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S&B 9mm Brass

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mgkdrgn

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Greetings,

New to metalic reloading, currently reloading 45 Colt and a little 9mm.

I purchased several thousand 9mm pieces of "range harvest" brass recently, and have begun the process of depriming/resizing same. I do notice that the S&B brass are the hardest to work with.

Is there a "problem" with using this brass that I'm not yet aware of, or is it just "stiff"?
 
Send them all to me so I can test it for you...My pleasure.

"...the hardest to work with." How so? harder to resize? Harder to prime? Harder to do what? I use S&B and the only thing I notice with them is priming and that isn't all that bad after you chamfer the primer pocket...(Shines up real great in my tumbler) You might run a magnet over the cases. I have heard (but never found) that some are brass washed steel cases. You may have run across a few of [what I have never found]...:evil:
 
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S&B has tight pockets, they will set off primers if you try hard enough. Pull, swage or ream, and reinsert. Lube them if you aren't already, that will help.
 
Brass, which was fired from loose chamber, is harder to resize. May be the guy, who shot S&B, had the loose chamber.

All S&B brass, which I saw, had primers sealed with red sealant. It is generally harder to deprime a sealed brass.
 
S&B 9mm Brass

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings,

New to metalic reloading, currently reloading 45 Colt and a little 9mm.

I purchased several thousand 9mm pieces of "range harvest" brass recently, and have begun the process of depriming/resizing same. I do notice that the S&B brass are the hardest to work with.

Is there a "problem" with using this brass that I'm not yet aware of, or is it just "stiff"?
Click to expand...

S&B is excellent brass...IF, it is brass. I might suggest you run a magnet over them to be sure you don't have some of the brass-coated steel versions. These are virtually impossible to identify & separate visually. Some vendors who sell S&B distinguish between the brass and steel versions and some do not...no doubt, there's a lot of people shooting steel and never know it.

The only down side to S&B's brass is they have little or no bevel into the primer pockets making priming difficult. This can usually be remedied manually with a chamfering tool or if you have a swage, all the better. I just give 'em a slight "bump" with the Dillon Super-Swage and good to go. I've found it to be very tough, durable brass and once the pockets are touched up, like it as good as any and better than most.
 
My most recent purchase of S&B was brass plated steel cases, even the bullet looks like it was plated.

They have primers covered with a red seal, so I know not to pick them up at the range.
 
D. Manley said:
S&B is excellent brass...IF, it is brass. I might suggest you run a magnet over them to be sure you don't have some of the brass-coated steel versions.
Click to expand...

DING DING DING ... WE HAVE A WINNER.

Now, are these considered to be non-reloadable, or just a pain in the a$$ to reload?
 
DING DING DING ... WE HAVE A WINNER.

Now, are these considered to be non-reloadable, or just a pain in the a$$ to reload?
Click to expand...

Toss 'em. I did reload and shoot a few before finding out they were steel but I would'nt do it intentionally. Look just like brass, don't they....?
 
D. Manley said:
Look just like brass, don't they....?
Click to expand...

They for sure do. Even now that I have them separated, and can look at them side by side with S&B Brass I still can't tell them apart w/o a magnet. Even after pulling them out I've probably still got 2500 or so, so I'm set for the foreseeable future for 9mm brass.
 
They for sure do. Even now that I have them separated, and can look at them side by side with S&B Brass I still can't tell them apart w/o a magnet. Even after pulling them out I've probably still got 2500 or so, so I'm set for the foreseeable future for 9mm brass.
Click to expand...

Excellent. You'll find it's superb brass once the primer pockets are swaged, reamed or otherwise touched up. They are snug but if you look closely, you'll see there's no bevel at all and I think this is the larger problem. After some of the "fake" ones snagged up my Dillon a couple of times in the middle of a run I quit using it...until, I found it was actually the steel cases that caused the problem. Nowadays, I snag all the S&B I can find and as I said before, actually prefer it to a lot of other brass. Tough stuff.

I've been puzzled why S&B would brass-plate the steel cases in the first place? Seems they could economize by just going the Wolf route and save the money spent on the extra step. The retailers that differentiate between the steel and brass versions offer very little price break on the steel so it's like they cancel each other out. If the steel were substantially cheaper, it would no doubt sell better and the people who buy the brass would continue to do so. Strange.
 
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The brass plated steel case ammo from S&B is sold as "Range Safe Ammo", and it is notably cheaper than their regular stuff, or at least it used to be. I haven't tested any of it with the chrony but that's the deal.

I use a lot of factory S&B ammo (brass case stuff) in my MP5 guns (full auto) because it is very reliable and well built. But, as stated above, the primer pockets are a bit tight and the edges are perfectly square. I got one of the RCBS trim mate motorized things and now put a little bevel on the edge of all my S&B brass before reloading. I use a Hornady L-n-L and noticed that I would occasionally get resistance on some of these S&B cases, if they weren't perfectly aligned.

Adding just a tiny bevel makes all the difference in the world.
 
When I run across the occasional S&B casing....

I do notice that the S&B brass are the hardest to work with.
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I just pitch it.

I don't find it that often. And when I'm feeding the Dillon, the S&B's are just a nuisance.


I don't ream or swage primer pockets any more. To me it's just a waste of time. Tumble it and reload it.
 
mgkdrgn...When I find a few (if ever) and have a chance to do some experiments on them I just might...Been trying to figure out just what the problem would be with a brass plating. Just like nickel plated...
 
The Bushmaster said:
mgkdrgn...When I find a few (if ever) and have a chance to do some experiments on them I just might...Been trying to figure out just what the problem would be with a brass plating. Just like nickel plated...
Click to expand...

The -problem- is that it is a brass plating over STEEL, not a nickle plating over brass. They are -very- stiff to work with in the resizing die and when seating primers. You will have absolutely NO doubt when you hit one.

If you want some to play with, I'll gladly ship you some.
 
Why would anyone bother to ream or swage S&B brass? There's too much 9mm brass in this world to bother.

S&B does not run smoothly through my machines, so in the trash it goes. Not worth the effort.
 
I have loaded plenty of 9MM & .45 S&B brass. I have never swaged or chamfered any of the primer pockets and have never had any problems priming them with my RCBS hand primer. If any one is "setting off" primers trying to prime S&B brass, they need to rethink their technique.
 
I have loaded plenty of 9MM & .45 S&B brass. I have never swaged or chamfered any of the primer pockets and have never had any problems priming them with my RCBS hand primer. If any one is "setting off" primers trying to prime S&B brass, they need to rethink their technique.
Click to expand...

Now that you mention it, I don't recall having the same problems with .45 as with 9MM either. The 9MM is actually "doable" with no prepping but a little chamfering of the pocket or a light swage does smooth things up considerably.
 
I can see where it may be tough priming in a progressive, but with the hand primer it is a non issue.
 
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