Unmarked brass

[Nines&Twos]

Over the years I have encountered several different calibers of brass with no markings. Nothing, nada. We all see the military brass that usually lacks caliber designation but I’m talking about brass with NO headstamp whatsoever.

Who, what, & why?
Over the years I’ve found 9mm, 308, 223, and even happened upon a hundred .38 S&W (not special)
Reason I ask this is, I want some. Specifically 38 special or even 357 magnum.
While I don’t need a metric ton of it, I would like to find a nice little pile to play with.
I’ve contacted Starline and they’re more than happy to oblige .......if you place a minimum order of like 20k. Uhh, no.

Does anyone know where to get some in smaller quantities?

Thank you for any insight.

[salpal48]

Most Surplus Military ammo /Cases without headstamp or marking are sort of Clandestin. many world arsenals even though They may be nato Or others are still in Business to sell.
They need to hide there Origin and shipping to so called problem countries Or forces.
commercial Cases are generally Headstamped.
many can only Identified By the machine work

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

A couple years ago, I bought 2K of used mixed 38spl brass. 1k was Mil Surp and the other was commercial. I sort all my brass by HS. I came across a few Blank HS 38 spl...first time I'd seen that.

edited: I dug out those few cases from my 38 spl stash, it turns out they weren't blank...while they had no manufacturer mark on the HS, they were stamped "38 SPL".

opps :oops:

[KenT7021]

I have some 338 Lapua brass that purchased years ago that has no headstamp at all.The person I purchased it from bought it from the US Navy as surplus.I have no idea who made it but is excellent brass.

[Randy Bohannon]

I bought 500 pieces of 38 S&W brass off of gun broker about 10 years ago. It has zero marking/stampings it came in 1 ea, olive drab container it is Winchester brass. Apparently for many years the 38 S&W brass was loaded up and used as priming charges for certain military artillery/mortars.It is very nice brass and I'm still using the first 100 pieces.

[EDG]

A co-worker was stationed at Ft Hood while he was in the army.
He was doing some training in the early 1970s and a group he did not recognize sped by riding dirt bikes. He later heard them shooting and walked over to their location after they left. Scattered all over the ground were 7.62X39 brass cases. He brought me a sample. They were boxer primed but had no head stamp of any kind.

[Artful]

Starline is stocking basic cases (that 223 are made out of) with no caliber markings but I don't know if they mark starline on them.

[rockrat]

Artful, the basic case has stars (5) around the head of the case.

[Moleman-]

The first batch of the Starline 223 basic cases were without any headstamp, this latest batch does have the stars on them. Guess they were selling well enough that they wanted their mark on them.

[kywoodwrkr]

Bet the rate of fire sounded strange.
I obtained some like that from Ft. Knox.
Same time frame.
Was outstanding brass, especially since 7,62x39 was difficult to obtain.
Had made some out of 6,5x54MS to get firearm active.
RCBS form die sets weren't cheap then either!