S&B Brass difficulties

One of the main reasons I switched to wet tumble and lube my cases. Can't tell one brand from another now. Unless they are berdan.

When it comes to 10mm, 45, or 40 I don't use lube. But 9mm luger is the devil and it can creep in and ruin your day.

S&B 9mm is a pain. Look in to a primer pocket reamer that you can go through them quickly with, it'll save you a lot of heartache.

Or, weed the headstamps out and recycle them (which is what I ended up doing)

AJC1 said:

They are the hardest brass I have resized. I broke my bench on them. Rumor is that cbc are made in the same plant and are just as bad. My last choice in 9mm brass.

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They are so hard they are also prone to splitting well before a normal brass case *should* split.

I took an entire evening once to cull all S&B headstamps out of my 9mm brass (probably 20,000+ cases worth of brass to sort through), and tossed them in the recycle bucket.

I simply got tired of fighting the bastards and culled them all.

I have never had any problem with S&B brass. Rifle or handgun. I consider it good stuff. I always use Imperial lube regardless of the die or casing. I get my fingers coated in it and as I handle the brass it does its job. It doesn't take much. I have never had a stuck case using Imperial lube. Best wishes.

The thickness of the brass and tightness of the primer pockets on some 9mm brass is more noticeable (e.g. S&B, CBC and another that escapes my memory at the moment). But, I only find it a minor inconvenience. I don't do high volume hand loading and use a single stage press. I do use a Lyman hand tool to clean out the primer pockets and perhaps open them up a bit. That enables easy primer insertion from my press. I consider S&B and CBC to be good brass.

I've had enough trouble from S&B brass that it usually goes from the range straight to the scrap bucket. Especially 9MM!

It must be my magnetic personality...

You CAN resize in carbide without lube, but it makes it easier if you lube your cases. Give them a light shot of lube. For the S&B, I also run the primer pockets through my RCBS primer pocket uniformer and crimp remover. That seems to make them a bit easier to prime. I find these tougher to prime than NATO brass.

rfwobbly said:

It must be my magnetic personality...

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Never too old to learn and off to Amazon to purchase a stong magnet. What would the worst case be if one of those cases got by you and was reloaded?

rfwobbly said:

It must be my magnetic personality...

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That is interesting! I have never had any S&B casings that were steel. Last night I double checked my handloaded S&B stock, and new manufactured boxes after i read your post, just to be sure. All brass here. Copper washed steel casings are easy to spot, but the one's in your photo certainly look like brass. Yikes!

donut1953 said:

Never too old to learn and off to Amazon to purchase a stong magnet. What would the worst case be if one of those cases got by you and was reloaded?

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I dont know the real answer but my fear is they might not make it past the sizing die. The plastic and elastic properties of steel are much higher and a hell of a stuck case would be the end of the fun.

S&B, Herters, and CBC brass gets thrown in the trash. They all have extremely tight primer pockets, and make seating a primer a real pain....

I did some that the primer flash hole was too small. They would get stuck in my die. I scrapped a hand full of them, I don't remember what brand they were.

Interesting that so many have had issues with S&B. I have issues with CBC (they won't case gauge due to the case mouth wall being too thick), but I rarely have problems with S&B. They are thicker than Blazer brass but don't seem to be as thick as CBC.

donut1953 said:

Never too old to learn and off to Amazon to purchase a stong magnet. What would the worst case be if one of those cases got by you and was reloaded?

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You can reload steel cases. The primary potential issue seems to be proper lubrication for sizing, or perhaps insufficient neck tension due to different spring/expansion properties of steel vs brass. I've got a few cadmium-plated steel .45 ACP cases from WWII/Korea era and they resize/load indistinguishably from my brass cases. In fact I loaded them several times before I learned they weren't brass.

The steel they use in cartridges is pretty soft by "steel" standards.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reloading+steel+cases

To satisfy my curiosity, I reloaded one particular 45 acp Tulammo steel case. I am up to 10 reloads. Lubed and inspected carefully each time. I think I am done with the experiment. Most recipes were starting loads. Won't be a regular thing but it can be done. YMMV and "I am what you may call a professional"......

I started reloading a few years ago when a pro1000 landed in my lap. Wanted to start with 38spl and bought a bunch of Herters to shoot and reload the brass. Major, major headaches. Smashed primers, sideways, missing primers. I practically rebuilt the press 5 or 6 times before I could get a 100 usable cartridges. Read about S&B cases on this forum and discovered the Herters were labeled as “manufactured by S&B”.
—Claus

I just hand lube with carbide dies, barely any - but, it sure makes the arm on the press easier to work. After 5 or 8 or 10 cases you can feel it start to stiffen up, and then lube a case again and when it start to stiffen up again, lube another one.

donut1953 said:

Never too old to learn and off to Amazon to purchase a stong magnet. What would the worst case be if one of those cases got by you and was reloaded?

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They will reload, and they will size, but if you try to do it without lube (such as the unexpected one entering your feed tube on a progressive) you'll find yourself exerting a lot of effort to do it (with an audible squeak as they go through sizing). Plus, the primers may not seat properly and get crushed or otherwise mangled as they go in.

I *have* had to pull the die and hammer out S&B steel 9mm before. Pretty sure that was about the same moment I got rather angry and bought a strong magnet to make sure all of them ceased to ever be a problem, ever again.

Not a good picture, but the left primer came from a S&B case. The right from a Remington. The Remington shows the firing pin dent while the S&B is convex, showing that more force was needed the punch out.

Was gifted a bunch of onced fired S&B 303 British a few years ago. Other than the primers being noticeably harder to seat, the brass is decent and has held up well to multiple loadings.