A variety of .45 ACP cases!

[curiousgeorge]

G W Wade,
I still have 2 boxes of nickel 357 magnum large primer Peters brass. Kinda neat just to have sitting around.

[fatelk]

Here are a couple I scrounged out of the ever-present cigar box of random cartridges at a gun show. Good shootin' ammo for four bits per round!

[Der Gebirgsjager]

I'm not a bona fide collector, but I wouldn't shoot them. They belong in a collection. I've never seen a .45 ACP with a deep groove around the case like those.

An update-- I finished sorting all of the "1,000" cases. There were only 850, plus one each .45 Colt., .44 Mag., .45 GAP, and one 9mm.

As discussed earlier in the thread, I found a few FA cases dated 28, 31, 33, 39, 43. Four appear to have large pistol primers, so I guess they were reamed. I'll find out when I seat new primers.

I'll post some photos as the reloading takes place, as I intend to use several bullets and loads.

Great project for snowy days.

DG

[nicholst55]

WMA - Winchester Military Ammunition

https://winchestermilitary.com/

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Thanks. Good info.

DG

[fatelk]

I'm not a bona fide collector, but I wouldn't shoot them. They belong in a collection. I've never seen a .45 ACP with a deep groove around the case like those.
DG

I was just kidding; I don't plan on shooting them. They're pretty common, but they are nice specimens. Somewhere I have about a hundred of them, WWI GI ball, tinned FMJ. I have a few as early as 1912.

I have shot several of them. Several years I picked out seven of the worst with tarnished cases, all Winchester 1917. They all shot like new ammo. I even sent one across the chronograph, 800 fps.

[Kosh75287]

What does everyone consider the most "desirable" headstamp for 45 ACP brass? Or does it even matter?

If I was a Bullseye/PPC competitor, I might prefer Federal Match brass, but I'm not sure it would matter. At my current level of skill, the head stamp of brass I use is by no means critical.
I'D WAGER that keeping the same head stamps together is a bigger contributor to accuracy, than which particular head stamp of brass. If you load the same propellant/bullet/primer/O.A.L. combination in Federal, WCC, Remington and Starline cases, then fire them through a rest, you will probably get much the same group sizes, but each may have different points of impact.
Mix brass with different head stamps together, and you will likely get a mix of points of impact.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Sorted, tumbled, deprimed with Lee Undersized Carbide Sizing Die. Never used one before, always used a standard sizer. But--there might be a grain of truth in their advertising blurb that says using the undersized die squeezes them right down to the bottom of the case just above the extractor groove and allows for flawless functioning in pistols of different makes and maybe slightly different chamber specs. We'll see. For starters, 21 each x-treme and A USA cases. X-treme loaded with Hunter Supply 230 gr. CLRN and 5.5 gr. W 231. A USA cases loaded with Berry's plated 230 gr. RN, 6.1 gr. W 231. CCI LP primers. Loads from Speer #14, max. minus 1/10th gr. All seem to feed nicely through the pictured 1911, an Essex slide/Essex frame/Heinz 57 small parts.



DG

[Chili]

What does everyone consider the most "desirable" headstamp for 45 ACP brass? Or does it even matter?

I have always liked Starline, Winchester and Federal. Remington and some of the other brands seemed to have thin rims that warped easily. Most military brass is good too.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[dale2242]

I pick up enough 45 ACP brass that I sort it by headstamp.
It probably doesn`t make any difference if you mix them up.
I`m just anal that way.

[Baltimoreed]

Don’t poo poo that small primer .45acp brass even thought they are a pita to be reloading 45s and one jams up the works. They can use sp primers and sr primers. In these desperate times its good to have some options. I fit a 45acp cylinder to one of my vaqueros just for the option to use spp brass and save my lpp’s for 45colt brass.

[No_1]

Did you get any of the old FA (Frankford Arsenal) military that take the odd size primer?

Back in the 90’s when I was shooting ~500 rounds a week through a S&W 625 my dad came across a guy selling nickel plated FA42 “high pressure test” brass. Between my dad, Hatch and myself we purchased 15K of it.

The first thing we noted was difficulty repriming the cases with Winchester primers which at the time was the brand we used for our 45 ACP load. Research of SAAMI specs indicated the allowable difference between maximum LP primer diameter (.212) vs. minimum LP primer pocket diameter (.2085) to be .0035 which to me is a astonishing large tolerance. Further research discovered that the Winchester LP primers on hand were very close to maximum diameter specification while the Remington LP primers on hand were closer to the minimum diameter specification.

Long story short I use Remington primers without issue. Speaking directly to the quality of the FA42 brass - I am still reloading 99% of the 5000 cases that I originally loaded. These cases have been reloaded so many times the nickel plating is all but gone.

Rob