Longevity Of Brass

[shooterx10]

How many times do you shoot your .38 super comp (or even .38 super) and .40 S&W brass before you toss them out?

Or what's the recommended number of times? Does it depend on the manufacturer and the load?

What are the more subtle signs that a piece of brass is bad other than a cracked case?

[MVZ]

For 38 super

Major Match---1 time

Local Matches ---5 times

Practice-- til it's cracked, bulged etc

[TriggerT]

Depends on the load, the make of the brass, and if you have the ability to Case Pro the brass. All of these things, amoung others, will make a difference.

[TBF]

40 S&W til it cracks, gets rim damage, or loose primer pockets.

I use more youthful brass for " when it might really matter ".

Travis F.

[Rob Bagnato]

.40 or Super local match/practice brass..Shoot it until the case splits, primers fall out or it fails to case gauge. Major match new brass

[benny hill]

At $15.00 a 1000, only once & leave it lay.

[3quartertime]

At $15.00 a 1000, only once & leave it lay.

For me it depends on the time of year.

Summer I scrounge.

Winter it's not worth the frozen hands!!!

[ErikW]

.38 Super brass life poll

I just found a cracked .40 the other day. First one in a couple years? (At tens of Ks per year.)

[kevin c]

I just found a cracked .40 the other day. First one in a couple years? (At tens of Ks per year.)

You don't use nickel plated brass, do you, Erik?

I start to get splits in firing after the 3rd firing or so (about one every couple hunderd). I also get case mouth splits when reloading, especially lead (increased bullet diameter?). It seems to happen a lot less with regular brass, even if belled a bit more than the nickeled stuff of the same brand (R-P).

[ErikW]

I use some nickel. I once had a batch of once-fired RP nickel that had a huge rate of cracking on the first (re)loading. I think it was collected from an outside range after being "weathered."

I try to keep my case mouth flare to a minimum to avoid overworking the brass.

[Precision40]

I buy once fired .40's for $9/Thousand and don't pick it up. It's just too cheap to justify picking it up.

[warpspeed]

I once did an experiment to answer this question.

I took factory federal & pmc 40 S&W loads and fired them in my STI.

Cleaned, roll sized, reloaded & fired. The load was a 180 gr jhp over 5.0 gr of N320 - 170 pf. After 10 times w/o any failures or cracks or splits. I decided that was enough.

[Shooter Grrl]

For me, they get lost long before they fail from reloading.

[shred]

I'll run Supercomp and TJ brass as long as possible which is 10+ loadings if I get them back. That means it comes out to less than $10/1000 and I'm not littering up the place.

Where's Angus with his "not-picking-up-brass-is-rude rant"? At local matches it's pretty annoying since the "I don't pick up my brass" crowd no longer picks up anybody's brass, then gets whiny when I go looking for mine.

[Matthew_Mink]

I shoot so many 'lost-brass' matches that I don't know anymore. Usually my .40 minor or .40 Limited brass only make it through the reloading process once or twice before they succumb to a 'lost-brass' match. So my brass gets rotated fairly often, and I guess that's a good thing.

[wksinatl]

Where are you guys getting brass so cheap???

Thanks, Keith

[Jeeper]

www.brassmanbrass.com is cheap for 40. I think it is 8 or 9 bucks/1000

[mcoliver]

Dang are your brass cheap! I'm happy if I can get range brass for $6 per 100.

[warpspeed]

40 S&W and 9mm brass are both very cheap because so may LE agencys use only factory ammo for practice & duty. Law of supply & demand - lots of supply and not a lot of demand.

Problem is that unless you buy 6+K, the shipping can be almost as much as the brass. So when jeeper says it is only $ 9/M from Mr. Johnson at Brassmanbrass.com, he is not including the shipping costs which are about $ 8 / M if he only orders 1M. So the actual delivered cost is $ 17 / M.

The trick is to find a local reloader that get that brass direct from the LE range and buy it from him.

[Jeeper]

Shipping is definately a killer somtime on this stuff. I ordered 6K since that is what would fit into 1 box and it was $72 delivered from vegas to houston.

[Carlos]

In area 8, most of the outdoor matches might as well be called "lost brass matches". Lost brass is not the rule but holding the match up to hunt & peck a few pieces just does not work around here; the matches are simply too large for this. Moreover, we often shoot over cut grass & brass often disappears. I do understand that in some places like out west & maybe the southwest, folks expect to leave with 90% of the brass they came with; but it is not the practice everywhere.

Even indoors where brass is never lost, we have 6 person squads every hour on the hour. Falling behind is not an option. Since this is a volunteer sport, I expect shooters to first tape, then reset steel/props, and finally, if there is time, they can pick up brass. I cannot hold up a 4 stage match because an open shooter is short a couple of pieces of brass.

"Where's Angus with his "not-picking-up-brass-is-rude rant"? At local matches it's pretty annoying since the "I don't pick up my brass" crowd no longer picks up anybody's brass, then gets whiny when I go looking for mine.

Again, I understand where you are coming from. Just understand that things are done differently in other areas. As for Angus, well, he is the God of CZs & a personal hero! If I ever get to shoot with him, I'll have to remember not to piss him off with my usual practice of leaving all brass where it falls. Regards, C. BTW, what Areas are people from? How is it done in your area/club?

[ErikW]

the matches are simply too large for this

Then they've got enough people on the squads to assign a brasser or brassers, after the tapers and steelers.

[kevin c]

People who don't pick up their brass, whether in a match or in practice, make it a pain in the posterior for those of us who do. There is so much junk brass on our range now, that I can pick up a dozen before finding one of my own. I suppose that if I were less picky about shooting brass I don't know anything about, it wouldn't be a problem, but there it is.

I'd use Nolan's brass markers, but 1) I'm too lazy to mark every case and 2) those at my range who do use them still can't tell their brass apart 'cause they all use the same basic colors. Still, there'd be less to pick through...

[schmitz]

Over here in Europe (esp. the Netherlands) we'll always pick up the empty shells and reload them, 'till they crack because it's very expensive to buy new, let's say Remington .38SA+P or .40S&W brass (or nickelplated)

Even on matches I' ll use old brass but always fit the reloaded ammo in the barrel of my SVI gun just to be shure.

DVC, Henny Schmitz. NPSA, Netherlands.

[ipsc1]

I once did a test on 38 super brass ( starline), when the PF was 175 and using 115 grain bullets. I had to case pro after 8, 14, and 19 reloadings. After 23 reloadings I stopped the test. At that point I had lost 5% to cracks and 10% to loose primer pockets.

determination to case pro was based on a chamber check guage. I have 4 that are different, tighter to looser, once it would not drop into the 3rd tightest guage I would case pro.

ipsc1