Sequence and frequency of using your Brass?

I reload them and shoot them until they crack. Then I throw them away.

If I had 50k I would sort out a batch of 500 of the same headstamp and keep reusing them until they were ready for the scrap bucket, then repeat.

I just toss the brass into a bucket. Then when time to reload I get a bunch out and process it. I have rarely had split brass in autopistol brass. It is usually lost before developing problems. Keep in mind that I do not load for major though.

frogfurr said:

I reload them and shoot them until they crack. Then I throw them away.

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This!^^^^^^^^^^^

I keep separated a few thousand brass that is likely once fired. The rest are only separated by headstamp. Those get shot over and over.

357 mag. and bottleneck cases I do try to keep in uniform usage.

I choose a number of rounds to load up for a particular cartridge that will make the time between loading sessions reasonable. I replace cases as they fail or get lost.

I like to keep a supply of components including unloaded cases on hand as my cartridge of choice to shoot may change. It would be disapointing to not have components on hand to load the other cartridge. Remember, bullets, powders and primers can frequently be used in multiple different cartridges.

Same here i run them till they crack.

I have about 4K rounds of 45ACP loaded in about 6 flavors of powder and ready to go to the range.

Then, about 1.5K decapped, cleaned, separated by headstamp, 50 cases per small plastic bag, and stored in plastic containers with the most recently shot at the bottom.

Then, after every other range trip or so, I decap, size and clean a couple hundred, store ‘em and then pull a couple hundred or so from the bottom, size and prime, and get ready to reload.

So, in theory, I use a first in first out rotation system, but quite honestly I enjoy each step of the reloading process enough that I screw up the rotation frequently and just load stuff without regard to any system. (I’d love to have another 5K to mess with)

Ditto.

CoalCrackerAl said:

Same here i run them till they crack.

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With 9mm and non-match .223, I allow entropy to do the work. I do a lot of shooting in grassy areas, so brass recovery is never 100%, often 75% or less. It's been a little better this year as I've been more careful to shoot in positions allowing for good recovery due to the brass hounds at my local range becoming more tenacious limiting the flow of new range brass into the system.

In the loading room, I have an "in-use" box and a "new" box. There's also a "reserve" bucket in the closet that gets tapped if the rolling supply gets too low. The in-use is cycled until empty, then the new box becomes the in use box, containing both my recovered brass and new range pickup brass. I had some unique headstamps in my mix some 15 years ago that have disappeared and I almost never see a split or out-of-spec case, so the system seems to be working.

For non-plinking brass, I am fairly meticulous about tracking number of firings and using the oldest first until it becomes scrap metal.

If I had 50K to start with, I'd probably never pick up another piece of 9mm brass until I got down into the 10K or so range.

I use them till I loose them
And gads I don't sort them r clean the primer pockets!

Rifle brass, I do keep track of the individual number of times it has been reloaded. Used to do that with pistol, was very careful to maintain X number of times fired brass away from Y number of times fired brass. I have not been able to discard my OCD behaviors, and I am curious to know how many times my 44 Special, 45 LC, 44 Mag, and 357 Mag brass has been reloaded, so the individual ammunition boxes still have a count on the number of times reloaded. But, for 45 ACP, 38 Special, 9mm, I have lost count, and it makes no difference as far as I can tell on target.

I have an ammunition box full of 44 Special brass that I removed from their ammunition boxes once the cases had 20 reloads on them. I was going to toss out the brass, but decided, why not shoot the stuff till the case necks cracked. The 50 round boxes were populated with new brass, and I am dutifully keeping track of the number of reloads. The brass that was almost discarded, I have shot that through at least once, and I am no longer keeping track of the reload cycles. And it shoots great! I put the fired cases on one side, the loaded cases, on the other side of the ammunition box, and when all cases are fired. I reload them again.

Like many shooters, I have nickle plated 38 Special cases where most of the nickel has rubbed off due to reloading. And it shoots fine.

