How do you guys track of your brass?

[Demi-human]

No tracking, shoot until they split, rifle and pistol no difference

Depending on what cartridges you’re talking about, and where it splits, I’d say there is a HUGE difference...

 

[RockRat64]

I would color them all over with sharpie. Each sharpie color would designate a different amount of times reloaded. Looks stupid but easy to spot them.

 

[mokin]

I used to. I noticed that failure rate didn't seem to follow any pattern. I did an experiment where I carefully tracked a batch of 10mm Auto brass, Dremmeling two cases after each firing. I remember one case split at about the sixth loading. Another about the twelfth time. Primer pockets were starting to loosen up as well. Some cases lasted over 15 loads. After that I decided that all the tracking wasn't worth the time and I'd probably lose the case before it failed.

Rifle ammunition gets checked with a bent paper clip before it is put back in circulation. I do keep the ammunition separate that I shoot in my Lee Enfields and only neck size those. I mark the box with the rifle I used the ammunition in.

 

[Jessesky]

Depending on what cartridges you’re talking about, and where it splits, I’d say there is a HUGE difference...

I agree. I’m religious about tracking my 375h&h brass. I don’t know if I’m being paranoid, but that’s a lot of powder, and the shape lends itself to a lot of brass flow. I was also very careful to track my 454casull brass. 65k psi in a handgun made me nervous to load for, even if it is perfectly safe. I sold it and have my .44now

 

[Jessesky]

I do keep the ammunition separate that I shoot in my Lee Enfields and only neck size those. I mark the box with the rifle I used the ammunition in.

I should do that. Currently I full size, but the chambers on some 303s are so generous it really does work the brass. Good idea

 

[cfullgraf]

I’m religious about tracking my 375h&h brass.

Yes, that is probably a good thing to do as 375H&H brass is not very common.

 

[Demi-human]

After reading some of the responses, I realize I don’t track lots of brass. I have one lot that I use until more than a couple fail in a fashion. Then I scrap them and get a new lot. Either from the extra cases bucket or by ordering new.

A split mouth here or there not a big deal.
A few loose, but holding primers, pockets, a bigger deal.
A single case of the lot getting a thin case wall near the pressure ring? All of them go...

I had a new bucket of once fired, that I cleaned up after the boys left.
Oh well, free brass
Theres abut a thousand in that, and I like lots of two hundred, so that is a lot of brass for my AR.

Ha! Here’s a strange mode of failure.
Placing a tray of warm, freshly dried, brass on an induction range burner.

I didn’t see it was on, as it was cycling. I put the tray there and went to take care of some tumbling things.
I smelled something hot, turned around and discovered beautiful purple and blue brass!

Ruined!

The induction of the burner was exceptionally efficient at heating an entire lot of fully prepared Lake City brass, all the way to destruction. The purple and blue rings matched the place the burner was under. The discoloring went straight through the heads, too. Some cases laid in the induction ring with only the head exposed, this was ruined while the neck was fine.

How to tell which ones were still good?
There isn’t, they all had to go.

Fortunately, there was only two hundred in that lot. Nearly new, fully prepped, shining brightly and setting in the recycle bucket.

I would color them all over with sharpie. Each sharpie color would designate a different amount of times reloaded. Looks stupid but easy to spot them.

The sharpie doesn’t come off completely in the tumble, even wet tumbling. So coloring them over and over for the different load cycles wouldn’t work too well, I think.
But having one color per lot and recording the number of times that color has been cycled could work.
I have wondered if Rit brand clothing dye could dye the brass in a more permanent way. Like the Noveske black colored cases and bullets with the glow-in-the-dark tip.

 

[Blue68f100]

I track all of my rifle brass, and some revolver brass. I have a little card that goes with every batch whether it's 50 rounds or 500 round. It keeps up with the number of cycles and where it's at in the brass prep stages

 

[Muddydogs]

I use plastic bags, paper tags and ammo cans to track my brass for 25 calibers. I'm sure with all the plastic totes on the market these days there is probably something better then ammo cans but I started using them back when they were cheap. I use 30mm cans for small brass or low quantity's, most of my brass is in 50mm cans, some larger rifle or large quantity's are in tall 50 cans and my pile of 40 and 223 brass fills up 2 20mm cans.

Most of my pistol isn't tracked so the brass is dumped loose in the can, there may be a bag or two of once fired brass in the can as well that I am saving for later, for instance I have 8000 pieces of 40 brass in the 20mm can with 2 bags of 2000 each once fired sorted by head stamp also in the can just waiting to be put into service. I have another ammo can with about 6000 nickle pieces of 40 brass just waiting to be used.

For rifle the largest quantity for the caliber gets dumped in loose into the can and an excel made info tag dropped on top then bags are added for other brass which is sorted by # of firings and or head stamp. As I get further into reloading, older and not so broke that I have to pick up every piece of range brass I have been slowly moving to one head stamp for each caliber to make brass tracking easier. If I acquire a new rifle that I need brass for I have been starting out with 500 pieces of new brass, same head stamp right from the get go.

