Usable life

[Mr_Flintstone]

I know this has probably been asked and answered somewhere, but about how many times can I safely reload reused commercial 30 carbine ammunition cases? I’m on about the fourth reload on some (5 loads if you count the original factory load), and I haven’t seen any issues yet except needing trimmed.

Oh, I’ve been using a medium IMR 4227 charge with FMJ bullets.

 

[splattergun]

bottleneck cartridges in general usually get about 3 to 5 reloads before work-hardening from both firing and from resizing causes cracks.
You can extend the life of bottleneck cartridges by annealing then necks. As many as 20 loads or more is not uncommon that way.

 

[Dudedog]

I don't know about .30 carbine, but 9mm/.45 I load until one of the following
the primer pockets get loose, the case neck gets a split, the rim gets torn up, neck tension is poor, or I loose it.

 

[FROGO207]

I do not keep track of my 30 carbine brass as to the number of reloadings. They are tapered like 9MM. They will grow in length so need to be trimmed fairly often. I have watched for case head separation but have not had that happen to any of mine yet. All of mine have split in the neck area or developed loose primer pockets. So I reload until they do this and then recycle them. If you have concerns keep them in batches and reload those as a group. When more than a few start splitting scrap the batch. I know some of mine have been shot more than 30 times so far.

 

[Mr_Flintstone]

Thanks guys.