Common Problems with Range Brass?

[DonMountain]

My wife wanted me to give her a handgun out of my "collection" for her to shoot, so I dug a Tokarev pistol made by Norinco in 9mm Luger out. It was brand new in the factory packaging that I bought 25 years ago on a weak point, when I was collecting guns, and just sat in the vault. So, now that I "need" to have a lot of ammo for her to shoot, I purchased over the internet some really cheap brass that is advertised as once fired, but of random brands off of a shooting range. Was this a good decision and what do I need to be aware of to load it all. I purchased 1000 cases and they all look to be commercial, with no crimped in primers. I am a rifle guy and like my matched brass for that, and don't do much pistol reloading.

[CIC]

My guns live on range brass. Only the 44 special has ever shot new brass. Anyway I visually inspect as I deprime. With 9mm I trim my brass to make it all uniform. That may not be necessary. That is about it. Never any problems for me. Others might have different advice.

[Tom W.]

I have a whole ammo can of range brass from an indoor range. I inspect, size and deprime, then clean it and into the can it goes. It serves me well, and because I have so much I don't worry about policing all of my brass.
Normally I sweep up the area where I shoot and what I bring home is a mix of everything, abut mostly 9mm, 40 & 45 cal. I also have a huge collection of .45 brass, 95% is range pick up.

[GhostHawk]

I have 3 25 lb boxes of Range brass, in 9mm, .40sw and .45acp. The .45acp cost a bit more. The other two were 50$ for the box.

I have yet to have a problem. But, I do go over my brass pretty carefully.

I like to deprime with a Frankford Arsenal hand depriming unit, then citric acid wash, rinse. Dry on a towel, work through all the cases one by one with a small brush cleaning primer pockets and giving the brass a roll on a towel laying on my leg to get the last of the stubborn grime off.

That finds most problems right there.

I then prime after the brass has dried for an afternoon with a RCBS Universal hand primer. To get 100 useable brass I will start with 125-130. I will always find either some oddball, strange looking or crimped primer brass that I cull out.

Once primed I flare, charge, seat bullet. I often will take a towel make a silver dollar sized damp spot with mineral spirits, or johnson's one step floor wax. And wipe noses of each bullet as a last final visual check. Putting them in an ammo box as I go.

I have yet to have one of those range brass cause a problem of any sort. l

And if you find one you don't like the looks of, toss it in the scrap brass jug.

YMMV, but I have no issues with range brass. Vast majority of it is once fired, clean, with no problems.

[DerekP Houston]

Almost everything I have for pistol brass is range mix. If you sort by headstamp you can get some better consistency but I don't bother for plinking rounds. Are you going to be using lead cast rounds or jacketed/plated?

[popper]

I've bought 'once fired' and found it wasn't. IIRC amscore uses a stepped brass vs tapered case. If actually from a range it's probably ok. I did use an FC 40 that blew the case head off, known & recalled but somebody used it.

[am44mag]

I used to get range brass all the time. Just check over it before you use it to make sure it's all the same caliber, that there are no splits, case head separation issues, enlarged primer pockets, or any serious dents and bulges. Pistol brass tends to not have these issues. The mixed brands really won't matter either. If you were shooting a precision rifle it might, but not a surplus handgun.

[EDG]

Part of the cost of using once fired brass are the losses that come from culling of defective cases.
Buy large lots of a single headstamp from a police range and sort it. There will invariably be some odd headstamps anyway.
Toss out the defects and cracks. Load it and shoot it.
I have been doing this with much more expensive rifle brass for more than 40 years. My fallout rate is probably less than 3% because I reject many cases as I dig them out of the 5 gallon buckets.

Guess what? If you buy new brass and shoot it up it become once fired range brass pretty much like any other.

[Sasquatch-1]

If 9mm only, watch out for 9x18 cases. They look almost identical to 9x19 or 9mm Luger. There is also a 9x21 that I have found a few of.