 

[buck460XVR]

Ziplock bags, with tags, by batch, inside plastic storage bins. Loaded ammo is stored in 50 or 100 round ammo boxes, by batch. Brass gets polished and prepped by batch, and only after all the ammo in that batch is shot. If a batch is short a case or two because of getting lost or damaged, I have slightly used brass that I use to fill the box, or I just load what is left. Ammo boxes have load info on them, including how many times the cases have been used. This info is updates as necessary when they are refilled. It's not a perfect system and sometimes things get messed up. Then those cases get delegated to reduced loads only till they cannot be reloaded any more.

 

[Chuck R.]

I only shoot and load small quantities of centerfire ammo. I notch the rims of the cases with a Dremel tool for lot numbers. I have a code that will take me to ten lots. Each lot is recorded similar to Whughett's method. Once I start to get more than 10% case failures due to neck splitting, I discard the rest of the lot.

I did similar with my BPCR brass in .45-110, .45-90, and .40-70.

It's all Starline and during a match it all get's de-primed and dumped into a container of water after firing, often for several days. Since I weighed and segregated them into 50rd lots, the solution was to index the rims with a dremel and record the "Hour", IE Lot A is 12 o'clock, Lot B is 3:00 etc. A weekend match would usually be around 60rds a day, (40 for score + sighters), so about 120 rds total. That way once cleaned at home I can put them back together by lot.

Then index notches also come in handy for cast bullet orientation, that way they all entered the chamber the same.

 

[markr6754]

I would color them all over with sharpie. Each sharpie color would designate a different amount of times reloaded. Looks stupid but easy to spot them.

Actually, I color the primers with Sharpies to track loads when I’m doing ladders. It’s the best way to let my 5 y/o granddaughter “help”. I tried letting her pull the press handle, but 5 y/os don’t necessarily understand speed control. But coloring helps with developing her fine motor skills. While colored Sharpie tends to remain even after tumbling, most of it punches out with the spent primers.

 

[Bfh_auto]

Have a baby then use baby formula boxes. They stack well.
Or don't have a baby and buy gold plated ammo boxes.
The cost is similar.

 

[Varminterror]

Target sells these in a few sizes (Walmart sells a similar kind of stacking tubs, but far less durable and about 50% more expensive), the smaller shown here fit about 400 short action cases, the larger, more than 1,000 (I think I have 1200 308win in one of them). Each layer (two layers for some of my highest volume loads) houses one firing of a batch of brass. I try to avoid getting more than 4 layers deep per cartridge/rifle, meaning I don’t get a batch of brass too far spread out, but it’s not to uncommon for me to get disjointed enough to have a batch of brass spread out by 3-4 firings. Ideally, I’d have one layer of last firing, one layer of the current status, until everything has been fired, and the top goes empty, and gets moved down to the bottom for the NEXT firing. Unfortunately, sometimes I don’t do well, and end up way out of sorts. These tubs make things pretty simple.

 

[Varminterror]

I would color them all over with sharpie. Each sharpie color would designate a different amount of times reloaded. Looks stupid but easy to spot them.

I use color coding to identify my brass at matches, and to help me keep track of firings on each batch of brass.

However, I advise strongly against coloring the entirety of the case, or even coloring anything forward of the head. I’ve seen increased formation of carbon rings in the neck, and odd chamber fouling as the marker transfers from the case to the chamber, and moves around the rifle in subsequent firings. In my first foray of marking brass with a sharpie. I pushed purple (batches of red, blue, and black) out of my chamber for HOURS one evening after scrubbing away a carbon ring. Despite using acetone and alcohol on the patches, there was simply SO MUCH CARBON baked in layers with the sharpie in the chamber and neck - let alone pushing down the bore. I’ve never struggled so much to get a rifle cleaned before or since.

This fouling was caused by only a single thin sharpie ring around the case, in the lower 1/3-1/4 (traced onto the case by spinning the loaded cartridges in a Frankford Arsenal cartridge tray, holding the tip against the tray). I can’t imagine how bad the problems would have been if I would have colored the entire case.

So ever since then, I have only colored the extractor groove, not any part of the case body, and I’ve almost completely eliminated Sharpie fouling in the chambers of my rifle.

The sharpie doesn’t come off completely in the tumble, even wet tumbling. So coloring them over and over for the different load cycles wouldn’t work too well, I think.

After wet tumbling, I rinse my brass in alcohol (methanol or isopropyl) to 1) remove the sharpie marks, and 2) dry the brass. It removes the Sharpie identifier lines quickly and efficiently, and helps the brass dry more quickly. A guy could do even better by decanting the cleaning solution from the tumbler, then running a few minutes with a bit of alcohol in the tumbler to aid clearing the Sharpie marks and to ensure better coverage for drying - I keep telling myself I’ll start doing so “next batch,” but I never do. Maybe “next batch.”

Quickly splashing the cases with Isopropanol before wet tumbling actually cleans the marker away more completely than doing so after wet cleaning. but doing it before fouls the alcohol with powder, and doing it after aids in drying, so I always do it after.

 

[rfwobbly]

How do you guys track your brass ?

I use a professional...