Cartridge Rotation and use

pretty sure you can do it however you want. I see no advantages one way or the other so, personal preference.

@gifbohane assuming all are shot the same number of times...the biggest difference will be your out of pocket money - cash flow. Assume components do not change price (OK, a stretch...but it makes the math easier...easy math to make the point). The following are all assumptions...

• three reloads
• $1 per reload
• 5000 brass x 3 reloads x $1 = $15,000 TOTAL!

Load all 5000, you are out $5,000. Remember, you will load these three times until the brass is dead - $15,000. Load 1000 at a time, out $1,000 five times...you can use the $4,000 for something in the meantime...again reloading three times until the brass is dead - $15,000. You are going to spend the same, but the timing of the spend will be different.

The key issues...this is a classic inventory problem...my language - turn and earn. Second, huge assumptions - what does tomorrow bring? Third, what is your comfort level / number of rounds shot? Fourth, are you set up to load this much? For me running a Dillon 650...a thousand is a strong day loading. A single stage would be infinity and beyond.

Plug your own numbers / assumptions and see if it makes sense. For added fun, start looking at economic purchase quantities...Powder Valley is most efficient @ 50 pounds for hazmat charges. Primer were 1 pound per 1000 for freight (not Federals). For King Better Bullets...it depends on how many pieces of lead go into “if it fits, it ships USPS boxes”. Make it as complex or simple as you like.

I have close to 3000 223R in rotation. Once shot go into the to process bucket. Continue shooting on the others. Once I get all the way through I start the second round. I anneal every cycle, I have 8 reloads on a smaller group of 1000, that I use for testing and my higher accuracy loads. These are all LC brass. Annealing will greatly extend your brass life provide you don't over size moving the shoulder back too far.

It all works just need to keep up where your brass is at. Best to order components in bulk for best pricing. Bullets in 6k+, Primers in 10K+. Powder in 16-32 lbs lots.

Powder does age and go bad.
I would say rotate thru them.

If you are talking about cases (cartridges are "normally" the complete round, ready to be fired), your plan sounds OK, But if a few start failing in the 1,000 case batch, I wouldn't toss the whole batch, just keep a close watch and keep the others for a reserve. I do something similar, I keep my handgun brass in bags/boxes of 500. When I see bad ones coming back I'll cull them and keep a watch...

I have buckets labeled as such:
1x Fired
2x fired
3x fired
I don’t worry about loading batches. I’ve been loading for a few years now. I haven’t gotten even close to exhausting my once fired brass. And I have fired some of my twice fired brass. I do separate my once fired military brass from other commercial brass. The once fired military brass in the stuff I use for my accurate loads. After I reload the once fired military brass it goes in the bucket with the other twice fired stuff.

It really depends on your rate of expenditure.... How long does it take to work through your 1000 rounds? You may need more components in the reloading pipeline to keep up with demand, so to speak.

You may try something a little different... of those 5000 cases, have 3000 in service. 1000 loaded, say 1000 fired waiting processing, and 1000 ready to load. That way you aren't overworking one batch of brass, and you aren't scrambling to process a big batch of brass to load for next weekend. Consider it a time management tool.

I do, however, FIFO... that is... 'First In, First Out.' ...don't want that loaded ammo getting stale.

Charlie98 said:

I do, however, FIFO... that is... 'First In, First Out.' ...

Click to expand...

Ah yes, inventory acronyms.

FIFO - first in, first out.
LIFO - Last in, first out.

And, the one I usually practiced:
FISH - First in, still here.

I would probably determine what my rate of consumption of ammunition would be, rounds fired per each shooting session.

Then I'd decide how frequently do I want to reload, once a week, once a month, once a year, or some other interval.

Then I'd just cycle that number cases through the system until they fail and start up with another batch.

You can always adjust things as you decide what works better.

Like other have said, its personal preference and depends on your shooting habits. 1000 loaded rounds will not get some shooters through a season while that same 1000 may last another shooter months or even years. Personally I would load the same thousand until they fail. The drawback to loading all 5000 is that if you trade rifles you may have a load that won't chamber or that doesn't shoot well in the next rifle. If I went the route of loading the same thousand over and over I would keep up with the times fired and pay attention to the failures. Theres not much you can do about primer pockets getting loose but if you start having neck splits you could anneal the surviving cases and milk a few more loads out of them.

