Have access to military 45ACP brass...keep it?

[tjhands]

I'm going shooting tomorrow with a guy who says I can keep all his brass (gets ammo free from his brother). I've heard that military .45ACP is difficult to reload....something about the primers?? Should I keep his brass?

 

[BillCA]

Keep it!

The only difficulty with milspec brass is that the primers are crimped into the cases. RCBS, Lee, et al make a primer pocket tool just for removing military primer crimps once you decap the empty brass.

I used to collect the stuff, clean it, decap & clean up the primer pocket and use the resulting ammo as range ammo. That freed up about 800 or so commercial cases for making serious ammo.

 

[Jeeper]

Dillon also makes a swager. I usually just set the military stuff aside and then load it all at once. Try and keep it seperate until you get ehough to go through and swage. The Dillon 1050 swages them automatically.

 

[CaptainRazor]

Oh Yeah! Keep it!

Once you swage the primer pockets, it's some of the best brass you will ever use.
Yeah, it is a little harder to work with, but not much. Most all of my 45 brass is military, I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[rwilson452]

Mil Spec .45 brass

If swagging out the primer pocket is too much work, ship it to me. I have mil spec brass I have reloaded so many times you can hardly read the head stamp. There are two schools on the crimp problem, swag or ream. I have done both. either works. IMNSHO if you ream you don't really loose that much brass. I have some 30-06 mil spec brass that was reamed when it was remanufactured. the cases are starting to wear out. the neck is the problem not the primer pocket. same with the 45ACP brass. The neck splits first.

 

[tjhands]

Thank you, thank you. I almost ordered some more .45 brass last week, but it looks like I'll inherit a couple hundred today at the range! A little extra work is fine.....I'll put the money saved into my SW1911 account.

 

[cheygriz]

In my experience, MilSurp brass is far superior to commercial brass. Swaging the primer pocket is a small price to pay for the highest quality brass available.

BTW, A couple of years ago, I used my Dillon Swager to swage out the pockets on 5,000 rounds of WCC 9MM in one day. It was a PITA, but well worth it!

 

[MADISON]

Military 45ACP brass

All you need is an RCBS Primer Pocket Swedge.
Use it only once and load like you would any commercial brass.

 

[HQBrass]

You will find that military brass will last a lot longer than commercial brass, that being said once you invest a few seconds in preparing it, it will be well worth keeping.

 

[Lennyjoe]

I have access to all of the 5.56 brass I want. I currently have about 800 rounds of empty brass sitting in ammo cans.