okay...im wondering about brass...

[mozeppa]

why is A-MERC considered junk?....be specific.

same with R-P brass ? why?


i've looked at both meticulously ....what do i miss?

what should i look for in used brass?....what should i shoot once , then leave at the range for the brass vultures?

[w5pv]

I have loaded quiet a bit of R-P with no trouble that I remember,A lot of the trouble may be preconceived also.

[sixshot]

I use a lot of Remington handgun brass, never had a problem. I've heard the same stories about A merc, I usually give it away but I've never tried it.

Dick

[bhn22]

A-MERC is considered junk because that's what it is. It is worthless for reloading because it has a terrible failure rate. My experiences with it involved almost every piece, regardless of caliber cracking on the first reload. Some I've found appeared to have cracked on the initial firing. All A-MERC brass I find ends up in the scrap bucket.

R-P? Many complain about RP brass because the walls are too thin. This leads to crimping and bullet seating issues when reloading. By seating issues, I'm talking about inconsistent bullet pull because of nearly nonexistent case mouth tension. I segregate RP brass and only use it with oversized cast bullets, which I have plenty of. Nothing upset me more than having jacketed 45 acp bullets push back into the case during feeding because I couldn't get enough taper crimp on it. In revolvers, slower powders need consistent case mouth tension for consistent ignition and consistent burning. I don't seem to get that with RP brass. I keep a bit of RP 44 mag brass around for use with .434 bullets in one of my S&W revolvers with generous throats. My case of choice is Winchester. I have zillions of them.

[marvelshooter]

I like R-P brass because it (usually) has a nice radius at the entrance to the primer pocket which makes priming go much smoother.

[Bullshop Junior]

I like federal brass myself. But have used many many many remington and amerc cases and have never had a problem. I have never even ears anyone complain about cases before honestly.

[dubber123]

When I competed in and ran our local pistol shoots I would get an occasional malfunction with my Springfield 1911. It finally occurred to me that the headstamp without fail read A-Merc. The cases were so far out of spec even my sloppy .45 couldn't swallow them. My nephew bought a new Ruger Blackhawk in .45 Colt, and a box of factory ammo. A-Merc ammo to be specific. As I recall, we had a few misfires, but more impressive was the 5 out of the box that wouldn't chamber. Ruger revolver cylinders aren't exactly cut on the tight side. I toss all A-Merc brass immediately.

[mozeppa]

s&b brass okay?

[Horace]

The only problem brass I`ve had has some china brass in the early 90`s after first firing(factory) the primer pocket would be so large the spent primer would fall out on ejection.

Horace

[Ed_Shot]

I use only range pick-up brass and I never had a problem with R-P. I separate 9MM only by headstamp and I cull brass shorter than .747. R-P 9MM is much more consistent in length than WIN. Out of the many K 9MM brass I have I don't believe I've seen a single A-MERC. I do not use S&B or CBC for 9MM because I found some fail to hold crimp tension on the boolit.

I shoot mixed headstamp brass (without measuring) for .45 ACP, 40 SW, 357/38, and .380 and have had not problems with any brass.

[williamwaco]

I have been using R-P brass in .38 Special since 1956.
I can not say anything negative about it.

The only brass I cull and don't use is Military and S&B.

Military because the walls are too thick and many of them bulge at the base of the bullet and will not chamber.

S&B because I have a significant amount of trouble seating primers AND because I dedicated a segregated two boxes of S&B .38 special cases to an accuracy test with the intent of loading those cases ten times each and recording the group sizes. After 4 reloadings, 40% of those cases had split.

[prs]

I am a Starline/Winchester fan, but have no objections regarding RP. I have O hands-on experience with reloading copper clads, but do not see how a taper crimp could provide a reliable means of bullet to case retention. I can understand how a taper crimp die could be set to remove the case mouth belling, but retention would seem to me to depend upon a proper stretch fit of the case over the bullet. Perhaps the expansion die is a bit fat, or the resize die is not jiveing withe the thinner walled RP brass?

prs

[wv109323]

I ended up with some A-Merc in .38 Special. I found the primer pockets to be very inconsistent. I could not get Winchester primers to seat. The primer pocket was too small. I toss it when found. The price for scrap brass is up.
I have used a lot of R-P brass without problem. The Bullseye pistol crowd in .45 ACP looks down on R-P brass because the case walls are thin. If mixed in with other brass the R-P gets a very light crimp due to the thin walls. Most all pistol shooters use progressive machines adjusted to other brands of brass. The R-P can be segregated and used with an adjustment of the crimping die.