[CastingFool]

I once found a 9mm brass case that only said 9 on the headstamp. turned out to be 9 mm makarov brass. Another time I found another case marked 9M, it too was makarov brass.

[Petrol & Powder]

Pretty much all been said.

I police my brass and when I shoot where other people shoot, I get their discarded brass in addition to mine. Never had a serious issue.
It all goes in the tumbler and sorted by type. For some cartridges the sorting is a bit more involved than others.
38 Special gets sorted by wadcutter vs. standard and then by brass vs. nickel plated. Sometimes I will sort again by manufacturers headstamp when I'm really trying to squeeze out that last bit of accuracy. (read that as consistency)

BUT, that relates to handgun brass.

For rifle brass I'm a LOT more discerning. That is almost entirely my brass or known once fired brass of a particular make. That does get sorted by headstamp.

[country gent]

My issue with range brass is the oversized cases that can be mixed in from firing in sloppy or larger chambers. Bulges at the case head can be hard to size out with out a special die. I bought a lot of 308 military once fired and the "Machine gun" brass all ways showed itself with harder sizing the first tie and a slightly shorter life. My M1As chamders were cut to min headspace and size I used a small based die and the machine gun brass took a lot to size down that first time after it was fine. Glock and some of the other defense handguns have larger chambers and limited head support relulting in more sizing and buldges at the base or case head. Several now make a die that sizes push thru removing this buldge.

[OS OK]

Anyone complaining about 'Norinco 9 X 19' brass?

[gunwonk]

My issue with range brass is the oversized cases that can be mixed in from firing in sloppy or larger chambers.
I've had that. Some of those cases were noticably longer when I trimmed them to length.

But my all-time favorite issue (so far) was the spider living in an empty .308 case.

I either take a flashlight or get the sun over my shoulder, and look into the case mouth, trying to see a single flash hole. (And then leave the Berdan cases for scrap.) This time there was a spider, looking back out at me. :roll:

[kungfustyle]

Range brass is cheap, with cheap and reloading that mean some work on your part. I know most don't trim pistol brass but for me my Lee quick trim for the press has been a Godsend. The col of pistol brass will cause reloading issues, so separate seating and crimping stages. If you have a finicky pistol you may want to look at trimming the brass. I have a 45 ACP that I have to test each round to make sure it chambers in the field stripped bbl. That was solved with trimming the brass now I can just reload.

[Hick]

My CZ 527 Has never been fed anything but reloaded range brass. I was picking up range brass several months before I bought the rifle, and I keep picking up range brass for it. I've had one Lake City case fail-- but it looked like a inclusion in the brass that had nothing to do with the fact it was range brass.

[mold maker]

There is only new, yours, and range brass. I have never had a problem because of it being range pickup, as it is just brass that was fired in an unfamiliar gun, one or more times. Until it fails, it's all the same, and failure is unpredictable..

[country gent]

I use a lot of range brass in handguns. Most was picked up from the Local club I belong to or A friends indoor range. I normally swept the floor when I started to have a solid stable place for my feet. I then swept the floor and pile up when done to leave a safe floor for others. At the Local club some leave brass lay some will offer it to others but a lot save it. On the rifle range I rarely find more than the odd piece or 2 and usually not in a caliber I use.

I have 380, 9mm, 40 S&W, and 45 acp dies with most of the radious cut off for the first time sizing range brass. This removes a lot of the bulge and helps get swelled cases back into spec. I used these in a single station press and feel the cases into the dies. They are sort of a small base pistol die. My 625 in 45 acp is fussy about its ammo and a tight case really fouls up moon clip full loading.It seems to have tight chambers as Ive even had some ( very small amount of ) factory ammo that gave problems.

On the rifle rounds I prefer to work with new brass knowing its history. I have used mil surpluss LC brass in the past that was machine gun fired and sized really hard the first time

[Sasquatch-1]

One additional word of caution, watch out for the 9mm brass that has been fired in a 40 S&W pistol. Sound like a silly caution but I have seen this twice in the last two years. You will definitely know them when you see them.

