Brass sorting?/Question about Nickle cases

[G17]

Hi, i'm new to reloading and picked up my first run of reloading components today. I got a bag of 1000 polished mixed head stamp brass. I initially thought about sorting them out into different ziplock baggies but holy cow, there are so many different types of headstamps in this brass it's not only time consuming but it's kind of frustrating trying to keep track.

I know that some of the walls can vary on different brass which is why it might be a good idea to separate, but is it absolutely necessary? If you guys truely recommend it then i'll do it i just wanted to see if there was a better method.

I'll be working on a single stage so i'll ultimately handle each case. Are there certain stamps of brass that i want to watch out for and not use because it would seem easier to just take a look at it before i run it on the press and if it's a no-go i just toss it.

Also, about a 1/4 of the bag are Nickle cases. Are there any difference between Nickle and Brass. Other then i think the Nickle being a little more aesthetically pleasing are they both created equal? I see a lot of pricey defensive ammo with nickle cases that's why i ask. Is there a purpose to it or does it just look better?

Thanks guys.

[GrumpyOne]

Nickle doesn't oxidize like brass, hence self defense ammo... nickle is fine to reload, although you won't get as many reloads out of it as the brass...it tends to be a bit harder, and as such, the case mouth will sometimes split a good deal sooner than the brass case.

[al503]

For headstamps to avoid, do a search for 'amerc' brass. If you have a magnet handy, some S&B cases are steel that are brass colored. You want to avoid those.

You should also look for military/crimped primer pockets (usually WCC, Fed NT, etc.)

Nickel: I actually prefer nickel over non nickel. It cleans easier, sizes smoother, and strips out of the mag with less drag. The only real con is what grumpy said about the case mouth splitting faster than regular brass. Just don't over bell the cases when reloading and you'll get a bunch of reloads out of them before they split

Edited January 10, 2014 by al503

[ZackJones]

For local matches and stuff like that I just use whatever I can find. For big important matches like Area or state championship matches I'll try to buy some once fired brass and use that. With luck you can find once fired from the same company.

Which single stage press did you get? I load all of my stuff with a Lee breech lock single stage press. I just do things in batches and it works well for me.

[atbarr]

Be sure and keep some magnets in your tumbler. They will catch any brass coated steel cases. FWIW, I've only found 9mm steel cases.

[GrumpyOne]

Be sure and keep some magnets in your tumbler. They will catch any brass coated steel cases. FWIW, I've only found 9mm steel cases.

Now that is sage advice....all it takes is one brass washed steel case in the press to gum up the works...

[G17]

For local matches and stuff like that I just use whatever I can find. For big important matches like Area or state championship matches I'll try to buy some once fired brass and use that. With luck you can find once fired from the same company.

Which single stage press did you get? I load all of my stuff with a Lee breech lock single stage press. I just do things in batches and it works well for me.

I have the Lee breech lock as well. I only make it to the range about once a week (200-250 rounds) so i figure that should be sufficient, but we'll see how it goes. I have a feeling reloading is going to have me shooting a lot more and if that's the case i'll probably upgrade to a Dillon 650 at some point. I would've like to actually get that first but it just comes down to money. It's expensive to get started and i couldn't wait any longer. I just want to start making some rounds and putting them down range.

[G17]

Thanks for the advice guys. I think what i'll do is separate all the Nickle into it's own bag. Then go through them all with a magnet and search for brass that is known to not be good and get rid of those. Then everything else i'll just load accordingly. I haven't been in the sport long enough to make it to any big matches, but in the future i would probably just buy brand new brass for that.

[ZackJones]

I have the Lee breech lock as well. I only make it to the range about once a week (200-250 rounds) so i figure that should be sufficient, but we'll see how it goes. I have a feeling reloading is going to have me shooting a lot more and if that's the case i'll probably upgrade to a Dillon 650 at some point.

The breech lock press is a great little press. If you don't have any I'd recommend picking up a couple of the Frankford Arsenal Perfect Fit Reloading trays (http://www.midwayusa.com/product/2124125282/frankford-arsenal-perfect-fit-reloading-tray). This allows you work in batches of 50 they work great.

Also if you want to save yourself LOTS of headaches get Lee Pro Auto-Disk Powder Measure (http://www.midwayusa.com/product/348753/lee-pro-auto-disk-powder-measure) This will allow you to charge the cases using the press.

Yeah I know just what you didn't want to hear more things to spend money on . If there's anything I can help you with on the Lee press let me know.

[RePete]

I get rid of AMERC brass and aluminium cases, and sort out the nickle to load separately.

Great idea with the magnet.

[goat68]

Crimped primers are a PITA also since they tend to break the decapping pin or not come out at all. Then you end up with a mess because the primer didn't seat and maybe the platform won't index. I try to throw out the WCC circle + headstamp out to minimize this.

