.45ACP Reloaders: Do you separate brass?

[CortJestir]

So in researching .45ACP loads, I often come across folks who say they use mixed brass in their batches. All the manuals recommend you sort brass at least by head stamp (if not by lot) and by number of times fired.

But if you're inspecting cases as the normal part of reloading, I can see how folks just mix brass to save on time and the extra step of keeping track of everything.

So I was wondering, do you mix brass?

 

[joneb]

45acp brass varies by manufacturer in wall thickness, length and hardness. I find reloading .45acp trouble free when I sort by head stamp, I would prefer to also sort by # of times fired, but that aint gonna happen

 

[dahermit]

sorting brass

For informal target shooting with mild loads it is not necessary. However, if in a competion shoot, it would be less than smart not to.
Mixing head stamps is just a lazy practice. It depends on how accurate and reliable you want your handloads to be.

 

[kraigwy]

I like to seperate my brass by make and year for Bullseye shooting at 50 yards, at 25 yards and for all other shooting I dont worry about it.

 

[Sport45]

I'm a very informal shooter. My .45acp brass gets cleaned along with any "new" brass I pick up at the range and thrown into a bucket. I reload out of the bucket from the top, so it's usually "last fired - first reloaded". Normally I loose that brass before it becomes un-useable.

 

[DaveInPA]

I don't sort it. I get rid of cases with defects, and I get rid of AMERC brass. Other than that, it all gets loaded together. I reload .45ACP to practice defensive shooting. I've never had any reliability issues with my handloads. They work. Nuff said.

I ALWAYS separate rifle brass by headstamp and number of times fired though.

 

[bluetopper]

I separate by caliber only. Life's too short, there are more important things in life to worry about.

 

[PDshooter]

If it says 45ACP on it I reload it !

 

[Sevens]

I have my process and it goes like this.
--There's a coffee can that holds brass that's labeled "Dirty .45". I run that load whenever there's 150 pieces or more in it. All headstamps, including range pickups, but it's all .45 and nothing else.

--When it's clean it goes in to smaller containers separated by headstamp. Probably have 5 different, and then the 6th one is mixed extra brass.

--Then I'll take 50 or 100 or 150 or 200 at a time and run them through the flare die, then I prime them so that they sit in a container... either 50, 100, 150 or 200 at a time and all are ready to be charged and loaded when I feel like loading them.

I load single stage, but when you come down to the bench in my man cave, you can find a container of any caliber that I load and there are at least 50 rounds that are ready to go-- just set up the powder measure, grab a handful of bullets and screw in the bullet seater and you are making ammo.

But yeah, I separate by head stamp. If you open up a box of 50 rds in handgun calibers from my stash, they all have the same headstamp. If you open up two boxes, you may find two different. With rifle, I stick to one head stamp.

 

[rn22723]

Here is my plan.....
9mm
I dump brass into to be sorted by caliber via shellsorter trays. The brass is then stored till I make up my mind that I will make a day of tumbling this is about when I have 5gal pail full. Then I inspect the polished brass for defects and AMERC head stamps they get pitched. The rest gets stored ready to load. No worries about # of times fired or keeping seperated by head stamp. I have some brass that if I want would load up my own self defense ammo. Got a couple K of once fired Starline!

45ACP
I dump brass into to be sorted by caliber via shellsorter trays. The brass is then stored till I make up my mind that I will make a day of tumbling, this when I have 5gal pail that needs tumbling.. Then I inspect the polished brass for defects and AMERC head stamps they get pitched. Then Fed and Win get sorted off to two buckets, all else goes into another. I keep th Fed and Win seperated for my 625's that way the rims stay nicer and not beat up from the extraction of the autoloaders.

Magnum brass is treated like it was rifle brass seperate by lot and documented.

 

[45Marlin carbine]

as poster #3. once the brass has been loaded several times and beat up some I toss it into the 'shoot and scoot' can. these are loaded fairly mild and left laying where they fall.
I usually load 6-7 times my pistol brass and then cracks or some other flaw develops.
for my best loads I sort by stamp.

 

[Mike40-11]

I see I'm far from the only guy who hates AMERC. That and damaged / split cases is all I sort for. If I were loading for bullseye I suppose I'd be a little more particular.

