Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Anyone running mixed headstamp brass?

Been searching the internet for once fired brass and all I'm finding is mixed headstamp stuff. Doesn't bother me in pistols but seems like a bad idea at rifle pressures. Am I overthinking things? Are people loading "play" ammo for AR's using different brands of brass? I guess you could find the smallest volume and load for that case and be ok but it doesn't give me the warm fuzzies.

Range pickup mixed headstamp, 25 gr H-335, 55gr bulk varmint bullets. Not match ammo, but good for 5 shots into 1 1/2" at 100. I've ran 1000's through three AR's and a rem 700. Never had a problem, and I don't worry if come home with a few less cases then I started out with.

I have shot mixed brass loaded with the 69smk with good results. Not something I would recommend for best acuracy, but it does work fine.

So no worries about over pressure or other issues caused by dimensional differences from one brand to another?

I run a lot of mixed brass out of my ar. I try to segregate my brass, but they all get the same loading. Just find a moderate load that runs well in your rifle and you should be fine.

Thanks

One thing to keep in mind, I run max loads and had to back off with Winchester brass in one particular barrel.

I load a mid-weight charge of RL-15 under a 69gr SMK in whatever I pick up. Initially I grabbed up all the brass I could, segregated it, prepped it and loaded it in batches of 10 using the aforementioned load which was developed in Federal brass. I then shot two five shot groups of each load. Using Federal brass I get legitimated sub-half MOA performance. PMC brass will do about the same but hovers around .5-.6MOA. LC and Winchester brass stay under a minute.

as long as you are running 2-3 grains under max, you probably won't have a problem.

There is some brass that is considerably heavier or lighter than others indicating less or more capacity. More no problem. Less can be at times.

My suggestion is to weigh the brands you end up with and if you see something shocking, simply test one round in that brand before you shoot.

10 or 15 grains heavier than standard would scare me initially.

In fact in soft FC brass if you back off 2 grains from a standard load you can usualy get 1-2 firings out of it before its junk.

I don't use range brass. I stopped when I began having split necks in "once fired" brass that I picked up. My rifles are worth too much to chance it.

split necks cause what issue in a plinking rifle?

Any brass I pick up thats range brass gets annealed first, and then checked for ICS signs before even loading.

You can use what you find. Takes some work and precaution though.

If you are going to do it, yes, load to the low volume brass.
I prefer to sort by headstamp

not correcting but just FYI to those that might not understnad, low volume is usually the highest weight also. load your load to that case, and the lighter higher volume cases will be fine.

I run 24 grns WC844 under a 55 grn cheapy for bangin ammo

Jeff,

how do you anneal? (what method) is it a high volume process? 100 cases at a time?

thanks,

Sycamore