rbstern
09-18-2016, 12:14 AM
Had a chance to do some 9mm plinking and experiments today. My buddy brought out some Freedom Munitions "American Steel" branded 9mm. Hadn't heard of it before. It's new ammo. The cases are steel with brass plating. Looks just like regular brass (I can hear all the groans now for the extra ammo sorting chores that lie ahead). Brass has an "FM" head stamp. The ammo itself looks great.
Just for the fun of it, we decided to shoot and reload the same 10 cases (we were both shooting low capacity pistols) at least a few times, or until we saw signs of failure.
We were shooting 4.9 grains of Universal under either a 124 grain HP of various makes, 115 FMJs, and 125 LRN. We reloaded the cases 5 times, with no signs that the cases were giving out. No failures, no malfunctions, no signs that the loads performed any differently than regular brass, except for one case that wouldn't hold a primer after it's second reload; I suspect it was out of spec to begin with.
Bottom line, I would reload these cases, certainly at least a few times. I'd probably keep them separate, using a magnate to sort.
For what it's worth.
Just for the fun of it, we decided to shoot and reload the same 10 cases (we were both shooting low capacity pistols) at least a few times, or until we saw signs of failure.
We were shooting 4.9 grains of Universal under either a 124 grain HP of various makes, 115 FMJs, and 125 LRN. We reloaded the cases 5 times, with no signs that the cases were giving out. No failures, no malfunctions, no signs that the loads performed any differently than regular brass, except for one case that wouldn't hold a primer after it's second reload; I suspect it was out of spec to begin with.
Bottom line, I would reload these cases, certainly at least a few times. I'd probably keep them separate, using a magnate to sort.
For what it's worth.