Reloading range brass

[JimmyE]

I'm up to the point of loading several thousands of 9mm minor through my Dillon 550b. I use collected range brass and supplement with purchased once-fired from an indoor range. I visually inspect my rounds after loading and have culled a couple of cracked cases. I recently had two cases fail at the base which caused a little tingle in the hand and extra smoke from the wrong end of the gun but no damage. My question for the higher volume shooters out there is: does this occasionally occur or has my reloading become a bit too "economical"? The data: G34, Storm Lake barrel, 125 gr LRN, 3.8 gr TG, 1.125 OAL, Fed or Rem SPP, 0.376 crimp. Yes, it's pretty dirty and I scrub every 500 rounds or so. I have an intermediate level of reloading experience but just not at this throughput. Would also like to avoid the dreaded KB or missing finger if possible

Thanks,

JE

Edited September 12, 2009 by JimmyE

[David.Hylton]

I also load 9mm minor, same load but MTG jacketed bullets, and a couple of things come to mind.

1. Be careful picking up brass when other shooters are shooting 9mm Major. I try to be extra careful with the brass from that crowd.

2. Make sure your technique on the Dillon is good. I had a trouble with squibs when I first got my 550. Double charges are a potential cause of your problems. My problems were solved when I started visually verifying the powder before advancing the case.

HTH

Dave

[JimmyZip]

Also, almost no crimp is the way with 9mm. It should just be taking out the flare.

[Graham Smith]

It's a big extra step but I resize and deprime my brass off the press on a single stage. I started doing that in order to use an ECW die for .40 without putting all that extra force on the press. But what I found is that it gives me an opportunity to visual each case and "feel" it during the resizing process. Anything that doesn't look right or feel right goes into the scrap bucket.

Even though this is extra work, it really doesn't take that long to run through a batch of cases and I do like the idea of inspecting the brass as a separate step. I've caught a few cracked cases, some creases, and a couple with "gunk" inside.

Edited September 12, 2009 by Graham Smith

[MTBfarms]

Most of my 9mm brass has been picked up from what's left at the range. I don't think there are very many at the clubs I go to running 9 major. So I'm pretty lucky there. I've never had a case fail "yet". When I first started loading with the 650 I had several squibs with no powder. Not sure why. Since I invested in the powder check die it has stopped the problem. I usually do 2 quick inspections. One when sprting brass and one while drop checking in the case guage.

Edited September 12, 2009 by MTBfarms

[Sarge]

I have loaded in the thousands with a 550 as well by now. I am an inspecting fool I think. When I pick it up I look for flaws. When I tumble I look again for rocks, crap, etc. and sort out military brass. When I load I have gotten in the habit of flipping the brass with my wrist to read the headstamp, this will flip any corn out, plus I feel for any obvious imperfections. Then I casegauge it all and look for high primers. That sounds like alot in print but it really amounts to paying close attention while reloading.

I have for a fact loaded quite a bit of 9major brass. As long as I pay attention and just load mouse fart loads it has not been a problem for me. You can just tell sometimes when to not load a piece of brass.

I also never advance the loader without verifying powder is in the case. I do this with the help of enough lighting to perform surgery and bifocal safety glasses.

I might be anal but so far my loads have been nearly perfect.

[Jman]

I only use the brass I shot picked "hot" off the ground and once fired from a well known supplier. Few things ruin matches more than crap reloads. Turning out ammo as fast or faster than we shoot is the reason for it. If you are concerned at all about "how many I can load in a hour" at this point on your curve, I guarantee you nearly endless frustration. You need to develop a technique that enables you to see everything. The best piece of advice I can give you is to inspect every case inside and out before it comes close to your press. And, figure out a way to visually inspect every powder charge. Just squaring away these two crucial elements of reloading puts you well on your way to shooting safer and more productive matches.

Jim

[JimmyE]

Thanks for the constructive advice. I take reloading seriously and am pretty cautious. I have a bright lamp over the press and stand while loading in order to inspect every charge before seating. I look at every case before it goes on the press and throw out anything questionable and only load a couple hundred at a time. I'm also measuring the charge and dimensions of the first few rounds at the beginning of every session. I have had great success with my loads so far but since I had two case failures in a short period of time makes me have to think about everything critically. I have not seen any signs of pressure in my spent cases. My plan is to decrease the crimp to .378 and clean the chamber with a brush more often. I'm shooting 4-5 matches a month (IDPA/USPSA/steel) and hope to find time for more practice so the gunk builds up pretty fast with lead over Titegroup. I will also buy a large illuminated magnifying lens for better case inspection.