[marvelshooter]

s&b brass okay?
S&B is alright brass but the primer pockets are likely to be on the tight side. It takes noticeably more effort to seat the primers.

[Lefty Red]

I like R-P brass, but I only have it for my 38s because I get it cheap as once fired from a training place.

I do not like Am Merc! All that I tried would never chamber in my SBH.

I find that S&B has tight primer pockets, at least the 38/357 brass that I have used do.

LEFTY

[Combat Diver]

When I was in Germany in the late 80s, we shoot 1000s of rounds on the Rod & Gun ranges. I would pick up the brass and reload it (mostly .32/.380/9mm and 7x57) and never had any issues (still have the brass).

CD

[DxieLandMan]

I've never had any trouble with any of the brands mentioned.

[dragon813gt]

s&b brass okay?

Only brand I toss into the scrap bucket on site. I've never seen an A-MERC case so I can't comment on them. My experiences with all things S&B has been poor. Their 308 ammo made it almost impossible to open the bolt on my Ruger M77. And once open the case extraction was a chore as well. The brass takes noticeably more effort to resize. I've found it tends to crack more than any other brand. And then we run into trying to prime them. More effort needed then ever should be needed to seat a primer. To many problems for me to bother with the entire brand. I know plenty of people don't mind it. But my time is worth more and there are plenty of other brands out there.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
So far only bad issue I have had with RP is in 44 WCF in the fat throat of a Winchester SRC made before 1910. These were once fired brass "as advertised".
First loading with 8 grains Unique and a Saeco 443 220 grainer left one case out of ten ready to complete head seperate (visible crack). So decided to see how long the other nine would hold out. Next firing (same load) 3 more cases with visible cracks. All cases showed at least a "bright ring" in head area. Next firing second round complete seperation. End of test.
I have wondered what might have happened "if" I had used near 10 grains Unique. 8 grains is a mild 1892 load. 10 grains is considered "max" in some manuals.
This particular SRC handles the same load with Winchester brass without issue.
Mike in Peru

[billyb]

A-MERC is soft brass, the primer pockets will expand on first firing of factory loaded ammo and you cannot seat new primers. I won a box of factory loaded amerc 9mm at our gun club raffle and most of it would not chamber in my 92. I pull all the loaded amerc I find at the range de prime the brass and put it in the junk bucket. The bullets are poor quality copper plated variety.

[CastingFool]

Never had any trouble with RP brass. The one I don't like is PMC. I bought a bunch of once fired 45 acp brass off eBay once, and there were about 50-60 PMC cases included. I tried to reload them and had a very difficult time depriming the cases. Turned out that most of the flashholes were off center. Every one of them went into the scrap bin.

[Garyshome]

I'll toss all the A-merc stuff but RP works OK

[dmize]

Only odd ball I have used is S&B. Primer pockets are REALLY tight. I ended up using a Lyman primer crimp remover on them and primers seated normally.

[MtGun44]

S&B gives me trouble seating primers, pocket seems too shallow, this is .45 ACP.

Bill

[dmize]

And my S&B brass was 44 Magnum.

[Tackleberry41]

Never had any problems with R-P brass. Only see A-merc in the occasional batch of 9mm once fired stuff I pick up. Usually not enough to get say a box of 50 to reload so never really messed with it to say its junk or not. Have a couple hundred cases of mixed 9mm stuff, get desperate might load it up with cast bullets.

[Hatiwolf]

Been loading 38 special R-P with no problems for the wife from a bucket of over 1000 a friend gave me when he sold his 686. Maybe im having beginners luck?

[warf73]

S&B gives me trouble seating primers, pocket seems too shallow, this is .45 ACP.

Bill

Having same issues but in 380acp.

Never had issues with R-P and have several reloading on my 300wby brass. I reload 270winchester for a buddy and his brass (100 S&B) has 3 reloading on it with 0 looses.