How fast can you stripe your brass?

[slavex]

I saw a guy who had a couple markers placed around his 1050 so that as the rounds went around they got marked. it worked good, the pressure from the marker caused the case to turn as it went by so when it hit the next marker it was marking blank space, not where the other marker hit.

[Chills1994]

My homemade brass striper thread from summer 2005 (good gawd! Have I been here that long?)

Life is too short to stripe brass, case gauge ammo, and to sort brass by caliber or headstamp by hand.

Just get a 9mm Major barrel fitted to that gun already and be done with it.

Your back, knees and your pocket book will thank you for switching from .38 Super .

[Chills1994]

^^^ PS: somebody wrote here in the forums a long time ago about a way to anodize brass, I think. If you could do 100's of .38 super cases by dunking them in a 5 gallon bucket and the anodizing would last through tumbling with media, resizing and firing, it might be worth it.

Then again, how much does it cost to fit a 9mm Major barrel?

[Jeff686]

My homemade brass striper thread from summer 2005 (good gawd! Have I been here that long?)

Life is too short to stripe brass, case gauge ammo, and to sort brass by caliber or headstamp by hand.

Just get a 9mm Major barrel fitted to that gun already and be done with it.

Your back, knees and your pocket book will thank you for switching from .38 Super .

I totally agree, but...

I've got a large frame Tanfoglio Gold Team. They don't make 140/170mm mags for it that work with 9mm. There are rumors that they are working on it...

Until then, gotta mark that brass.

[larry cazes]

My homemade brass striper thread from summer 2005 (good gawd! Have I been here that long?)

Life is too short to stripe brass, case gauge ammo, and to sort brass by caliber or headstamp by hand.

Just get a 9mm Major barrel fitted to that gun already and be done with it.

Your back, knees and your pocket book will thank you for switching from .38 Super .

Actually life is too short to shoot poor quality ammo at matches. Why bother at all if you dont invest the time to do it right?

[jmorris]

For all of you guys not blessed with black land soil, I’ll send you a five gallon bucket full of dirt for $50 that is guaranteed to permanently stain your brass black with only 1 cup of water and 4 days time.

[Chills1994]

Jeff686 wrote:

I totally agree, but...

I've got a large frame Tanfoglio Gold Team. They don't make 140/170mm mags for it that work with 9mm. There are rumors that they are working on it...

Until then, gotta mark that brass.

Yeah, sounds like you're in a bit of a conundrum.

My only other piece of advice for you is that if you buy virgin .38 Super brass again, splurge, and get the nickel cases. They really do stand out vs. the yellow brass.

I don't have a reloading manual handy.... but if guys are getting .38 Super breechfaced STI and SVI guns to work with 9mm, methinks the case head dimension can't be that far off... even if it is a magazine issue. Maybe they are dumping their .38 Super mags and buying 9mm mags... at 100 bucks a pop, I doubt they are just trashing their .38 Super mags.

Heck... my Beretta mags are interchangeable between 9mm and .40, and run 100%. I would have to think that the case head dimensions between 9 and .40 are way more different than 9 and .38 Super.

larry crazes wrote:

Actually life is too short to shoot poor quality ammo at matches. Why bother at all if you dont invest the time to do it right?

Time is money... money is time... right?

I didn't say anything about skimping on making quality handloaded ammo, now did I?

Get the EGW/Lee Undersize die and the Lee Factory Crimp die, and use the case gauge for maybe just the first five or 10 rounds that come off the press at the start of a reloading session.

If those first 5 pass the case gauge, then start-a-crankin'!!

There's no need to case gauge every round once you get those two dies.

Lastly, if someone out there feels the need to skimp on the QC of their handloaded ammo and they don't test it out before a major match and their gun pukes, or worse, blows up on them at a major match, that's their own damn fault and I feel no sympathy for them. I got to witness one gun blow up as I RO'ed/SO'ed a shooter...

Sorry for the catankerousness of my post and the thread drift.

I'll go back to lurking now.

[jmorris]

There's no need to case gauge every round once you get those two dies.

Until you loose a match because the rim of a cartridge was somehow damaged. This is also why stopped using a barrel for a case gauge (the hood only “checks” 25% or so). Roll sizing takes care of this problem but I still case gauge every round for competition. Try it and you’ll rid yourself of “mystery” malfunctions.

[LPatterson]

There's no need to case gauge every round once you get those two dies.

Until you loose a match because the rim of a cartridge was somehow damaged. This is also why stopped using a barrel for a case gauge (the hood only "checks" 25% or so). Roll sizing takes care of this problem but I still case gauge every round for competition. Try it and you'll rid yourself of "mystery" malfunctions.

Or the case that splits seating a bullet that won't fit in the case gauge but does press fit in the barrel and won't fall out.