Hooda Thunkit said:

Ah yes, inventory acronyms.

FIFO - first in, first out.
LIFO - Last in, first out.

And, the one I usually practiced:
FISH - First in, still here.

Click to expand...

the most practiced is OSWO....Oh Shoot, We’re Out

rabid wombat said:

the most practiced is OSWO....Oh Shoot, We’re Out

Click to expand...

I have an interim practice....OSWNO...Oh Shoot, We're Nearly Out! That's a motivator to get back to the loading bench.

I use the batch system. Just retired my first batch of 200 pieces of 9x21 shot about 22 to 25 times in my S&W 929. I've got a batch of 500 .300 Blackout that I'm using and 1,000+ waiting to be used. It's much easier to keep track of the number of uses for smaller batches. I see no benefit to loading up all cases at 1 time unless you're going to be using all of them in regular intervals.

I wouldn't go more than 250 a time. If you somehow made a mistake somewhere in the entire handloading process, your loss in time will be 1/4 of that for a thousand. The first thing that came to mind is throat erosion resulting in optimal seating depth variations.

Hooda Thunkit said:

Ah yes, inventory acronyms.

FIFO - first in, first out.
LIFO - Last in, first out.

And, the one I usually practiced:
FISH - First in, still here.

Click to expand...

The only one I'm familiar with is JIT; "Just in Time". Meaning we didn't want any product/parts in inventory, so we got most deliveries just in time to put them to use, no shelf time...

mdi said:

The only one I'm familiar with is JIT; "Just in Time". Meaning we didn't want any product/parts in inventory, so we got most deliveries just in time to put them to use, no shelf time...

Click to expand...

You are obviously, the customer! When you are on the sales side JIT means Jumbo Inventory Transfer...from the customer to the seller

mdi said:

The only one I'm familiar with is JIT; "Just in Time". Meaning we didn't want any product/parts in inventory, so we got most deliveries just in time to put them to use, no shelf time...

Click to expand...

JIT is just a way to reduce your inventory and tax costs, all the while putting the burden of inventory on the carrier. Been there, done that. You could tell when inventory time came around... our yard would be chock full of loaded trailers with deliveries in 2-3 weeks; freight in transit isn't taxed.

That's what I do, reload the same cases up to 5 times each, ( of 1000 cases) and then retire them .

Looks like your not intending to load and store loaded ammunition just keep reusing the same 1000 cases over and over until you loose or retire them. At that point you still have 4000 once fired empty cases to start the next batch of 1000.

That’s pretty sound logic to me.

I would load the thousand and keep the four.
At the end of the first group’s life you will have intimate knowledge of how the rest of the lot will behave.

But, at twelve or fifteen cycles, one may be looking for a new barrel to burn out with the next thousand cases.

I have not shot a thousand rounds in one range session...

In my opinion, JIT (Just In Time) inventory can bite you in the ass. The company I work for was deemed essential, so we stayed in production, but some of our suppliers were not deemed essential. Guess what - we had to scramble to find components. Due to compliance regulations, changing the source of some components came at great cost (more compliance, safety, and reliability testing).

Back to reloading - JIT means you may now have to scramble to find components, like small pistol primers. (I learned my lesson in 2012-2013). It doesn't cost anything to store, except space (no taxes on inventory).

As for brass, I like to have a few thousand of the calibers I shoot a lot, like the semi-auto pistol calibers. I don't generally keep track of the number of firings on those. For the ones I don't shoot a lot, I like to have a few hundred. For those, I rotate through all of the stock. Doing it that way, I don't have more than 3 loads on any caliber right now. And if I can't get brass for those right away, I have plenty of other calibers I can shoot until I can find them.

I have literally buckets of range brass. When I get time I process it to RTL (ready to load) state and bag it with a label. I keep my brass and components in an unloaded state except what I anticipate for my next shooting trip. Say 250 38 spl/9MM/40S&W or whatever I plan on shooting. Rifle brass is 4 boxes loaded unless 223/308. Those get 250 or 500 batches. When I shoot them I bring that batch home process and reload again untill the brass is lost or fails. I generally scrap it when around half fail for rifle brass. I do anneal so it is mostly loose primer pocket failures. Pistol brass usually gets lost before faling. Just my way of doing it.