorting through them. My plan is to keep several thousand of the better headstamps and scrap the rest. I'm just trying to pick the best cases out of the batch.
For years I think I was the champion brass scrounger at our old range. With the exception of a 40mm ammo can full of once fired 38spl jacketed and wadcutter brass. All of my other pistol brass was pickups. 40 S&W,45 auto. I'd sit down after tumbling a very closely inspect all the cases. Obvious brass striker fired glock brass went into the scrap bucket, all Amerc, MFS and one other brand also. Don't reload 9mm as it's so cheap. Rifle brass like the 400 of Federal 308 and '06 were saved. Still shooting some of the South African 5.56 and as it's berdan into the bucket. Bought a huge box of once fired 30-30 so working with that. I have mil surp brass in both 7.62 and '06 so that will keep me busy. PPU brass from Grafs in 7.65x53 Argentine and 7.55x55 Swiss. And my 1935 Finn Model 27 has 300 Hansen Cartridge brass. With some Norma tucked away. When I got the model 27 you had two choices for boxer primed brass. Hansen or Norma. I got a deal on 15 boxes of Hansen at a gun show and it's all I've ever used in the Finn. I've been shooting for close to the 50 year mark and a lot of the stuff mentioned was picked up or bought over that time. With the exception of some bulk buys from Midway when they did that most of what I have come in dribs and drabs. Except for the pistol and revolver brass. I know I have a big box of WCC 78 match around the house just haven't found it yet. I could go one but you get where I'm going. Frank
Handgun: Starline by a wide margin. Only brass that I will buy for handgun. Exceptions are FC for wide diameter cast 9mm and R-P for cast 45 auto.
For rifle, it's w/e I have the most once-fired of. Working up a load, it's nice that I can make more of it.
In handguns... who cares? I bought some 9mm brass on Craiglist, and whadya know, the guy took his time to sort out and dump off his S&B brass. (It was obvious because it wasn't once-fired; many of them had been marked around the primer pocket with a sharpie.) Good riddance for him, good cheap brass for me. My guns and reloading press don't care, at all.
One thing I learned the hard way, if you pick up rifle brass be sure to gauge the headspace before sizing it. If it's grossly stretched out, you can't put the genie back into the bottle, and after you've resized it you will not know... until you fire it, and the brass splits and jams your rifle.
Last edited by gloob; 02-14-2019 at 05:54 AM. Reason: additional info
What ever I can pick up at the range and reload. Beggars can't be choosers.
I like the 45 ACP TZZ Match, most of mine has 1986 head stamp.
nny, the old commie PPU.
That's pretty much how I feel about PMC, I lost count somewhere around 18 times reloaded (got my sub batches mixed together by accident when cleaning them) but I've been running exclusively about 600 cases from prolly 5 years ago...my loads are not on the extreme but they are full power .45ACP, 900FPS @ 200g. & 842FPS @ 230g. cast & PC'd.
As a side note, I use a .45C cowboy expander so I'm working that brass pretty good and I don't scrimp on the bell.
Do you have an idea of how many times youve reloaded and your power level on your TZZ cases?
When they do fail, if they have failed you...is it the case splitting at the case mouth or side of the case or loosening of primer pockets?
I've been seperating the TZZ cases and bagging them for years...had no idea they were so reliable.
a m e r i c a n p r a v d a
Be a Patriot . . . expose their lies!
“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” G. Orwell
Federal, Winchester, PMC, and Remington are all in my 38/357 rotation and get a lot of use. None stands out as being better or worse than another. I think I split one Federal case, and a few Remingtons that have been reloaded dozens of times have cracked mouths.
Federal and Winchester that I reload for 38/357 have been loaded so many times I lost count. I bought a bag of new Starline for 38 wadcutters and was really disappointed as the case lengths were not even close. I trimmed them all and seem to be ok now. Not sure if this was unusual for Starline or not but haven’t bought any since.
After reading everyones replys, I guess my thread title and my 1st post were kind of contradictory. I've been depriming, tumbling, sorting and storing my brass stash ever since Christmas. I was more interested in what headstamp of 9mm and 40 S&W that you would keep and what you would sell or trade. I have 5 gallon buckets or 20mm ammo cans of each and just don't need that much. I'm probably not going to find any Lapua, Norma, RWS or even Starline in these calibers. But, I'll sure be keeping it if I do.
In 9mm and 40 S&W, I'm thinking about keeping the Federal RP and Winchester. Or any one of those headstamps. Right now I have nearly 30 different headstamps in 9mm not counting the military cases.
9mm brass I prefer Win. It’s what seems to show up the most by headstamp in range brass.
I remove all Aguilla from range pickups because it seems too thick. I’m sure there are others that can run it but my 9’s like a hefty boolit .358+ and the aguilla doesn’t feed too well being a little fat.
Lightman, With the amount of brass you have keeping the Federal RP and Winchester would be a good move, I keep these 3 head stamps and also Blazer,Speer & PMC.
With 40 S&W I don't find as many different head stamps and do tend to keeping the Federal RP and Winchester.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |