How do you handle your brass stock?

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gshipps

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Say you have a few thousand pieces of 223. Do you go thru it all once and start over or take a thousand and use them till time to scrap?
 
I started with six five gallon pails of once-fired Federal after a state L.E. agency let me have it after a major class they put on for agents about twenty years ago. I polished all of it first, and inspected each case before sealing it up in batches of five hundred. I use up those batches up first before opening up any more. First the cases are used in a good bolt gun for a few firings, then on to a semi before they are finally sold to the recycler.
 
^^Pretty similar to splithoof also. I have many buckets of brass that are known once fired. First I will clean/size/trim them and tumble them in corncob/NuFinish as I have time in the winter months before putting them up in bags of a convenient size to be used later. Then I will break out the bags of prepped brass to either load and put away as I have money to do it or use a bag or two over multiple times until it is ready to sell for scrap. I tend to shoot lots more in the warmer months and spend the winter resupplying for the summer/working up loads. Works well for me but I have been at it a number of years and have conservatively a ton or more of brass spread out in all my calibers I reload. In 223, 9MM, 308, 40 CAL, 45ACP, 30 Carbine, and 38SPL I have multiple 5 gallon buckets of once fired prepared brass waiting to be used. Not nearly so much brass ahead for the others just yet unfortunately.:cool:
 
Cardboard boxes for the odd 500 or 1K here or there. Square plastic buckets for brass I have a lot of.
 
New, unfired, cases are stored in their original container/package until I am ready to use them. They then get sized, prepped and loaded.

Used, once fire cases that i buy get resized, cleaned and prepped ready for use, then stored in ziploc bags and boxes. (I do not shoot where there is range brass to pick up.)

I have a certain amount of cases for each cartridges, several hundred or more for each different cartridge, that are in use. They get resized and cleaned shortly after shooting and are stored away until I decide I am short on inventory and need to reload them. As cases reach the end of their life, I replace them with stocks of new/purchased once fired cases.
 
I would start with bagging it in 1000, tumble and clean. Deprime, Swedge. Clean primer pockets. Size. Brake down to groups of 100 and clean the lube off inspect to insure primer pockets are clean and clear. Reload and store in groups of 100 in a 50 cal can.

100 rounds is about what the 550B will hold in the primer mag and makes for a conveniant package to got to the range. Grab one or two and go.

WB
 
I'm trying to figure this out too.

So do y'all say go through a lot of 300 .223 cases, and then clean and reload or do y'all have a lot size of say 3000 .223 cases that you go all the way through before you start reloading again.

I'm wondering, how big is y'all's lot sizes where you keep all the once reloaded, twice reloaded, etc...
 
Each rifle has it's own set of cases - 2k for more frequently used calibers, batches of a couple of 100 for some milsurps and less frequently shot guns. They're all prepped and primed over the winter, add powder and bullet in batches as needed in the summer, and then decapped/tumbled for storage as they're used. The whole batch for a gun will have the same number of firings - when a significant number give up the ghost, usually loose primer pockets or too many neck splits, scrap the batch and start another set for that gun.

Storage is in a bunch of the cheap plastic shoe boxes. They each hold about 1300 223s loose or a selection of different calibers in baggies. Pistol brass is just decapped/tumbled and stored in bulk except for Bullseye cases which are sorted by headstamp to weed out random range pickups.

/Bryan
 
I generally take a small lot of about 1000 and keep reloading/shooting those over and over until they're well used.

The rest of them stay unprocessed until they need to get called up as replacements.
 
Rifle I gather until I have several maybe 300+ that is new to me. I FL size them & put them away till I need them. For my bolt riffles I only work with 20-50 at a time. NS & load. I have only lost a couple of cases to neck splits so I just replaced it with one of the same head stamp since my son gets all of one kind & I it's another so we know how's is how's.

Pistol it's another problem. it is everywhere. I'll get to it one of these days.

My revolver brass is all loaded & boss away.
 
I generally take a small lot of about 1000 and keep reloading/shooting those over and over until they're well used.

The rest of them stay unprocessed until they need to get called up as replacements.
Click to expand...

I do the same except I use a lot size of 100 on some calibers and 200 on others.
 
Thanks for a lot of interesting info on this thread. I often get range pickups and my spent brass after shooting. It went into a 5 gallon bucket and then sorted only by caliber when the bucket got full. I fully process a small amount of that brass and store them on the bench so that they are ready for loading.

After considering the info here I may change that up and try to keep smaller batches in a rotation for the rifle calibers. Not sure if it's worthwhile for the straight wall pistols though.
 
clocker:
Not sure if it's worthwhile for the straight wall pistols though.
Click to expand...
:D I load and shoot on average 250+/- straight wall pistol every week--for years. I've never bought brass.
After shooting I pick all of my caliber I can find. I bring it home and sort by headstamp and inspect the cases outdoors and store the sorted range pick-ups in coffee cans until there are enough to tumble and process for reloading.
I put these polished sized and deprimed cases in coffee cans in my reloading area--1100rds +/- per container. The cans are marked BY Headstamps A-J. When I'm using brass out of "B", I'm refilling the empty "A" container. Next comes "C"--etc,etc. That way the cases all get used equally and don't sit unused indefinitely. I keep 5 or 6 headstamps to shoot. Rotating them through, no individual cases get "shot out/weakened". I lose enough of mine and find enough (and more) replacement once-fired cases to rarely have a bad case.

They all feel the same in my turret press, shoot the same in my pistols and are reliable shiny-slippery cases. It works for me. YMMV
 
^^^The greater majority of my brass is range pick-up; after 32 years of that, I will keep it up. What still amazes me is the waste I see from other shooters. With the prices of metals constantly going up, I still find lots of excellent, 1X brass all over my club range.
 
So far I think it's easier to keep track of it the more I have. So I'm thinking I'm gonna go through it all and start over when done. Well maybe use 3k or so. That might be better. Load a few times then load one last time and put it in the rainy day file.
 
I'd go through a bunch of it at a time. I don't see any reason to sort and segregate my 223 brass or keep track of life. It's the same as my pistol brass. I toss it when the neck cracks, or when it loses neck and/or primer pocket tension.
 
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