Sorting Brass By Headstamp

[Chills1994]

no I do not sort. I have better things to do with my time....like surf this forum.

[drysideshooter]

Wow, this thread was really timely for me as I have been mulling this very subject over and over in my head the past couple of weeks.

Though I've reloaded for years it has mostly been my hunting ammunition, and plinking ammo for some of my handguns and rifles. My 10yo son and I both recently started shooting USPSA matches and are REALLY enjoying it. We also really enjoy practice time and so we are going through 2k+ rounds per month. Talk about needing to ramp up my reloading!

I have been being really anal, taking the same steps, time and care with every 9mm minor round as I always have with my hunting rounds. Cases got decapped, soaked in a Losso chemical solution for a few minutes, rinsed, dried, and then tumbled. I then decapped/sized (decapping again helped get any media stuck in the flash hole out), then primed, charged, and bullet seated. All done on a single stage press, one process at a time. I was also sorting brass by headstamp and number of times fired. The more I read on this forum and others I realized that I was probably spending a lot more time and care than I need to. I ordered a LNL press and have decided I will start tumbling fired brass before decapping, and then load them on the progressive press.

Reading the post from an engineer like robME makes me feel quite a bit better, knowing that he's actually tested out the theory a bit. I think that since it is relatively easy, I will continue to somewhat sort brass. I have a couple thousand of a couple different types of brass, mostly Win, WCC and FC. When we go to the range to practice if I only take boxes of one type it's easy to keep them separated because we're only shooting the one type. Same thing with matches. That also automatically sort of keeps things separated by how many times they've been fired. I am thinking that maybe keeping it somewhat sorted by number of times fired that I can decap a case and check primer pockets every so often, and if it looks like they're getting mucked up a bit I can decap and chemically clean the whole batch.

Being very much a noob at this level of reloading, any thoughts that come out in threads like this are really useful and appreciated.

[Darrell]

I sort my brass for matches used mixed for practice. I have found that R-P brass is thinner than Speer and Federal in my open 9mm. When I work up loads for testing in the ransom rest I try to use one brand of once fired cases. I have noticed differences in velocity in 9mm with Fed, Win, Speer, and R-P brass but not enough to really matter at a match. I now use R-P for practice and save my Speer for matches. I buy once fired nickle brass from Black Hills Shooting Supply that has been deprimed, pockets reamed, and roll sized. Mostly Speer brass, then Fed then Win and R-P. I do see a difference in accuracy from one brand of brass to mixed brass.

[caspian guy]

I buy once fired single head stamp 9mm to shoot in my open gun. Not for the consistency of velocity but for uniform dimensions. That was prompted by an article that bob at brazos wrote for front sight. He took and measured several different head stamps ( may have been .40 or 9mm don't remember) and found a lot of variation in rim diameter, thickness, grove diameter. Before when I shot mixed headstamp brass in my guns I used to get occasional wierd jams (very ocasional). Also the ejection pattern was eratic. With single headstamp (fc) all the brass piles up in a neat pile and hasn't had a one of those wierd jams in 10's of thousands of rounds. (9mm major 38 sup breach face aftec).

Just my experience fwiw...

[RH45]

Yup, I sort mine. When I first got my 9mm open gun, it gave me fits, but, ran 100% with Winchester brass. Even though I changed to a Barry mount, and there's nothing in the way of the ejection port, I still run nothing but Winchester.

I run the rest of the garbage through Glocks.

[Trini]

I voted no.. I use to but not any more.

[pstew]

I voted no.

I do however sort brass for my moon clipped revolver. The moons make it easy to keep them sorted and the cases are held in the moon more consistantly.

[GrumpyOne]

I sort my Super brass, but not my 40 or 45. The super I sort because I have run across soem brass with a headstamp of 1*OPT that my super just doesn't like. Other than that, the only sorting I do for 40 or 45 is culling the obvious rejects out of the herd.

[kamikaze1a]

I do sort but not for consistent velocity or to reduce deviation. I sort to reduce problems when reloading. I want the primer seating to feel the same for every round rather than wondering if the extra effort is because it's an S&B shell in the mix or a primer out of alignment...

