Marking your own brass

[SlvrDragon50]

Anyone here mark their own brass so that they don't have to retrim and swage every piece of collected range brass? Any suggestions on how to do it? I use an ultrasonic cleaner so I think any permanent marker will likely be removed? Or is that not true.

[loaded605]

My rifle brass usually needs a little trim after each firing and resizing. I just trim them all. It’s faster than marking or separating.

If I already processed it myself and it’s being reloaded again it goes in one bucket. If it wasn’t mine or was factory new ammo, those cases go in a different bucket. I will sort headstamps from time to time if I am not loading hoser FMJ ammo.

[SlvrDragon50]

1 hour ago, loaded605 said:

My rifle brass usually needs a little trim after each firing and resizing. I just trim them all. It’s faster than marking or separating.

If I already processed it myself and it’s being reloaded again it goes in one bucket. If it wasn’t mine or was factory new ammo, those cases go in a different bucket. I will sort headstamps from time to time if I am not loading hoser FMJ ammo.

Gotcha. I guess I'll just trim and swage all the brass again then. It's not so much time consuming as much as fatiguing on my fingers from holding the brass in the trimmer that I wanted to avoid.

 

I wish I had a 1050 so I could just easily prep all the brass through a casefeeder rather than doing it by hand!

[practical_man]

I mark my brass with a paint pen. But only for High Power rifle. Neck turning is a considerable time investment so I keep it separate. 

 

For run and gun games, I just use a sharpie on the case head after I put the loded rounds in boxes. I like to keep track of how many times I reload the case. 4 loads and they get relegated to practice bucket, along with any odd range pick ups. 

 

Rifle brass gets trimmed every loading. Someday I will get a Gracy power trimmer. Probably not soon tho. 

[SlvrDragon50]

3 hours ago, practical_man said:

I mark my brass with a paint pen. But only for High Power rifle. Neck turning is a considerable time investment so I keep it separate. 

 

For run and gun games, I just use a sharpie on the case head after I put the loded rounds in boxes. I like to keep track of how many times I reload the case. 4 loads and they get relegated to practice bucket, along with any odd range pick ups. 

 

Rifle brass gets trimmed every loading. Someday I will get a Gracy power trimmer. Probably not soon tho. 

This brings up a question I've had about # times loaded. With 9mm, I've never really cared when it comes to range pick ups. How do you treat the unmarked brass since it could have been reloaded 5 times by someone else or it could be once fired? I don't sort by headstamp so accuracy isn't really a concern for me. I've only really been throwing out brass that's clearly unusable such as massive dents or torn casings.

[Beef15]

I store my 223 in stripper clips, I run a perm marker down both sides, different colors represent different loads. You can lay ten or 12 in you hand and do the same, but you will probably mark your hand.

 

Having a fat stripe across both sides of the case makes it super easy to identify on the ground if you only want to grab yours, and to sort pre-cleaning from all the unmarked if you're grabbing everything on the ground.

[MustangGreg66]

Check out the Mr. Shooter brass marker. I've used it for 223 and 9mm and puts a good mark on the cases. I size/trim 223 every time so basically have two buckets, new to me, and once fired by me. eventually it'll be 3x fired. You won't need to swage the primer pockets again, that's a once and done operation, and part of the reason to keep your brass and not mix it with other people's new brass.

 

https://youtu.be/4tUEjm94fAo

http://www.mrshooter.com/mrshooterbrassmarker.html

[synchronicity]

I reload until it won't hold a primer or splits.  All calibers.  I have 50BMG at 8X, and with primer flattening

 

loads.   Unknown # with 45acp, but moon clips let me know what is mine and there  are Very few

 

rejects.  If it matters, I use sharpie to identify.  45 is pit run sorted by headstamp, 50 is maintained in

 

matched sets.

[practical_man]

On 8/15/2018 at 10:51 AM, SlvrDragon50 said:

This brings up a question I've had about # times loaded. With 9mm, I've never really cared when it comes to range pick ups. How do you treat the unmarked brass since it could have been reloaded 5 times by someone else or it could be once fired? I don't sort by headstamp so accuracy isn't really a concern for me. I've only really been throwing out brass that's clearly unusable such as massive dents or torn casings.

I put unknown brass in the practice bucket. Practice loads are loaded separately. I can usually feel a loose primer pocket when loading and pull the round before it’s finished. 

 

I only keep keep track of loadings semi auto rifle rounds where a blown primer can tie up the gun and wreck a match. If it happens in practice it’s no big deal. Just aggravation 

 

pistol brass get loaded till it is lost or splits. I only sort headstamps on pistol brass for bullseye. Long line loads are star line brass. Short line it doesn’t seem to matter

[bveto]

I mark all of my LC rifle brass with a Mr. Shooter Brass Marker that i reload, if I pick up any LC that's not mine I will deprime and then swag it before I put in the bucket. 

[hiropro]

just accross the tail with a wide marks a lot marker for rifle.  pistol I dont really care

 

[Foxcobra93]

Bright colored sharpie marker on middle of head stamp works for me.

[Bkreutz]

I mark the head for 2 reasons,

1. It shows that I've case gauged that round

2. When I pick up a loaded round at a match I can tell if it's one of mine, if it's mine, I'll put it back in the rotation. Otherwise it goes in the live round bucket at the range.

[NateTSU]

I just use a jumbo purple Sharpe to put a stripe around my 6.5cm brass, it comes off when I clean it but it's no big deal to reapply. I don't mark my pistol brass(9mm) or my .223 brass. I just count those as a loss at a match. 

[MustangGreg66]

On 10/2/2018 at 4:12 PM, Bkreutz said:

I mark the head for 2 reasons,

1. It shows that I've case gauged that round

2. When I pick up a loaded round at a match I can tell if it's one of mine, if it's mine, I'll put it back in the rotation. Otherwise it goes in the live round bucket at the range.

 

 

Just curious, what does your club do with the "live round bucket" at your range?

[Bkreutz]

2 hours ago, MustangGreg66 said:

 

Just curious, what does your club do with the "live round bucket" at your range?

Haven't got a clue, never asked (Maybe I'll do that tomorrow)

[gmantwo]

I take all live rounds home. Pull the bullets, dump the powder, reuse the brass & sell the bullets to the recycler

 

That’s  range pickups, not my own

Edited December 17, 2018 by gmantwo
Correct