I don't normally sort pistol brass inclduing the ocassional nickle ones.

Edited January 18, 2014 by goat68

[BSeevers]

You don't wanna sort brass because its tedious but you are using a single stage press?
Don't ever try a progressive press

I mark my brass, load for 3 and still check it all and weird stuff still makes it through. I recommend a presort to get rid of those bad brands and looking at your brass. Your probably not going to blow your gun up its just bad ammo jams and costs you the match

[JohnLTD]

I would also sort out (recycle/throw away) "Ammoload" 9mm Head stamp. It is very odd brass with a shoulder half way up the inside of the case and a lower case volume.

[razorfish]

Here's how I count, inspect and sort 9mm brass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpkUnUqMo8U

[JLeeCZ]

Here's how I count, inspect and sort 9mm brass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpkUnUqMo8U

Nice idea. Thanks for sharing.

[Steve RA]

The only thing I do differently from the vid is instead of inverting the cases on a board I put them into another plastic tray with the headstamps up. You then do not run the risk of knocking the whole batch over - which could easily happen on the board. All you have to do is put the second tray over the first and then invert the two trays. Sorting is then like the vid.

[G17]

I would also sort out (recycle/throw away) "Ammoload" 9mm Head stamp. It is very odd brass with a shoulder half way up the inside of the case and a lower case volume.

Yup, noticed like 3 or 4 of those in my bag of 1000 while sorting. I basically went through all the brass and separated them each into their own zip lock bag. The ones i didn't know i looked up to see if they were any good. I chucked the ammoload as well as a few other things.

Do you guys separate each individual head stamp and make a specific run of ammo with each. Or when you are sorting are you mainly just looking for headstamps that you deem unsuitable?

[G17]

Holy cow, before watching that video i never would've guessed just by dumping brass into 9mm trays it would actually drop in like that. I'll have to get a bin and try it.

[KnurlingTurtle]

Here's how I count, inspect and sort 9mm brass:

Well for.......I recently hand sorted 4k 9mm. This will make the process much less tedious. Thanks for the tip.

[BeerBaron]

yeah get rid of the steel and any aluminium cases of course.

The breechlock is a great press but for someone who shoots 250 rounds a week you'll spend a lot of time with it.

Since money is tight forget progressive but get a turret press instead. the lee classic turret is very cheap and gives you 4 stations. it also has on the press priming which works very well and it will run with the lee auto-powder disk measure.

it's great for a noob reloader as you still touch every individual case and you're only loading 1 case at a time so very easy to make sure nothing goes wrong.

how it works is instead of (like a progressive) the case getting moved around from station to station, the case stays still and the tool head rotates instead.

the great thing is you can de-prime and resize on station one, then re-prime at the top of that stroke, then flare and powder drop on station 2, seat the bullet on station 3 and install a factory crimp die on station 4 so you crimp and post size on station 4. seperating out the seat and crimp into 2 stations makes things much easier to set-up and gives you much finer adjustment over crimp.

it is many, many times faster than a single stage. still very safe and almost mistake proof. affordable and will mean you can probably do 300 rounds in an hour easy.

you already have dies. it comes with the priming set-up. all you need to buy is:

classic turret press

powder disk riser (about $10)

pro-auto powder disk measure

factory crimp die (if you don't have one)

powder scale (don't go nuts, there are some good cheap ones available)

calipers to measure OAL (should have this already anyway)

vabratory case tumbler (I reccomend the lyman turbo 1200 for a new reloader, it's cheap and comes with good media)

get a chamber gauge too (I like the EGW one).

plus using a turret press will give you some skills you'll need later for a progressive.

the good news is your breech lock is not wasted. you can use it later for stuff like bullet sizing if you get into casting. or sell it. they are very popular. or use it for rifle stuff.

I just really think 250 rounds a week is way too many to be doing on a single stage. a turret is a great compromise between safety and consistency of single stage, vs speed of progressive.

[G17]

yeah get rid of the steel and any aluminium cases of course.

The breechlock is a great press but for someone who shoots 250 rounds a week you'll spend a lot of time with it.

