Keeping track of number of times brass has been reloaded

I'm quite interested in everyone's recordkeeping (and "recordkeeping") also...
Just getting into reloading myself, after a long hiatus from shooting.
An idea I had, (for bottleneck rifle cases, mostly .223/5.56...) would be to use a machinists' automatic center punch (a light one of course) to prickmark a spot on the head each time it's reloaded.... I also like the colored-sharpies idea....
Thoughts?

Lenny62 said:

I'm quite interested in everyone's recordkeeping (and "recordkeeping") also...
Just getting into reloading myself, after a long hiatus from shooting.
An idea I had, (for bottleneck rifle cases, mostly .223/5.56...) would be to use a machinists' automatic center punch (a light one of course) to prickmark a spot on the head each time it's reloaded.... I also like the colored-sharpies idea....
Thoughts?

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That may work but there is not a lot of real estate on a 223 head, and I have rounds that I have reloaded and the original markings are almost nonexistent. The best long term tracking is batch. Keep them together from beginning to end and dont mix anything else in the rotation. Every competitor I have ever seen uses this process. If your shooting courses that's entirely different.

I don't worry about how many times its been reloaded, as said before, neck splits usually determine that.

I do, however; keep track of how many times rifle brass has been trimmed. Each trim gets a small file mark on the rim with a triangular swiss file. I do try to keep the marks consistent relative to mfgr's headstamp. Four trim marks and measurement shows it needs another trim...crimp mouth and toss in the scrap bin.

Many comments here appear to be for handgun brass, but it appears OP is asking about rifle brass......

I’m not keeping very close track.
I inspect everything the same whether it’s shot once or a hundred. No cracks or signs, primer seats fine and has good neck tension? Load it.

I run handgun brass into the ground,just keep using it till it splits.

Rifle brass,one interesting point to be made for folks that are annealing on a schedule;

By keeping track of firings...... for most of my jacked up cast load cases it's,shoot 2 or 3 times then anneal.... you get to observe a cpl areas that sneak up on the brass,and then watch those hopefully,go away after annealing. Looking for patterns.

For instance,if I skip annealing after the 2nd or 3rd firing,what sort of problem/s start to crop up? Does this pattern repeat on brand X vs Y brass? How is this chamber(gun) vs that other? Is this # of firings crossover to other calibers?

If you don't keep a record,you're in a hit or miss on the above observations. Not preaching saying,you must anneal..... I'm sayin there's a benny to keeping track if you pay attention to,sizing springback,neck tension and ease of seating,runout changes,etc. These would be "margin notes" in that gun's load book..... vs adding it to every load.

Most of my rifle brass lives in MTM boxes,use a sharpie inside the lid for #'s of firing data.

I tried keeping track at first but found it to be almost impossible so I gave up. I load them till I see a problem with the case. My rifle brass (.223) gets annealed every time simply because it's too hard to keep track of when last done and that step doesn't take much time.

I'm not doing any competitive precision shooting. That would be a different story I'm sure.

I don't keep up with the # or firings on any of my brass, pistol or rifle. If I were tryng to shoot gnats in the eye at over 500yds I might do it, maybe. I will probably only fire about 6 to 8 thousand rounds this year now that Covid 19 has slowed things down. Some real shooters burn that much a month.
Lafitte

Hi...
I quit counting number of times my brass has been reloaded after it was reloaded ten or so times without any failures.
I just don't worry about it anymore.
I do inspect my revolver brass but find very few failures. I lose much more semi auto pistol brass to damaged case mouths than I have ever lost revolver brass due to splits.

I am currently running a test on Starline revolver brass with near book maximum loads in several calibers. If I get the results I am expecting then I will be buying larger quantities for loading those rounds in bulk.
All of my current brass for those loadings will then be relegated to mid range general purpose loadings. I already try to keep a .30cal ammo can full of those loads in each revolver caliber with enough brass to load a few thousand more rounds at any given time. I could keep more stockpiled but my son and I shoot so much that keeping loaded rounds in those quantities is "challenging".