JE

[bball97]

I have loaded in the thousands with a 550 as well by now. I am an inspecting fool I think. When I pick it up I look for flaws. When I tumble I look again for rocks, crap, etc. and sort out military brass. When I load I have gotten in the habit of flipping the brass with my wrist to read the headstamp, this will flip any corn out, plus I feel for any obvious imperfections. Then I casegauge it all and look for high primers. That sounds like alot in print but it really amounts to paying close attention while reloading.

I have for a fact loaded quite a bit of 9major brass. As long as I pay attention and just load mouse fart loads it has not been a problem for me. You can just tell sometimes when to not load a piece of brass.

I also never advance the loader without verifying powder is in the case. I do this with the help of enough lighting to perform surgery and bifocal safety glasses.

I might be anal but so far my loads have been nearly perfect.

+1! Quoting Earnest from the '80's: "You Cain't Be Too Careful!"

[Carlos]

"Range Brass"

It might have been reloaded MORE than 20 times. How would I know? I used to work at Phil Strader's old store/range: Shooters Paradise (long gone; burned down).

We sold "commercial reloads" (I won't say what company) to customers and often it was bought by people who rented our guns. Almost all the brass fired at that range was collected & given right back to the "commercial reloader" - to be loaded again. And again. And again.

It was a closed, endless loop or re-cycled brass. The commercialy reloaded brass stayed IN the loop until it cracked (the company had some sort of inspection process) or until someone bought the ammo and used it elsewhere - like YOUR range.

Without knowing the source of your brass, there is a possibility that you will get really USED UP brass in the mix.

OP - the one thing I see that you could change is: increase the OAL to 1.150" Glocks feed BETTER with longer loaded ammo & your pressure will go DOWN (less chance of KB). Winchester's White Box is about 1.160" - so an OAL of 1.150" will work fine.

[D. Manley]

It's a big extra step but I resize and deprime my brass off the press on a single stage. I started doing that in order to use an ECW die for .40 without putting all that extra force on the press. But what I found is that it gives me an opportunity to visual each case and "feel" it during the resizing process. Anything that doesn't look right or feel right goes into the scrap bucket.

Even though this is extra work, it really doesn't take that long to run through a batch of cases and I do like the idea of inspecting the brass as a separate step. I've caught a few cracked cases, some creases, and a couple with "gunk" inside.

Same here. I give cases a minimal "pre-cleaning" and run them through the U-Dies set up on a LCT for my (4) pistol calibers. After sizing/decapping I'll re-polish them and check for defects as I inspect primer pockets for any media in the flash holes. I find flawed cases a lot easier to spot on clean, shiny, brass and while it does involve extra steps, the end result is a butter-smooth load process when they're ran through the Dillon...not for everyone but worth it to me.

[THM7]

I have loaded 10's of thousands 9mm with range brass (Rio Salado where a lot of 9mm major is shot) and have not had any real problems..ever. I case gauge every loaded round and this inspection has caught any that are not safe to shoot or might not chamber. Unless there is a visible flaw on the brass I cannot see how you can eliminate all potential problems. I am surprised you have had such bad luck with your reloads....squibs and double charges on a 550 is because is get out of sequence....99% of the time...not that is your problem. Also Titegroup is a fast powder...a slower powder might prevent such a rapid pressure rise....might help.

[Carlos]

I am surprised you have had such bad luck with your reloads

I agree with that part - and it makes me wonder if maybe some of the brass you are finding has been fired through a blow-back submachinegun? I understand that some subguns can be tough on 9mm brass.

[Graham Smith]

Over the weekend I was clearing up stuff in the basement (always a big mistake) and took several small containers of twice, and thrice fired brass and dumped them into a big bucket. After all the pickup and sorting and cleaning, I was putting things up and found that I had dumped a box of dirty range brass in with the "better stuff". So, now I have this giant bucket-o-brass that's going to need washing and not just a run through the vibrator. <sigh>

Moral of the story is to try and keep your brass separated into dirty and funky piles to make cleaning easier

[JeffWard]

I have loaded in the thousands with a 550 as well by now. I am an inspecting fool I think. When I pick it up I look for flaws. When I tumble I look again for rocks, crap, etc. and sort out military brass. When I load I have gotten in the habit of flipping the brass with my wrist to read the headstamp, this will flip any corn out, plus I feel for any obvious imperfections. Then I casegauge it all and look for high primers. That sounds like alot in print but it really amounts to paying close attention while reloading.

