9mm Brass

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Vacek

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The indoor shooting range I haunt sells brass (handgun) for $3/lb which is to my mind a good deal. I am a brass rat when I shoot (pick up all I can of all calibers) but also will purchase when it is cheap.

Regardless, I am resizing 5 lbs worth and just about every brand possible of brass is encountered. I am using a Lee Hand Press (you know, lay back in the LaZY Boy and knock out a couple hundred) and the felt differences are obvious. That said, is there a great difference in the quality of 9mm brass for reloading?
 
That is pretty much what I thought. Using the Lee Hand Press you can actually tell which brand you are sizing by the feel of it. The Blazer brass definetly requires more ooomph than F-C or Winchester. My feeling is that it is not a strong or as high grade and expands more and/or doesn't retract after expansion.
 
You can feel the difference when sizing no matter what press you're using, if paying attention. I sometimes sort 9mm brass and sometimes don't. It depends on what I'm loading it for.

If I'm loading for accuracy, then I'll sort, but if just loading for some informal paper/steel plate busting, then I don't sort it by brand.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
The two things I avoid is off-center primer holes and brass that doesn't have the caliber marked on the case. Most 9mm brass is OK. I know that Olympic brand (headstamp S&W 9x19) from Greece consistently has off-center primer holes because I shot a case of it and retrieved most of the brass.
 
....is there a great difference in the quality of 9mm brass for reloading?
Click to expand...

Sometimes you get brass which was maxed out in a gun with an unsupported chamber. I discovered one such round in my last batch. The case, right at the rim, had expanded too far to fit into a cartridge gauge, and of course the die could not go deep enough over the case to reach down that far.

The result was a round that looked normal, but would not go into battery. OK for plinking, but would have ruined my day if it happened on the IPSC course.


However, I have to generally agree. I use mixed brass for my 1/2 power IPSC shooting and target reloads without regret.
 
I load whatever I got, discard the aluminum and Berdan. If I sort, I do it after it is all loaded while putting it in boxes.
 
Nah.

I don't do much sorting at all.

At least 99% of my reloads in 9mm are for informal use - plinking and target shooting (just me, no competition) at the range. My reloads are plenty accurate enough for that purpose without spending a whole lot of time on them. They get tumbled and sorted by hand when I load, but the sorting is just culling out the bad ones and aluminum, anything else unwelcome.

I'm just not so good a shot with a handgun that MOA is an issue. I spend much more time on rifle brass. I know guys who use a beam scale to weigh powder charges for pistol, but can't hit a pop can at 15 yards :cool: and in my opinion, they should spend more time shooting and less time making ultra precise ammo.
 
I do sort brass by maker. The difference you are feeling when sizing makes a difference on the hold on the bullet for powder burn. The same as a rifle. Also if you look inside the brass it can a different shape, causing a different burn in powder.
Sorting brass may help you get better groups.
 
+1

There can also be a huge difference in neck thickness between makers.

I have run into some off-breed foreign 9mm brass that was too thin to hold bullets from slipping back inside the case when feeding.

And some others that were just too thick to use a normal taper crimp setting without damaging the bullets.

rc
 
I used to sort it when I first started, but as soon as I started shooting more it quickly became more trouble than its worth. On the rare occasions I want to shoot for groups, I'll sort some out from the loaded ammo.

Back when I was shooting IPSC I tried to keep verified once-fired brass for use during matches, reliability does go down a bit with repeated firings as the rims get boogered up, and can hang on the ejector in feeding or slip off during extraction causing failures.

--wally.
 
Maybe 10% of mine is military. It's no big deal to reload, at least not as a big a deal as 223. I don't think I've ever had to remove a crimp. The crimps on handgun brass don't seem to be as large as or as obtrusive as the rifle.
 
I've got several thousand 9mm WCC and FC (Winchester and Federal) military cases. I use them for warm loads, since the brass is thicker and seems to hold up better. Some of it was crimped pretty heavily, and some wasn't. It probably depends on when it went through the process and how worn the crimper was.

Mine all came from the Coast Guard, which uses our range. Now they shoot .40 S&W, so that ended my source for good once fired 9mm brass.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
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