 

[Sevens]

I have a theory about A-Merc brass.

The fact that A-Merc brass is the worst boxer primed and "reloadable" brass in existence may be THE single lone thing that all shooters/reloaders can universally agree upon.

The only people who don't look down on A-Merc brass are folks that have never seen it or are so new to reloading that they've never actually inspected any brass and have no idea how bad the stuff is.

Reloaders and shooters will forever argue about tool brands, case lube choices, powder choices, load data manuals, max loads, bullet makers, calibers, scale makers, progressive vs single stage, and every other sub-topic in the hobby.

But all of us can agree about A-Merc brass' place in the food chain... Simple process of elimination tell us that ONE brand must be the worst of everything, and A-Merc brand is that one.

 

[bluetopper]

I've wondered for a while what brand of ammo uses Amerc brass? I've never bought any or seen any new in the box.

 

[Sevens]

"American Cartridge Company." Not sure where you buy it, not sure what their reputation is, I would imagine the stuff is cheap compared to decent ammo. I've only ever seen lead bullet ammo from them, but I really have no clue.

Avoid it like the plague. Some of the dimensions on their brass are just plain OFF, and it's not the common dimension (like length or caliber) that you'd expect... but, like rim thickness. The stuff is the worst I've ever seen.

 

[WSM MAGNUM]

Yes, my brass is mixed and of different number of firings. As long as the brass is not split, cracked or deformed, I just keep reloading them.

 

[Edward429451]

I used to not sort my 45 brass and just loaded it. When I finally got a chronograph, I confirmed that I had very consistent loads indeed...and Then I wondered if sorting the brass would make an improvement in the consistency. I sorted and sorted and loaded and loaded, then realized all of my same headstamps were of probable differing lots anyway so got some new WW brass and loaded it to and off to the range to do some testing...

It was inconclusive. The mixed brass shot as well as same headstamp differing lots and the WW brass.

Oh well. Its sorted anyway.

 

[Sevens]

For the kind of shooting I do in .45, I don't think I'd notice an accuracy difference if I used wildly different brands of brass from shot to shot.

And, since I'm not loading max, over max or nuclear loads, I wouldn't run in to any safety issue with regards to mixed brass and pressures, etc.

But when I run brass through my dies, I can easily feel a discernible difference in the way the different brands run through the dies. It must be in brass thickness, because on the sizing, flaring, and even sometimes when priming, I can tell quickly by feel that I have one piece of brass that's different than the rest.

I'm not anal retentive by nature... I don't fix crooked pictures on the wall and I don't straighten out rugs in the house, so I don't sort my brass because it keeps me up at night. But I do like to have 50 with all the same stamp on them when I open up a fresh box of ammo. And it's not too much work for me to make that happen.

 

[rgerena@san.rr.com]

Sort by weight. I've seen same headstamps with 10g difference in weight. I figure it takes a second to throw a shell on a scale and then to a labeled bin.

And outside dimensions being equal (after sizing), the heavier brass will in theory have a lower capacity.

Only .45 is sorted. .40 is almost always 1 gr range. 9mm same.

 

[Smaug]

What I usually do is pick up all the 45 ACP brass I see at the range. As I start to separate it by headstamp later at home, I find that 80% of it is the same brand. So I just throw out all the "odd branded" brass. Seems wasteful, but time & space are money. There's plenty of 45 ACP brass around, so I can be picky.

I used to sort it by headstamp, but found that I soon had dozens of coffee cans sitting around with those more odd brands of brass that never seemed to be accumulating. It wasn't worth the effort & space.

In 380, that brass is much harder to find, so I save everything and separate it by headstamp. When I run out of matching brass, I shoot mixed brass. I can never seem to recover 100% of the brass I shoot from an auto pistol.

As a reloader, you should consider shooting revolvers more. It feels so good to not pick up brass. No more walking around the range with your head down and everyone looking at you like you have two heads for picking up brass. Not that I minded that much, but it was so great the first time I ejected the cases and put them right back into the box. No hitting the floor, no getting walked on, no funny looks, no explaining. Revolvers have less capacity and more recoil, but more charm.

I still can't give up my autos, but I make sure I keep the calibers to a minimum and try to shoot the popular ones.