Would you reload your 9mm reloads?

By all means, reload them until the case mouths crack, primer pockets get loose, or you lose them which will probably happen before the other 2.

Nickel plated brass sizes and cleans up easier than bare brass.

1911in9mm is correct.

I've lost count on how many reloads I've done and every other year I've got to get another 3-4k of brass to add to the mix. Very few splits or damaged brass. As stated often they are lost before you get to many reloads on them.

1911in9mm said:

By all means, reload them until the case mouths crack, primer pockets get loose, or you lose them which will probably happen before the other 2.

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1911in9mm said:

By all means, reload them until the case mouths crack, primer pockets get loose, or you lose them which will probably happen before the other 2.

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I don’t get where they go sometimes....by the end of the day it’s brown cases and brown dirt. I’m gonna be doing a lot of practice this winter, that should be a joy. A giant 16x16 tarp is nice...

To OP. Load to your heart’s content. Just keep track. 1x fired jar. 2x fired jar. Etc. Check for stress cracks. My final check is after crimping (I crimp separate from seating). Also, I started priming AFTER expanding/belling. I was getting some split cases when I would expand after priming. Assuming pressure built up? Who knows. Could have been revealing otherwise weak cases. I have always primed first, but no longer.

If it's nickle brass I would use a spray on case lube on it I've read on other forums where the chips of nickle that come off the mouth will gald into the carbide ring in the resizing die and you can't clean Nickle out of it, like you can copper or brass.
Spraying them with case lube is supposed to alleviate that problem.

I reload brass until it can't be reloaded again. In revolver cartridges this usually means 10 times or more depending upon the load and the quality of the brass and how long they go before splitting. In semi auto brass its usually less because it gets lost.

Some brass is of lessor quality and can't be reloaded more than a few time or not at all. I toss all Amerc brass into the recycle any time I come across it because it won't hold primers. The old Norinco brass could be reloaded no more than 2 times before they wouldn't hold primers and needed to be tossed.

MooseD888 said:

I know there are different schools of thoughts on this and would very much appreciate you sharing yours.

I intend to reload my hand loads that employed new brass the first go around, it’s the “once fired” that I got from Capitol Cartridge and the range retrieved brass that I’m not sure about. I load towards the starting value typically with 124 or 147 Berrys and Xtreme projectiles. I primarily use nickel plated brass, but don’t know if that makes any difference at all.

Share your wisdom please!

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Welcome to THR! There are lots of great reloaders here and many reloading-years of wisdom.
I’m not sure what schools of thought there are, but all the manuals and information I’ve read are for reloading brass, as many times as you can, until it’s not safely useable. At one time I tried to keep track of my 9mm brass and number of times reloaded but after a shoot with multiple people and thousands of cases, well, they all get mixed together. I do try to separate out nickel plated because I think it’s really cool. It reloads just fine. Good luck!

I load to case failure. I inspect all my cases during the loading process. If there are cracks or any other issue they get tossed. I don't count how many times I've reloaded each case. I have some .38 special cases that started life as nickle cases and are now nearly all brass. I also pick up range brass to reload, that all gets inspected as well. Any issues and they get tossed.

I have .45 cases in my bins from the 40s and 50s. No telling how many times they've been loaded. I still load them and shoot them and they do just fine.

1911in9mm said:

By all means, reload them until the case mouths crack, primer pockets get loose, or you lose them which will probably happen before the other 2.

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I agree 100% and have done this for about 35 years with no related problems. The choice is yours.

Only problem I have had with nickel plated brass is sometimes the nickel plating will start flaking off. I prefer regular brass but that is just me.

Reload, shoot, repeat.

Nickel plated, is slicker, cleans up easy but doesn’t last as long. 9mm loaded reasonably, will last many loadings.

Shoot em til they break, especially straight walls like 38spl or 357 mag, .380acp etc. tapered rounds like 9mm are not too bad about stretching and work hardening. So they last a good while. Bottlenecks are where it gets interesting, but pistol cal bottlenecks don’t tend to have the case head separation issues seen in a lot of rifle rounds. Loose necks, loose pockets and lost brass are the realistic reasons to stop loading brass in pistol rounds. I have yet to see a crack in a 9mm that wasn’t already losing neck tension.

I have been loading 9mm for 20+ years, have never bought brass, and have loaded about a quarter million of them. I pick up every piece of brass I can and trade what I don’t need for components. I’m currently sitting on 24k pieces of 9mm brass that I have picked up over the years and don’t sort anything out except amerc which is crap. When prepping brass anything that sounds different gets culled(usually split or steel) and any with loose primer pockets get squished. Everything else gets loaded the same.

jmorris said:

Reload, shoot, repeat.

Nickel plated, is slicker, cleans up easy but doesn’t last as long. 9mm loaded reasonably, will last many loadings.

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The only nickel plated I kept was .45 long colt trimmed(or factory made) to ftx length, made it real easy to clean, sort and keep seperate from the regular .45 long colt.

Very few people would load themselves if you couldn't reload the brass.
Some folks think I'm way too lax, because I don't even keep track of how many times a case has been loaded. I load it until the case splits, then throw it in the scrap bucket.

Like everyone has mentioned I have no problems reloading my 9mm reloads. Shoot, reload, repeat until I either loose the brass or I start getting split cases.

748 said:

Nickel plated brass sizes and cleans up easier than bare brass.

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But it doesn't quite resize as easily as plain brass.

You will eventually get loose primer pockets. You can feel it as you seat new primers. Mark these and cull after shooting! Otherwise I've reloaded some 9mm and 45ACP until the head stamp was obliterated!

Nickle plated brass is handy since it remains slick for many years in storage, it goes through the sizing die easier and looks "pretty"! However it will split after only a few reloads compared to brass cases!

Smiles,

MooseD888 said:

...and the range retrieved brass that I’m not sure about.

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With cases that have unknown origin, some may be off brand headstamp and not fit some parts of your reloading equipment. An example, the case will not go into the shell holder easily.

It's best to just scrap those cases and move on instead of struggling with them. The numbers are relatively small, the aggravation is large, and 9x19 cases are plentiful.

Otherwise, like others have said, you good to go. Reload them until the fail or get lost in the Bermuda triangle.

MooseD888 said:

it’s the “once fired” that I got from Capitol Cartridge

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Gotta remember,,,, Once fired doesn't mean fired only once.
I speculate that most of Capitol's brass is sourced locally.
Who knows,,,, you may even be reloading some of my old 'fired at least a dozen times or more' brass I left behind,,,
About the only way know if brass has only been fired once is to buy it new yourself,,,, or,,,, keep an eye out for folks who are shooting all-new ammo,,,

George P said:

But it doesn't quite resize as easily as plain brass.

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Really?

If it wasn’t for “free” brass. Reloading would loose some of its cost effectiveness. I haven’t had any issues with reloading brass multiple times.

EMC45 said:

I load to case failure.

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Ditto