I have a bunch of 9mm brass. I have a couple of pretzel containers full that I use regularly, the rest is stored away.
I have a ‘ready for loading’ container and a ‘clean’ container. When I use up the ‘Ready’ brass, I take the ‘clean’ brass and make it ‘Ready’. Then I take all the dirty brass, clean it, and put it in the ‘clean’ container. So, in a sense, it goes through a rotation. I have about 1K-2K of brass in rotation.

My experience is that primer pockets in 9mm start to get loose before cracking. When primers just want to slide in really easily, then I shuck that bunch.

Loss is my primary problem. I dont shoot power factor loads and my guns throwing them hither and yawn is my primary way of needing more.

gifbohane said:

FROG- I get it but would you run through ALL of your stash once and then start second firing OR select say a select 10 percent of your total stash that you reload over and over until they crack. And then start reloading your second 10 percent?

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If you have 5,000 in pickups you really don't know how many rounds they have on them. I see your point but I believe if you tried this you would see that it is more trouble than it's worth.

in any given magazine of 9mm or other pistol reloads I might have a couple cases 2nd or 3rd time fired, and maybe a couple cases that have been shot and loaded 2 dozen times or more. THe rest would be somewhere in between. And I have no idea which is which. Shoot, load, repeat and don't sweat the irrelevant small stuff. When the case cracks or other signs of failure, it gets tossed. Otherwise, it goes back into the to-be-processed bucket. I have no need to track the number of firings in pistol brass.

I do track number of firings in rifle brass so that I know when they're due for annealing.

I generally shoot 9mm and .45 Auto pistol brass until they split or otherwise are damaged. I have thousands of pieces of mixed range pickup brass that I try to rotate through. I keep cleaned brass in giant pretzel containers and dirty brass in plastic buckets. I load them by the thousand(s) and keep them in ammo cans. I do keep a small amount (1,000 or so pieces, probably) of separated brass for precision work, but rarely bother with them. Any brass with cannelures or that looks old gets separated after loading into a Ziplock that I reserve for those days when my brass will not be recoverable (shooting in the snow, etc).

gifbohane said:

OK So I have five thousand 9MM in pick-ups. Over the course of 2 months I loaded and fired 1000.
Comes time to prepare 1000 more, would you keep using the first batch of 1000 until they were no longer useable? Then repeat with another 1000? Fire off half of the 5000 before going for using the originals? Or use all 5000 and start loading and shooting all of them, oldest to newest?

Better question yet. If you had 50,000 how would you proceed? Saying that you shot 5 thousand a year.

Any advantage to any of the methods described here?

Trying to figure best way of proceeding with using pickups.

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I've been shooting the same 9mm/.38/.357 brass for almost 3 years. As far as I can tell, my pistol/revolver brass has not grown after 8000 rounds of shooting the same brass, oddly though, some have seemed to actually shrunk. I load all my handguns to the max charge, usually +P. No reason, I just do. And yes they are +P rated. Some have split. Some have had the primer pocket no longer hold a primer very well.
All I do is clean them and when I run across any that are too damaged to reload, I just put those in my scrap bucket.

gifbohane said:

If you had 50,000 how would you proceed?

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There was a recent thread in this forum regarding the number of times pistol brass could be reloaded. Someone referenced a study of someone else reloading a set of brass until failure. As I recall, brass failed after ~38 loadings, nickel-plated around 6. The experiment is easy enough to repeat, so you can do your own research

I don't sort my brass by number of firings, but I do look for (and occasionally find) case mouth cracks and loose primer pockets.

Spare Parts said:

There was a recent thread in this forum regarding the number of times pistol brass could be reloaded. Someone referenced a study of someone else reloading a set of brass until failure. As I recall, brass failed after ~38 loadings, nickel-plated around 6. The experiment is easy enough to repeat, so you can do your own research

I don't sort my brass by number of firings, but I do look for (and occasionally find) case mouth cracks and loose primer pockets.

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Yeah, I read something like that in Fire Arms news. Author basically said reload 'em until they can't be reloaded.
I haven't kept records of how many reloads I've made for my handguns, I used to shoot the wazoo out of them until I got my rifles.
I am still reloading 9mm/.38 special from about 3 years ago when I started this hobby and I shoot A LOT!!!