[millisec]

It's amazing how many people throw away WCC brass. IMO brass does not get much better if your willing to swage or ream the primer pocket.

I started sorting and realized it was for the birds when sitting down in front of my first 6000+ round pile. I still look at them all and the only ones that get trashed are the Pakistani berdan primed, damaged or steel. The only one to get set aside is WCC which I run by itself to make PD rounds. When I got started it seemed like everyone had an opinion on what brass should be tossed ranging from everything but win and fed to selective brands. I do check with a magnet but I load everything including win, fed, rem, pmc, speer, SB, CBC, blazer, geco, RWS and probably a few others. Using good dies on a Hornady AP everyone loads w/o issue and they all fit the Wilson gage. Best of all it all shoots very consistantly without a malfunction to date. Out of the first 2000 loaded I think there were two cases the primer would only go half way and they were win.

The only downside I have seen to mixed brass is the slight variations in OAL someone else mentioned. I'm currently loading zero 125g FMJ at 1.15 and I get some variance up to 1.16. I have also seen slight variations in crimps +-.001 with mixed set to .375. Next time I shoot IDPA or USPSA other than local I may try all win or federal but I will pick already loaded rounds right out of the boxes.

Edited May 21, 2010 by millisec

[angus6]

I don't bother sorting either

[TRUbor9]

i only use Win and FC for major matches and everything else for the local shoots

[Modoc]

Like Milsec, I sort but only to pull the crimped primers out for the extra step of removing the crimp. The rest is just my normal case prep and handling and getting the odd calibers out of the lot of brass.

[Patrick Sweeney]

Good god, no. The only thing I can think of that would be more of a time-waster than sorting 9mm brass, is trimming the stuff.

I don't shoot 9mm Major, just Minor. I want Major, I'll go Super.

[RoryW]

I just went 9major and for the purpose of reliability, i sort my major match brass. I shot my first major match with my SV IMM 9major at the florida open with ZERO gun malfunctions. I still have my 38sc SV IMM and to me, i'd rather sort than pickup brass every time i shoot. If i'm picking up 38sc brass after a club match, i still have to sort because i'll have a few 9mm or 38sup mixed in. For 9major, i'll load all the mixed brass, and after cleaned and while case gauging, i'll separate Win, FC and R-P head stamps. All others get shot during regular practice matches, R-P gets shot at the larger local matches and Win, FC at majors.

Edit To Add:

If i'm too lazy to case gauge, i still sort them after loading them in my dillon containers. I still have to look at all my primers before i shoot them. way too many times have i seen people have malfunctions and when checked, they ejected a round with the primer reversed or missing.(i found 1 round out of 1000 during my last reloading session with the primer reversed)

Edited March 1, 2011 by RoryW

[DinosaurMikeGolf]

I sort out the military cases from the commercial ones. Military brass primers are crimped in and the breass requires swaging in order to be reloaded.

[gohuskers]

The piles of brass are too large - never any reason to sort, just load, shoot, load again.

[RePete]

Hell NO! A total waste of time and effort.

I don't if Military brass is in there either. I load on a 1050.

[Foxbat]

I don't sort. If I get mixed batch of 9mm, I simply load it for the first time on the 1050, to take care of crimped primers, then it goes into the common bin.

[gm iprod]

My old practice brass once it haas been fired about 6 or 7 times tends to get just mixed into one bin.

For all my match shooting regionals etc the brass is all sorted and preferably into batches taht have been fired the same number of times.

For real big matches Worlds, Bianchi and Nationals, I use new or once fired brass.

I have done all the testing I can, and I KNOW that all three of my main AP guns all shoot much better groups at 50 with this system. No doubt about it.

FOr IPSC except for nationals, then I can;t shoot the gun good enough to go that far for my guns with me using them.

All my rifles shoot better with sorted brass. AR's included.

[blaster113]

when I used to load 9mm minor for an XD I wouldnt bother sorting; just tumble 'em and load em up without any regard to times fired, headstamp, etc. For my STI .40 I'm a little more anal; big matches get once fired Remington (preferably through my gun), club and practice shoots gets Winchester, Federal, or whatever else is at the range. I then segregate my practice brass into different buckets according to times fired. Anything more than 3x fired gets left on the ground.