Buying Once Fired Brass

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Peakbagger46

Peakbagger46

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I am now reloading for a mini-14 and am very tempted to go out and buy some once fired brass from a place such as "brassman.com". At around 80 bucks for 1,000, it would save a lot of money over shooting factory ammo to reload.

What I am somewhat concerned with is the safety factor (how do I know it's actually once fired). Anyone have thoughts on this? I could know for certain that it was once fired if I get military brass (crimped primers), but I'm not sure I want to go through the trouble of deburring the flash holes.
 
The way people burn through ..223, I'm sure you have a good chance its 1x especially from a high volume dealer. Don't worry about flash holes on something like a mini 14.. the primer pockets are what will take you a while. But once they are done you will have some brass to hold on to.
 
i've purchased from brassman brass. excellent transaction, quality brass. i'd buy again.

with military brass, it's easy to tell if it's truly once-fired. if it's still got the primer crimp, then it's once-fired. it's not much trouble to remove the crimp. i use a dillon super swage, but there are many options. no need to screw with the flash holes.
 
I prefer to buy new brass. Yes, it is more expensive,but I know what I have. Hmmm, 80 bucks a thousand is pretty good price. I don't think there is any way to know if it is really once fired except if the primers are crimped it is likely once fired. I don't think any reloaders crimp primers.
 
split the cost of a super swage with some buddies. you'll probably only need it a few times a year, so y'all can just pass it around.
 
I prefer to buy used brass in bulk rather than buying new mainly for the cost savings. However, if you can get Lake City (LC) then that brass will last a LONG time and reload many times unless you are loading max loads. Sometimes they are range pickups so after cleaning you need to inspect them when you are resizing and trimming to make sure they are in good shape. If you are hand loading for accuracy (yes, it can be done with a mini-14 ) then you have a larger pool of brass to weigh and get closer to the same.
Plus you have all that brass so if a few are no good, who cares, chunk it and go to the next one.
 
I made a purchse from that place a while back for my 7mm RM and was not at all happy with the brass they sent me. It deffinitely appeared to be once fired, and as well, it was very apparent that it came from the same action, which is where my complaint is centered. The brass looked like it was fired from a very badly pitted chamber. When I use the term pitted I am actually meaning pitted as in there must have been chunks of chamber wall missing from the firearm it came from.

If I were brass-man, I would not have sent that brass out to anyone wishing to purchase once fired brass. I'm not sure if this brass was a typical example of the brass they sell, but based on that brass I may not order from them again?

GS
 
I've had good luck with "once fired" brass, but then again it depends on what I'm loading. For most of my pistol needs (.380acp, .38spl, .45acp) it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. I purchase new brass for my .357mag, .44mag, .500S&W mag (and rifle cartridges) because of the pressures involved. I buy new brass for other calibers (like .38S&W) because they are so hard to find.

Depending on your intended use "once fired" brass is a good investment.

Just my two cents worth. :)
 
"Once fired" brass is never guaranteed unless you really know the source; in fact, it's more often than not a crap shoot.

Load light to moderate charges in any brass you didn't buy as new brass or as factory ammo (and you shot it yourself or were there when someone else did) or stick to cartridges that are relatively low pressure by design.
 
I made a purchse from that place a while back for my 7mm RM and was not at all happy with the brass they sent me. It deffinitely appeared to be once fired, and as well, it was very apparent that it came from the same action, which is where my complaint is centered. The brass looked like it was fired from a very badly pitted chamber. When I use the term pitted I am actually meaning pitted as in there must have been chunks of chamber wall missing from the firearm it came from.

If I were brass-man, I would not have sent that brass out to anyone wishing to purchase once fired brass. I'm not sure if this brass was a typical example of the brass they sell, but based on that brass I may not order from them again?

GS
Click to expand...

did you express your complaint to them?
 
Thanks for the link Mag Shooter. I just ordered 1,000 military cases from that site for 85 bucks... and I don't have to mess with the reamer now!
 
have bought bulk brass from brassman .com. last order looked clean enough to have been new. all crimped primers. just like advertised. out of a thousand, there may have been 3 or 4 unusable. if you got a bad batch, i,m sure they would make it right
 
^ You shooting a bolt action, or an autoloader???

I shoot 223 in an autoloader, and I've had lots of case head separations from some "once-fired" brass I purchased (5-6 so far). The brass was obviously not once-fired, because the spent primers were still in there, and yet the crimps had already been reamed.

So, yeah. When you buy once-fired brass, you can't be sure what you're getting. But as far as safety is concerned, case head separations in 223 haven't been a big deal for me. I only ever notice on the next round after a separation, when I pull the trigger and nothing happens. It's just annoying that I get a stoppage that I have to clear. This might not be true for all rifles and certainly not for all calibers. But that's been my experience so far. FWIW, I've read that 223 tends to separate higher up on the case, and that jives with my experience. All my separations happened on the upper half of the brass, leaving plenty of case to expand and contain the pressure.

As far as being "a lot cheaper," you might wanna shop around for some bulk ammo and check the costs of your components. I don't think you're really saving that much. And if you buy the ammo new, you get true once-fired brass.
 
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I have never had problems buying once fired cases, but I generally buy what is popular and plentiful.

I do realize that I may not get 100 percent usable cases for a number of reasons, but it is rarely more than a couple bad/wrong pieces per 500 cases.

I am sure large, reputable resellers do a good job of deliver what they promise.

i would be careful of Gun Show Bubba who might be scouring all the public shooting locations and picking up anything laying on the ground.
 
I don't sell brass but I sure do pick up everything I can at the range. I've had no problems doing this. But there are only 10 total reloaders at the range I belong to so I can almost guarantee they are once fired.

I've bought once fired a few times and have had great results. The last batch of one hundred 308 that I bought had 20 Hornady Match brass in it. And no military brass which I prefer. No matter where you buy from you still need to inspect the brass and expect a few bad pieces.


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When I buy once-fired, I purchase most of it from brassman.com. Very satisfied with them.

I've used Widener's a couple of times for .308 brass, but they're not too good with providing tracking info.
 
Bought a bag of 30-30 1-fired,clean and nice looking, once. I had trouble with hairline blow outs. Now I buy new cases or factory for any rifle anymore. I use anything for pistol.
 
I load a lot of .223 and I always buy unprocessed USGI brass ONLY. I have had several bad experiences with buying processed brass, especially the stuff that's already been polished. You can hide a lot of sins by polishing brass. I only buy unprocesses, unpolished brass so I can see what the brass actually looks like and be sure it's indeed once-fired. Processing it is no big deal, and you only have to do it once. If the brass is in fact once-fired, I can get 6-8 reloads out of it, so the time/cost of processing it is minimal per round. By the way, I rarely have to pay more than .05 per round for good LC brass.
 
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