[Chills1994]

jmorris wrote:

Until you loose a match because the rim of a cartridge was somehow damaged. This ....

I still put my rounds, temporarily into one of those flip top plastic boxes, headstamp end up, then run my finger over them mainly to check for high primers, but yeah, it's also good to find bullets seated too long or too short or a boogered up rim.

Then I mark the headstamps with just one red stripe.

Then I dump the box into a military surplus .30 cal ammo can. That's how I carry my ammo at the matches. In fact, I am thinking about using black chalkboard paint on the sides and ends of the ammo boxes and then just using chalk to write what caliber, bullet weight, etc. is actually inside the ammo can.

LPaterson wrote:

Or the case that splits seating a bullet that won't fit in the case gauge but does press fit in the barrel and won't fall out.

I can pick out by tone when I seperate the media from the brass in the "bingo roller" which cases have split or are about to split.

I never did say that putting your hands and eyes on the ammo before it goes into one of your guns was a bad thing... just that using the FCD and U die allows me to skip the case gauging and all that striping.

It looks like, for now anyways, that our OP, Jeff 686, is stuck using that uber expensive .38 Super brass. I think he mentioned that in another post, just not his OP.

What would be slick is to mill up a piece of aluminum channel and use that as the ramp for the loaded rounds to go down.

Mill a slot down one "wall" of the channel and insert a felt ink pad. Load it up with ink, and hopefully as the brass goes off press and into some bin it gets striped.

My only other idea is to use one of those RCBS lube dies, like for bottle necked cartridges and feed it ink instead of lube.

[larry cazes]

What would be slick is to mill up a piece of aluminum channel and use that as the ramp for the loaded rounds to go down.

Mill a slot down one "wall" of the channel and insert a felt ink pad. Load it up with ink, and hopefully as the brass goes off press and into some bin it gets striped.

My only other idea is to use one of those RCBS lube dies, like for bottle necked cartridges and feed it ink instead of lube.

Are we talking about marking our rounds for practice? If so, these efforts MAY be worthwhile but for matches only it is not much extra work to mark them by hand simply. I dont find I need to mark any cases for practice ammo. But then again I run 38supercomp and I am anal about ALL aspects of my loaded rounds. The extra cost, scrutiny, and care DOES pay off big time in that last few percent of reliability gained. Even 1 gun related malfunction in a match is 1 too many for me.

[Tom S.]

What would be slick is to mill up a piece of aluminum channel and use that as the ramp for the loaded rounds to go down.

Mill a slot down one "wall" of the channel and insert a felt ink pad. Load it up with ink, and hopefully as the brass goes off press and into some bin it gets striped.

My only other idea is to use one of those RCBS lube dies, like for bottle necked cartridges and feed it ink instead of lube.

Are we talking about marking our rounds for practice? If so, these efforts MAY be worthwhile but for matches only it is not much extra work to mark them by hand simply. I dont find I need to mark any cases for practice ammo. But then again I run 38supercomp and I am anal about ALL aspects of my loaded rounds. The extra cost, scrutiny, and care DOES pay off big time in that last few percent of reliability gained. Even 1 gun related malfunction in a match is 1 too many for me.

They are talking about marking the brass for easy identification when picking it up after shooting.

[Jim Norman]

OK, Since I understand Nolan no longer makes his brass striper, I feel free to tell what I did.

First I bought one of Nolan's units. Worked very well, and then I put it away and could no find it. SO...

Went to Lowe's (Any store selling shelving standards will do) and bought the shortest 1/2 x 1/2 inch standard, four 10-24 screws 2@ 3 inches long, 2@ about 1-1/2, and a pvc cutting board (wood would do) Then I essentially copied Nolan's design. Needed a hacksaw, hand drill, and a couple basic hand tools. Viola, two color striper. Of course I found Nolan's about a week after I made mine.

I strip my bras for to reasons. To get mine back AND to differentiate Major and minor loads for steel and production etc.

Jim

[1911jerry]

Doesnt take me ANY time at all to Stripe mine. The wife does it! No seriously we have a deal where I load, she stripes, and we both shoot it. She uses one of Nolan's (hosercam) dual stripers and it takes maybe 2 seconds per round.

Let me guess.....double purple stripes? I shot with you and your wife in California a few years ago !

Jerry

[XD Niner]

I strip my bras for to reasons. Jim

Video!! We want video Jim. At the very least a couple of photos

[jwrig]

I strip my bras for to reasons. Jim

Video!! We want video Jim. At the very least a couple of photos

It took me a second, XD.

Back to the thread. I use Dykem spray paint...real thin, dries fast, easy to spot, gums up nothing. Oh, for lazy peeps like me, it's easy.