[tankgunner59]

I use range brass in all of my guns, never had a problem. However, I agree with and repeat from above, INSPECT. I inspect each piece of brass each time I handle it, through the entire reloading process. Just remember, it ain't worth guessing, so if in doubt, throw it out! I have dealt with a few FFB dealers online and there are a few that I trust. But not with my life so I inspect. Remember they are doing a volume business so they won't catch everything. That's why they usually sell the quantities as "100+" etc.

[RogerDat]

Nice if one can get a big batch and sort by head stamp. Length can matter for crimping with longer brass getting a different crimp than short brass. A one time trim on straight walled brass isn't necessary but can help get more consistent crimps. 9mm tends to be one of the cheaper brass, sometimes selling for just a touch more than the scrap yard will buy it for as scrap brass.

[Ateam]

I would not sort range brass for practice in a handgun cal. Just look at head stamp, tumble, load, shoot, repeat. You will find a few makers of brass that just suck, I immediately throw away any A-MERC I find. You will develop your own "prejudices".

[rondog]

Watch out for Berdan primed 9mm Luger brass. Not terribly common, but I find them often enough to make me wary. When I'm sorting out my brass pickups after a range trip, I stand the auto pistol brass upright on a flat surface, usually an old cookie/baking sheet. It's a PITA, but I can quickly identify and pluck out .45acp, .40S&W, .380acp, and 9mmMak. I use some large tweezers and pluck out everything non-9mmLuger.

Then I herd all the 9mmLuger brass together, and look in them with a flashlight. This way I can find the Berdan cases, and any pebbles/dirt/critters in them.

But I'm known to be OCD, and usually bring home at least a 2 gallon bucketful of range pickins. Have about 10 gallons each of 9mm and .223, getting to be a nuisance.

[texasnative46]

Personally, I can hardly wait for the "sighting in days" at our local military post club range, as FEW people there "police their brass" & it's "free for the taking" at day's end.

I picked up LOTS of .30-06, .308, .270 & .243 cases last year.

yours, tex

[Mr_Sheesh]

Agreed on pistols eating most anything; Especially if you use a progressive press. (I do tend to remove the primers on "new to me" brass, and before I got a steel pin tumbler I would use a nut pick that I'd filed a tiny chisel tip onto the end of, to remove grunge from primer pockets for rifle brass at least; Have to see how the new tumbler works, getting close to the first run here.) If you crimp at all you WILL want to trim to the same length (or verify length using a quick & dirty gauge) for consistency; 9MM a little bit of a roll crimp maybe iirc? I'm far more OCD on varminting rifle rounds tho :) An LED light is a nice thing to use to inspect the inside of cartridges, I like warm white ones more than cool white (More sunlight-colored.) And I save my neck cracked rifle cases to make shotshells for the 45ACP out of, I need to get more of those together. On new military cases, remove the crimp in some sane way o'course.

[rondog]

Never ceases to amaze me what I find at my club range. I've picked up more .270 Win, .300 Win Mag and 7mm Rem Mag than I can even count, tons of .30-06 and .308, truckloads of .223/5.56, and recently found an unreal amount of new 10mm brass, which is unheard of.

Also found a pile of enbloc clips for M1 Garands, and one day found 60 live .44 Special and .44 Mag rounds! Brand new factory ammo, just dumped. Must have been harsher than he thought.

They run tactical pistol and carbine classes there fairly often, and if I'm the lucky brass monkey that finds it I usually score big time. Thousands of .223, 9mm, .40S&W, and .45acp. I really do have buckets and buckets all over the place, my wife thinks I'm a lunatic. But that brass is going to help fund my next rifle!

[Mr_Sheesh]

Rethought this. I think the real problem is that I don't have anywhere near enough!