I have for a fact loaded quite a bit of 9major brass. As long as I pay attention and just load mouse fart loads it has not been a problem for me. You can just tell sometimes when to not load a piece of brass.

I also never advance the loader without verifying powder is in the case. I do this with the help of enough lighting to perform surgery and bifocal safety glasses.

I might be anal but so far my loads have been nearly perfect.

My process is the same, but with a Square Deal...

I got a bunch of (I assume) Israeli 9mm brass in my last haul. Crimped pockets. They load, but are a bitch.

The "wrist-flip-head-check" works for two reasons... It tosses the occasional corn chunk, and also, if I can't read the head-stamp anymore. The case gets tossed. (mm Minor can be loaded over, and over, and over... until the head/rim is so worn it won't reliably eject. If the head stamp is worn right off.... Its probably done. The check adds a half-second to each cycle. Bad in a 10-stage match... good in a 200 round loading session.

When it's done loading, I "chamber-gauge" it right in my barrel, then into the box for primer inspection.

I run about 200-300 rounds per week... my needs, and about the right volume for relaxing, repetitive, stress-releasing hobby-loading.

Knock on wood... No squibs, no doubles.

I HAVE had a minor issue with the depriming pin sticking and pulling dead primers back into the pocket. I removed it, polished it, and cleaned the dies. And now I can FEEL an incomplete seating when the primer sticks. Maybe 1 per 400...

Just broke the little plastic feed lips at the base of the primer feed tube this week. Called Dillon... They're rushing out 2 replacements, and two other springs, and suggested how to adjust my primer cup depth to avoid wear on the part.... free of course.

Dillon should provide training to the WORLD on Customer Service....

Jeff

[G-ManBart]

Any chance the two failed cases had the same headstamp? R,

[CocoBolo]

Your load looks lite to me, but the OAL is short, I load mine at 1.150-1.160. With 4.3gr TG 124gr Montana Gold. Chrono at Area 8 was 131. It does have some crimp on it, I use the SAMMI Guage when it drops in nice its enough crimp. Your 9's are shorter than factory ammo and this adds pressue.

You can tell when you have major 9 brass in the tumbler you will see a bunch of primers in the corn, that is normally the first thing that loading 9 mm brass to major does.

I have had some tops blow off on 40, the reason is I pickup brass during the local matches, I probably picked my own up that has been load who knows how many times. If the brass had a serial number on it I could track it, just kidding. However, I switched to Precision Moly bullets and I was able to drop my load .4 gr and have not blown any more tops off. With your Wolf barrel you should give them a try, they will shoot softer with less powder behind them.

[DyNo!]

You're doing something wrong.

I've reloaded tens of thousands of rounds of 9mm and I've never had a problem with a handgun cartridge.

Out of the tens of thousands of 5.56x45mm I've cranked out, I've had one case head separation.

I don't know how you could push that many cases to their limit without having horrible luck or doing something wrong.

You should be losing most of your handgun brass before it cracks for what you're doing.

Edited September 16, 2009 by DyNo!

[calishootr]

+1 to the wrist-flip/head bob check, i do with EVERY piece of brass before it goes into the machine, back in the day, it was 9x21's gettin mixed in w/ my 38 supers, now its SC/TJ's, everything gets checked BEFORE it goes in the machine, also looking for warn/pounded caseheads cant read the headstamps, toss it, dont load a lot of 9mm anymore but i do load a lot of .40 which ive made a few mistakes w/ that, like worn brass w/ loose primer pockets have back-flashed and etched a permanent ring around the firing pin hole in my 40's breechface...lesson learned....even in seatin the primer, if it goes in waaaay too easy....junk it

[G-ManBart]

You're doing something wrong.

I've reloaded tens of thousands of rounds and I've never had a problem with a handgun cartridge.

Out of the tens of thousands of 5.56x45mm I've cranked out, I've had one case head separation.

I don't know how you could push that many cases to their limit without having horrible luck or doing something wrong.

You should be losing most of your handgun brass before it cracks for what you're doing.

Wow, tens of thousand? Gee, that's a couple of good months for a lot of folks here...you're off to a decent start

Let's see; you don't know anything about the guy, don't know what sort of brass it was that failed and you're sure he's doing something wrong?

There are certain headstamps that have failed similarly for other folks on their first reload, so it's not certain he's doing anything wrong. Also, there's no way to know how many times range pickup brass has been reloaded, or how it was reloaded.