A little bit of a tangent question - What do y'all think of the quality of Frontier brass for reloadability? - there seems be a ton of it (pun intended-).....

Old rifle Frontier I have used to be made by Hornady and I've had good luck with it in .243 and .257 Roberts.

I agree with PWC, I put a mark with a jeweler's file or shallow cut with a dremel wheel radially on the headstamp every time I trim the brass. I toss when the case has three marks and needs a trim, in case I missed a mark somehow. Figure this gets me 10+ loads with standard pressure and 6+ with higher pressure loads.
More important to handle and inspect the brass though.
When Neck-sizing, I simply go until the neck hardens and wont hold tension, then it meets my local brass collector....

NHdeerhunter said:

Curious to how to keep a good record on the number of times the brass you use are reloaded.
I am new to reloading brass, so while I can keep my rounds separate when alone at range, it gets mixed in with others when when others are also at the range. The other day the guy next to me gave me his after he picked them up which were mixed with my spent rounds. They were different brass and I can separate them, but that probably will not always be the case.
Am I making sense?
Thanks in advance for any guidance.

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As mentioned earlier the peel and stick reloading labels work well, you can have a red sharpie mark on your headstamp brass to keep them separate from the neighbors.

I am more than OCD about reloading.
There is a process which I will spare the details.
After I load I place all the loaded cases in the hard 100 count boxes, primer side up. I then take my teal marker and make a final inspection and place one line across the bottom for each time reloaded and then put the 100 loaded rounds into plastic bags labeled with all load data and logged on a spreadsheet. This is an ammo can with 16 (100) count baggies in it, these are all loaded one time. I have ammo boxes with one, two and three lines.
My friends at IDPA competitions have an endless stream of jokes about it. They pick up my brass and exclaim with glee "these have only been reloaded twice!" as the hand them back to me.
Not kidding about the OCD.

“Dimmest ink is brighter than brightest memory.”
~Confucius~

You have a load book, don’t you?

I write down problems, good loads, weird happenings, and other data.

It doesn’t need to be a daily journal. But any good load written down will be saved forever. Any one problem solved could apply to any number of cartridges.
The Key to your color coding of brass would be written here.

Paper is not dead, it’s just dead trees. It works without electricity. If you have light to load, you can read. You can reference your notes and pass the time till the day comes.

The essence of self reliance.

For rifle brass . . . I manage by keeping the cases in small lots of 100. Keep them together and reload and shoot them as a group. Each lot gets reloaded at the same time and identified as to the number of firings, anealing, and inspection notes.
As someone said earlier, inspect your brass and keep notes.
For pistol brass, i don't track. They seem to last just about forever for target loads. I also don't pick up range brass anymore. Less problems wondering about the quality of the brass.

For pistol brass I just headstamp sort and inspect. For rifle brass, I put a mark on with a Sharpie tm, for each firing.

I once had an argument (shocker!) about the safety of assembling .38-44 loads in standard .38Spl brass. The theory was that the brass could not handle the increased pressure, which according to Elmer Keith, was well north of 40,000psi. I took six rounds of generic Winchester white box brass and loaded them with Keith's favored 2400 load, over and over waiting for failure. After 22 cycles, I gave up. It's the only time I ever counted. Life is too short.

I use gallon sized Zip-lock bags and a Sharpie to keep count for rifle brass that I originally owned and for range pickups that appear to be once fired. Others, I just inspect and shoot. Whenever I start having to cull too much of any batch due to split necks, loose primer pockets, signs of case head separation, etc., I'll load them once more as plinking ammo and mark a black "X" across the case head. I save those for range trips where I'll be shooting in the snow or otherwise won't be able to recover my brass.

I don't keep track of straight walled pistol brass counts. I just cull those as I go. I have some .45 Auto brass dated back to the 50's that is still going.

I reload them until they split, sorta like this one.

Have a blessed day,

Leon