Since money is tight forget progressive but get a turret press instead. the lee classic turret is very cheap and gives you 4 stations. it also has on the press priming which works very well and it will run with the lee auto-powder disk measure.

it's great for a noob reloader as you still touch every individual case and you're only loading 1 case at a time so very easy to make sure nothing goes wrong.

how it works is instead of (like a progressive) the case getting moved around from station to station, the case stays still and the tool head rotates instead.

the great thing is you can de-prime and resize on station one, then re-prime at the top of that stroke, then flare and powder drop on station 2, seat the bullet on station 3 and install a factory crimp die on station 4 so you crimp and post size on station 4. seperating out the seat and crimp into 2 stations makes things much easier to set-up and gives you much finer adjustment over crimp.

it is many, many times faster than a single stage. still very safe and almost mistake proof. affordable and will mean you can probably do 300 rounds in an hour easy.

you already have dies. it comes with the priming set-up. all you need to buy is:

classic turret press

powder disk riser (about $10)

pro-auto powder disk measure

factory crimp die (if you don't have one)

powder scale (don't go nuts, there are some good cheap ones available)

calipers to measure OAL (should have this already anyway)

vabratory case tumbler (I reccomend the lyman turbo 1200 for a new reloader, it's cheap and comes with good media)

get a chamber gauge too (I like the EGW one).

plus using a turret press will give you some skills you'll need later for a progressive.

the good news is your breech lock is not wasted. you can use it later for stuff like bullet sizing if you get into casting. or sell it. they are very popular. or use it for rifle stuff.

I just really think 250 rounds a week is way too many to be doing on a single stage. a turret is a great compromise between safety and consistency of single stage, vs speed of progressive.

Hey thank you very much for your reply. I knew a single stage would be slow but i didn't now HOW slow. I have loaded about 400 rounds with my single stage so far. I tried to break it up to space out the time, like recently i was working on a run of 200 that i shot yesterday. I resized/deprimed the first night, primed/flared case mouth, the next night, and it took two nights to weight the charges/seat the bullet/ check oal and tape crimp. Ultimately it feels like i had about 7 hours invested in reloading 200 rounds. Way, way, way too time consuming. I'm getting into reloading because i want to be able to shoot more, but like a bunch of you have said single stage isn't the way to go i have now learned that.

I have a good set of calipers/powder scale and some other tools. I do plan on getting a turret press very shortly. I don't know what it's called but i'm using this RAM press thing to seat primers on my press right now. It seems to work ok i guess. Would i be better off getting a hand primer or using the RAM on the turret press. Or does the turret press have a completely different primer seating operation? I wasn't sure how progressive/turret seat their primers. Which would be the fastest method.

By far the most time consuming process is weighing each individual powder charge out and funneling it into the case. I would imagine a powder measure would be much quicker?

Edited January 23, 2014 by G17

[BSeevers]

Don't wanna bum you out but I could step out to the garage and load 200 in 20 min. Faster sometimes.

[ZackJones]

Don't wanna bum you out but I could step out to the garage and load 200 in 20 min. Faster sometimes.

Show off .

G17: Weighing out the powder is what's killing you. Get the Powder drop that mounts on the press. It makes a world of difference. I can't knock out 200 rounds in 20 minutes but I can do 200 rounds in less than a hour with my single stage press. It helps using both hands. As one hand removes one cartridge from the press the other hand is preparing to put another one into the shell plate. If you go progressive keep your single stage for de-priming or other small batches.

[BeerBaron]

yeah get rid of the steel and any aluminium cases of course.

The breechlock is a great press but for someone who shoots 250 rounds a week you'll spend a lot of time with it.

Since money is tight forget progressive but get a turret press instead. the lee classic turret is very cheap and gives you 4 stations. it also has on the press priming which works very well and it will run with the lee auto-powder disk measure.

it's great for a noob reloader as you still touch every individual case and you're only loading 1 case at a time so very easy to make sure nothing goes wrong.

how it works is instead of (like a progressive) the case getting moved around from station to station, the case stays still and the tool head rotates instead.

the great thing is you can de-prime and resize on station one, then re-prime at the top of that stroke, then flare and powder drop on station 2, seat the bullet on station 3 and install a factory crimp die on station 4 so you crimp and post size on station 4. seperating out the seat and crimp into 2 stations makes things much easier to set-up and gives you much finer adjustment over crimp.

it is many, many times faster than a single stage. still very safe and almost mistake proof. affordable and will mean you can probably do 300 rounds in an hour easy.

you already have dies. it comes with the priming set-up. all you need to buy is:

classic turret press

powder disk riser (about $10)

pro-auto powder disk measure

factory crimp die (if you don't have one)

powder scale (don't go nuts, there are some good cheap ones available)

calipers to measure OAL (should have this already anyway)

vabratory case tumbler (I reccomend the lyman turbo 1200 for a new reloader, it's cheap and comes with good media)

get a chamber gauge too (I like the EGW one).

plus using a turret press will give you some skills you'll need later for a progressive.

the good news is your breech lock is not wasted. you can use it later for stuff like bullet sizing if you get into casting. or sell it. they are very popular. or use it for rifle stuff.

I just really think 250 rounds a week is way too many to be doing on a single stage. a turret is a great compromise between safety and consistency of single stage, vs speed of progressive.