I mark my brass so that I only pick up my own and I have realoaded a batch of .40 cases until I got a couple got split mouths and then tossed them (you couldn't read the headstamp any longer). I've reloaded a batch of 38SC cases enough times that the primer pockets got loose enough that primers fell out of some of them. Sure, I lose a few here and there, and I've only done this with my practice brass (match brass only gets used a few of times before going into the practice bucket), but it hasn't been a problem. The difference is I'm only using one brand of brass for each and I start out with either new or once-fired that I pick up right after it's shot, so I know the background. R,

[JimmyE]

Thanks again for the input and I appreciate your responses. I'm at about 5K rounds during the last six months since setting up the 550b and outside of a couple of light strikes (which were gun/primer issues) I've had nothing but great luck but I was loading MG 124 gr. JHPs with 4.5 gr. Universal Clays loaded to 1.13 OAL. I ran out of U. Clays and bought an 8lb. jug of Titegroup and also recently bought 10K 125 gr. hard-cast lead bullets (and a Storm Lake barrel). I realize that this is not ideal but after reading a lot of info from loading manuals and this forum, this combo does not appear to be totally outlandish for practice/local matches, just dirty and man is smokes. I'm going to increase the OAL to 1.150, stick with the 3.8 gr. of TG for now since too little powder is obviously not the problem. I also found a small amount of wax build-up in my dies. I will also check for set back but my loads do have a slight coke bottle. I will also admit to not case-gauging every round recently but will definitely go back to it. Hopefully I just got off with a couple of warnings.

JE

[Justsomeguy]

I shoot at an outdoor range. When I started reloading again, one of the first things I did was go buy a nice canvas drop cloth about 6X9ft and shoot up all the new factory ammo I had. Having spread out the drop cloth at a convenient angle to my shooting it collected most of the brass and saved me hunting for most of the rest that fell very near it as well. It kept it cleaner, free of small rocks in the cases, and assured me that I would have "once fired" cases to reload. Now I'm not so picky (though I still use the drop cloth), but having seen what truly once fired cases should look like, you can make better decisions about what to keep and what not to keep. I reload mostly .40, and some have been done at least 7 or 8 times, but I have an ample supply just now, and so if some start to fail I won't be too concerned about scraping them and moving on. They aren't GOLD cases after all, they are brass, and when they are past their prime, it's time to kiss them goodbye and either just leave 'em on the ground, or be kind enough to "return to sender" and make sure they get smelted into something useful again. Luckily, there seems to be a lot of new shooters who like Winchester White Box and leave the stuff just laying around where I shoot. Regrettably, they don't seem prone to using a drop cloth, but I guess most of 'em like to stand in one place and shoot a bullseye target, so the stuff kinda piles up anyway and I easy to retrieve, even for an old guy like me.

I must agree with some of the others that picking up brass after an "Open" division match will not provide you with the optimum reloading components. Those guys left that brass for a reason! So should you!

[bkeeler]

Just a thought, bullet set back?(check the overall length and then put the bullet end on a table and push down with some thumb pressure and check your rounds OAL again and make sure it has not changed if it has changed there is a problem)

BK

[rfwobbly]

I shoot 9 Minor with nothing but range pickup brass, reloaded on a 550B. I never had a single issue for over a year before I got stopped dead in my tracks at the start of the 3rd stage. There was nothing visibly wrong with the cartridges, but the gun (a stock CZ SP-01) would not go into battery. I was able to clear the first obstruction, but the very next round did the exact same thing... except it jammed even harder. I bowed out of the match fearing a squib with barrel blockage.

It ended up that the cases (3 out of the 200 reloaded for that competition) must have been brass from a 9 Major gun with an unsupported chamber. The base of the case at the rim had expanded to .395 and .398 which was totally undetectable to the eye. The Dillon resizing die simply would not chase the full length of the case down to the rim.

I now place every competition round into a 9mm cartridge gauge to check the full-length case size. That has ended the problem, but it was a very hard to detect, and having to quit the middle of 6 stages was a real bummer. Never again !!

Edited September 17, 2009 by rfwobbly

[DyNo!]

There are certain headstamps that have failed similarly for other folks on their first reload, so it's not certain he's doing anything wrong. Also, there's no way to know how many times range pickup brass has been reloaded, or how it was reloaded.

I am assuming he is loading from a very diverse pool of brass. You are correct, I do not know.

Wow, tens of thousand? Gee, that's a couple of good months for a lot of folks here...you're off to a decent start

Do a lot of folks here really shoot 100,000+ rounds in two months?

Shoot, I must be doing it wrong!

I meant to say tens of thousands (<99,999) of 9mm though if that makes it better .

Edited September 16, 2009 by DyNo!