Preferences buying once fired brass

[FROGO207]

^^ I hear they make great reactive targets when caught stealing RC.

 

[medalguy]

I like mine dirty and unprocessed. OK, clean and unprocessed is better, but I want un-messed-with brass so I can see exactly what I'm getting. When I have fired brass to sell, I also never process it at all so my customers can see what THEY are getting too. It's very easy to hide a multitude of sins in processed, shiny brass.

 

[bobinoregon]

I'm for as it was picked up. I've seen some pretty nasty brass look good after stainless pins. I'll clean and process for myself, crimped primer is always a good sign.

 

[maxyedor]

Rifle brass, I'll pay a little more or "clean" brass off the ground, I'll take "dirty" but the price better be right since it'll dirty up my media and take longer to clean. Also, if it's being sold by weight, the price needs to drop if it's dirty, not willing to pay "brass" prices for the dirt that got swept up with it.

Pistol brass, I prefer to buy tumbled, I have tons of dirty range pick-up handgun brass, so it's nice to buy pre-tumbled for when I need to load 500 rounds for a weekend really quick and don't have time to tumble my own. I will not buy crimped primer handgun brass, and when I randomly find it, it gets scrapped, too much work.

 

[JSmith]

LAst time I bought once-fired brass it was .45ACP, tumbled, not decapped or resized. That was fine with me.

 

[Mohave-Tec]

I have thousands of rounds of brass here. Maybe ten's of thousands. The only way I've ever gotten brass was from me picking it up off the ground or on a couple occasions I have paid $65 to a friend for 1000 rounds of 223 tumbled or $40 per 1000 tumbled when he has it and I feel like buying i instead of going to the range. Some of the stories I've read here makes me curious where other people live where you have to pursue all these different ways of buying brass. Here, popular spots in the desert are full of brass.

 

[Jcinnb]

Man, I went to range mid week, picked up a ton of 30-06. Resized to 25-06, and shot perfectly.

I have done spoilt myself!

 

[PJSprog]

I'm currently processing some "once fired" .223 cases bought from Midway some time ago. Full-length resized and decapped, then trimmed and cleaned with steel wool on my Zip Trim. It's a bit of work and slow, but I actually like it.

 

[cacoltguy]

About the only once-fired brass I buy is Lake City .308 to feed in my M1A since it eats brass and doesn't make sense to pay extra for unfired stuff that will be trashed after 4 firings. Since cost is the main factor here, I don't want to pay extra to have any processing done to it. Just give it to me straight from the range and I'll do the rest. Plus, I prefer to process it myself so I can have more control over it (headspaced for my rifle, . neck tension adjusted to my needs with bushings in my resizing die etc....)

 

[Hondo 60]

It doesn't really matter for me.
I'll resize 'em to my die settings anyways.

If they're still dirty I'll just tumble 'em.

I guess, in a perfect world, I wouldn't mind if they were deprimed & wet tumbled so even the primer pocket was clean.

 

[Lj1941]

I want to be sure I am getting what I pay for-for example once fired.I will decap and size-remove crimp ect. Cleaned is OK too-but not needed.I have only bought OF brass one time and that was a positive experience - no BS.

 

[Apiarian]

This was some very good input.
I do wonder if pistol shooters vs rifle shooters are any different.....

 

[horseman1]

I have purchased once fired brass several times. It' tough to get brass in Colorado, since the kooks have taken over the state. Good Coloradan's are picking up all their brass these days, even people that don't reload.

My loads seem to shoot better if I get some blood on them that has been freshly extracted from me trying to remove the crimp in the primer pockets .

 

[AlliedArmory]

I prefer unprocessed brass as I would want to control the variables myself. Nice and dirty works for me.

 

[jeeptim]

Un touched is best. I bought 250 once fired L.C. Match early 1950s very cool so o
I decapped sized primed tossed in the tumbler then checked for trim ALL were trimmed way to short wasted 250 primers gave to my buddy I think he cut in to 8mm mauser.
Good news the guy i got them from full refund shipping and a $10.00 starbucks card. Think he is one of us.

 

[Beentown]

Dirty, unprocessed.

 

[Elkins45]

For military brass I don't mind getting it with the crimp still intact and dirty from the range. That's just a verification of the once fired status.

What I'm really scared of is 40 S&W or especially 10mm brass that has been processed in any way. I'm afraid that some of it is dangerously weakened because of a Glock bulge but I dont know which ones because the bulge has been ironed out. I cracked the frame on my G20 because of a case failure with some "once fired" brass.

 

[Mohave-Tec]

Just give me all the freakin' brass. I'll figure it out from there. There's never enough.

 

[4895]

I prefer once-fired brass just like it came from the range floor. I don't want to pay for someone else working the brass and prefer to do my own case prep. I have heard from guys that bought .223 at gun shows from a "reloader" that they constantly jam and sometimes misfire. I certainly don't want to pay for shoddy workmanship. I can do that all on my own thank you very nice.


On a positive note, I did meet a fella from backpage that offered 120+ pieces of once-fired .270 win brass for $20. He showed up on time and explained that he planned to reload them but lost interest and wanted to get rid of the brass. It has been excellent brass for a friend of mine who I hooked up on the deal when I knew he was looking for some. He got 50 rounds loaded with partitions and I got the rest for the day I get a .270 or trade them off. I did however process the brass already (polished, resized, trimmed, chamfered, neck turned, flash holes de-burred, primer pockets uniformed, separated by head stamp)...oops.