Hey thank you very much for your reply. I knew a single stage would be slow but i didn't now HOW slow. I have loaded about 400 rounds with my single stage so far. I tried to break it up to space out the time, like recently i was working on a run of 200 that i shot yesterday. I resized/deprimed the first night, primed/flared case mouth, the next night, and it took two nights to weight the charges/seat the bullet/ check oal and tape crimp. Ultimately it feels like i had about 7 hours invested in reloading 200 rounds. Way, way, way too time consuming. I'm getting into reloading because i want to be able to shoot more, but like a bunch of you have said single stage isn't the way to go i have now learned that.

I have a good set of calipers/powder scale and some other tools. I do plan on getting a turret press very shortly. I don't know what it's called but i'm using this RAM press thing to seat primers on my press right now. It seems to work ok i guess. Would i be better off getting a hand primer or using the RAM on the turret press. Or does the turret press have a completely different primer seating operation? I wasn't sure how progressive/turret seat their primers. Which would be the fastest method.

By far the most time consuming process is weighing each individual powder charge out and funneling it into the case. I would imagine a powder measure would be much quicker?

Yep, the turret press has a version of the ram prime. it actually works quite well. a hand prime will enable you to seat the primers a little deeper but will mess up the loading routine. you'd have to deprime all the caes first, then take them off the press, re-prime, then back again.

I would try using the on-press priming. it was certainly reliable enough for me with 9mm IPSC ammo.

Yes, the powder measure makes this process much, much faster. when you first set it up, weigh a few charges on your scales to make sure it's throwing a nice consistent load, there after I check a case every 20 or 30 cases to make sure it's still going ok. the disk type measure in the lee powder drop is pretty reliable for me. very consistent. the only issue is you might want a load of say 3.5gn but find one disk gives 3.4gn and the next size up gives 3.6gn. you can fix that by taking the smaller disk and using a round file to expand the hole a bit. or just live with a load that's slightly over or slightly under. it doesn't make a bid difference.

I wouldn't buy any more bits for single stage loading (like don't go and buy a bench mounted powder drop for example).

Nothing you've bought so far is wasted as they'll all be useful tools. but from now, save a few bucks and buy the lee classic 4 hole turret.

This is the newer model turret press which is cheaper. made from cheaper materials. it's quite ok if budget is REALLY tight. http://leeprecision.com/4-hole-turret-press-with-auto-index.html

but a better quality version is this one: http://leeprecision.com/4-hole-classic-turret-press.html

for the sake of $40 it's a much nicer quality press.

do not get sucked into buying the pro-1000. it's progressive, but it's 3 station and is really just junk.

having 4 stations is really important as it allows you to separate seat and crimp into 2 stations which will give much better ammo and is much easier to set up.

buy a lee factory crimp die and install that in the 4th station. use the lee seat and crimp die you have already in station 3 but with the crimp backed right off.

you need this powder drop. the good news is if you go progressive later you can use it, or keep it with your turret press as a complete set-up. http://leeprecision.com/pro-auto-disk.html

you need this to lift the powder measure up so it clears the primer system. I like it up high anyway gives you a longer drop tube and more clearance to work around the tool head. http://leeprecision.com/auto-disk-riser.html

you also need the lee safety prime (though you may already have it with your breech lock set-up). http://leeprecision.com/safety-primer-feed-small-and-large.html

Those prices are all the retail. at a local store or online you should be able to source that stuff cheaper. I think the whole lot (classic turret, pro powder measure, riser tube) should be around $200. plus another $25 if you need the safety prime.

this is the die you want for the 4th station. http://leeprecision.com/carbide-factory-crimp-die-9mm.html should cost $20 or under. if you're not shooting 9mm, chose the correct calibre FCD. I assume 9mm from your username G17...

Unfortunately single stage is just not efficient for pistol shooters. especially anyone doing practical shooting where we easily shoot 200 rounds in a practice session. single stage is really useful for rifle loading for hunters who may only shoot 20 rounds in a whole weekend of hunting and want all 20 to be works of gun art! For us pistol guys the starting point for a new reloader should always be a turret in my opinion.

it teaches you to be aware of what's happening. you only have 1 case to focus on at a time but it does have movement etc which helps you develop some skills and confidence towards running a progressive one day. and it's fast enough to bang out those 200 rounds in an hour not 7 hours.

if you don't have a tumbler yet, try the lyman 1200 with lyman green corncob. don't baulk at the price of the green lyman media. it'll last you a year of using it every week! and the tumbler comes with a free batch of media inside.

Once you get that 4 hole turret and get into a good rhythm the speed will seem amazing. DVC!

[Nebwake]

Here's how I count, inspect and sort 9mm brass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpkUnUqMo8U

That is an AWESOME and cheap idea, I line up all my brass on my sorting table which takes forever! thanks!