[The King of Pants]

So I'm starting to buy 9x19 and 7.62x39 to feed my Glocks, (19 and 17) the SKS's and Saigas. From a reloading standpoint, what should I be looking for good buys on? Obviously brass-cased is important, beyond that what do I need to keep an eye out for?

[yhtomit]

I dunno if anyone's ever made such a thing as Berdan-primed 9x19, but for the 7.62, you'll want to make sure that it's Boxer primed, rather than Berdan.

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_primer#Internal_priming)

timothy

[xsquidgator]

I looked around for a couple of weeks and someone on this board recently (sorry, don't remember your name) got me onto some unprimed 7.62x39 brass from a shooter's supply in Wisconsin that was an ok price (Superior Shooting Supply? Don't recall at the moment for sure). I bought 200 of those and hope to be able to stretch them out for quite a bit of shooting. I have the better part of a case of some steel-cased Russian stuff lying around but I'd prefer to leave a lot of that alone for a rainy day or something.

For price I get the impression that if you can find 7.62x39 brass (boxer primed, as has been mentioned) for $0.25 or less per piece, you've got a good deal. Most of the places where I've been able to find it on the internet seem to want $0.37 and up for it. A baseline I use for price is that WWB 7.62x39 from Walmart was going for 40 for $20 a few months back, which is $0.50 each. I don't see paying in the 40 cents range for virgin brass when for 50 cents I can get a reloadable brass-cased round. If these brass cases work out I'll probably buy some more if I can get them at 30 cents or less each.

For the 9mm Luger, save your factory brass. I saved 6 month's worth of 9mm and 38 brass before I started reloading and that was very helpful. I prefer either the Winchester WWB brass, or the Blazer Brass cases (those seem to hold up very nicely). I'll take any kind of 9mm brass, but it seems to me that the UMC brass is thinner or not as sturdy as the other kinds.

The good news for you as a reloader is that a lot of people *still* won't bother reloading 9mm, so you should have no trouble adding to your brass collection. I belong to a club where I shoot, but every couple of months I'll spend the $10 and go to an indoor range just for the brass. Most of the people at the indoor ranges I've seen don't reload, and they don't mind if I pick up their brass. I don't know exactly what the brass I get is worth on these trips but I'm sure it's more than the $10 I pay in range fees. Especially when I find a non-reloader shooting 45!