How old is your oldest reloadable brass?

[PbSnSb]

45 acp marked FA 41

[WILCO]

No idea exactly what I have. I do know there's some LC Match brass from 1968 floating around in the collection. Most of my stuff is walmart shiny and I always go into a trance when looking at it.

[DRNurse1]

Neat thread but should we discuss rifle versus pistol or high/maximuum SAAMI pressures versus lower pressures?

I am using some .45ACP brass my FiL gave me: commercial called Western and military with FA47 head stamps. You wonderful folks here have changed my use of these cases so I no longer shoot these cases in competition and I mic my long line case mouths to obtain more constant case mouth tension. I still have not improved my long line scores, but the hope springs eternal.

Okay, I looked at a batch of 45ACP brass I use for practice:
RA 64; WCC 61, 66 and 74; FC 16 (I think it is really 76), TZZ 78 and one with a triangle shape and 72. Neat trip down memory lane trying to recall where I found this stuff.

[Texantothecore]

7 year old .45-70 brass. Neck sized only I have a small number of cartridges but it appears to be a lifetime supply.

[NoZombies]

I've got baloonhead .32 S&W brass that dates from before 1900. I use it for BP loads in the old top break guns.

[MT Gianni]

No Idea but it is marked 32 New Police.

[zuke]

45-70 baloon head brass. No marking's on the brass what-so-ever. I use them with Trailboss

[dragonrider]

Damifiknow how old but 25 years ago I was at the range with my first gun, 45, 1911, and I was lamenting to a older fellow I had just met that all I had was fifty rounds to shoot before I had to go home and reload em. As I was leavin he handed me a box with 250 empty cases sayin may next time you can hang around a bit longer. Didn't know what to say but did stammer out some well meant thanks. He was a big help to me in those early days, sadly he passed on some years ago. I miss him still, and I still use those cases on occaision.

[MaineJim]

I have a couple of FA 1917 .45 acp,fired a bunch of times along with a good representation of brass from every decade since the forties.

[evan price]

I have 45 acp cases headstamped 1913. Can't recall for sure but I think they are FA-13 in the cool old font like they used on guage faces and watches back then.

[Walter Laich]

have some rifle brass from the late 50's.

[JohnFM]

I have a bunch of WWII era 30 carbine brass.
I shoot it only in a Ruger BH, good brass and I give it no special attention, just keep using it.

[jonk]

I have a batch of 30-03 and 30-06 brass that someone long ago cut down to 8mm Mauser dated from 1904-1932. With cast loads and neck sizing only, some of it is on 30ish reloads and still going strong.

[SteveUSP]

During pistol quals in the Navy, we used the San Diego police range one time. I got a bucket of .45 from us, and bucket of .38 from them. The RO said pick it up and it's yours. This was around 1986. Even after several years of me and Dad shooting .38 in SASS events, we still have most of it.

[Outpost75]

Attachment 77090

As long as old brass was not fired with mercuric primers, which embrittle the brass, most straight-wall pistol caliber cases loaded with ordinary chlorate corrosive primers are OK.

In bottlenecked rifle rounds loaded before the 1930s, it is fairly common to experience cracked necks or mouths in brass which was not properly stress relieved. This may be visible in boxed ammunition, particularly in .30-40 Krag and 7mm Mauser ammunition from the Spanish-American war period. In WW1-era .30 caliber ammunition this was less a problem in arsenal ammunition than in commercial contract rounds up until the late 1920s.

If the "season cracking" does not extend past the shoulder, the ammunition is safe to shoot. Cracked-neck cases should be discarded after one "pop." If some cases develop cracks upon firing, but not others, sometimes you can salvage the remaining fired brass of that batch by re-annealing. Cases having incipient cracks will fail upon stress relief, but those which are OK to visual inspection after re-annealing will be OK to use.

Sometimes you may experience old .22 rimfire ammunition which blows a pin hole leak on the edge of the rim near the firing pin indent, which causes gas escape from the breech. These splits are unnerving, but not dangerous as long as you are wearing safety glasses with sideguards.

I'm still using a quantity of FA34 .30-'06 cases which originated from Ball M1 ammunition I got out of the estate of a WW2 vet. After decapping, swaging the primer pockets and tumbling the brass in wet stainless steel media to remove remaining traces of powder and chlorate primer residue, it has been wonderful, with that slightly red hue you used to get in Norma brass imported in the 1960s, and FA brass made prior to about 1968. That stuff lasts almost forever. I have cases which have been reloaded over 100 times with cast bullet loads approximating .30-40 Krag or .30-30 velocities.

US military ammo made after 1930 is usually fine. Earlier ammunition may not have had proper stress relief because they were still working out the metallurgy. If rifle brass shows visible anneal colors in the neck and shoulder area, this means that a final stress relief was done. Most commercial brass after the 1930s also underwent this step, but anneal color may not be visible, because commercial practice was to tumble clean finished cases for marketing appearance purposes, whereas US military specifications for rifle and machinegun ammunition require that the anneal color be visible as proof that final stress relief was done.