Did I find a reason to sort 40 S&W brass?

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horseman1

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I believe after my last two trips to the reloading bench, I have found a good reason to sort my 40 S&W pistol brass. Well, at least some of it.

I was in the process of loading up some of my stock of lead 155gr rn bullets as well as some new 180gr powder coated cast bullets from Falcon Bullets, but I took a little more time than usual during this session to verify each round with the plunk test in the barrel. I was wanting to focus on minimizing the crimp to just removing the bell and keep from swagging the bullet. Getting the crimp right so they all chamber, but so the bullets do not get deformed.

What I believe I found was that some of the completed rounds required more crimp that I wanted to provide in order for them to slide right in and out of the chamber. It appeared to me that the the Remington brass I used required less crimp than the Starline, S&B brass and Winchester brass. Measurements with calipers suggested this was true, although I didn't check them all.

I'm thinking about using Remington (and possibly other head stamps I find that are thinner brass) exclusively for these lead and powder coated bullets and use the thicker brass for jacketed rounds.

Has anyone else found this to be true?

Thanks
 
Rem brass is notorious for being thinner then other brands anymore.

Enough so we see threads from people who can't get them sized down enough to provide proper neck tension.

rc
 
Thanks RC,

My thinking is for me to dedicate the Remington brass for lead/plated/powder coated .401 diameter bullets.
 
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I have had some issues with R-P 40 brass and neck tension. With hornady xtp .400
set back was a concern for me so now I only use r-p brass with plated projectiles that are
slightly larger diameter.
Not sure if I had a bad lot of r-p or not but I was able to push the xtp in a bit by hand
if I tried hard enough so now I only use it for light target loads and plated.
 
Allow me to echo those who say that R-P brass is prone to thinness and low/poor/non-existent neck tension.

And I sort my brass for three reasons. First is the reason that you identify - if it turns out that a particular brand or batch of brass poses problems, then it's easier to segregate and either specially treat it (e.g., lead only) or dispose of it. And since you're loading from sorted brass, at least identifying and scrapping or pulling down any ammo that you've loaded is easier than hunting and pecking through all the existing boxes.

Second, if one is using bullets with small variances in weight and a powder with decent case fill, it can be possible to use overall cartridge weight as a QC check against double-charges or zero charges - but only if all your brass weighs in a window smaller than your powder charge and bullet variance added. No chance of that unless you sort your brass.

Third, the process of sorting the brass is, for me, the time I'm most likely to notice a split or gouged case.
 
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