Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Nitpicking (?)

When I first got into reloading in 2000, I did everything I could to be as exact and precise and consistent as I possibly could.

I had saved every bit of rifle brass I'd shot for 20 years prior with the idea that someday I would reload. As a result, I knew my brass' history from picking it up at the store-- which rifle had fired it, etc. Over the years, I started to buy brass-- most of it was internet sales, and most of it was once-fired. Now I'm approaching 20-40 years of history, and I'm beginning wonder. I'm asking these questions because I don't want to do needless things.

Top of the list is this: Let's say I have a two-batches of brass. Both came from the same original lot. They have been fired in the same rifle but with different loads multiple times. One batch has been fired 4 times. The other just 2 times. Is it reasonable to combine those two batches?

Here's another: Let's say I have two rifles firing pretty much the same load. I take the brass from both and combine them and load all the brass from both rifles, and do a full-length resize as I go. Is this reasonable?

Or this: Let's say I've got 2 twenty-round batches of the same load. I've been working up a good working load for a new deer rifle. They both have the same number of firings. I'm all ready to set the best load in stone and use this as "THE LOAD" for this rifle. I now load these two batches and add another 10 rounds of brass from the same lot as the other two for a total of 50 rounds. Have I screwed up?

Corollary: Let's say I lose some brass from a batch-- it takes two shots to put down a buck and I lose a round of brass in doing so. I come back from the hunt with an empty hole in the box. Do I leave the hole empty forever, or do I pull a fresh round out of the same original lot (or another batch) and fill the hole?

Like anything, it depends. If you aren't pushing pressure limits on your loads and your resizing involves minimal working of your brass, your brass will withstand many loadings. So are you concerned if a particular lot has been loaded 8 or 10 times? Not if you are doing a load work up but OTOH if you are going to backpack in 14 miles on the hunt of a lifetime, maybe you want brass that has only been fired 1 or 2 times.
BR guys sort brass, uniform flash holes and all kinds of other stuff. For the most part those things aren't necessary for hunters. If it makes you feel better, those things certainly won't hurt.
Nits beware!

I gotta go along with Mathman on this. I pull 20-25 out of batches often to try this and that but from that point on those 20-25 are no longer considered part of the same batch. Maybe a little nit-picky but it works for me!

That's how I do it too

For me, annealing is the Great Equalizer.

This. Just anneal them all and start fresh. I don't waste time trying to track small batches of 20-30 pieces of brass.

With that said, it entirely depends what you're doing with it. For general hunting and target practice? Who cares, load all of them together. If you're a benchrest shooter it's a different story, but you'd be learning what works and what doesn't on your own.

Losing a case out of a box while hunting really “bugs” me but I usually sort through some “pickup” brass of the same brand and in the same weight range. On the next loading I’ll FL size it enough to give slight resistance on chambering, mark it with a marker to identify it. I’ll use that round as a fouler or sighter to see if it’s in the same group as the originals.

Here's another: Let's say I have two rifles firing pretty much the same load. I take the brass from both and combine them and load all the brass from both rifles, and do a full-length resize as I go. Is this reasonable?

I have two 30-06 rifles, two 243s, and two 7mm-08. One of each is blued and the other stainless. I load the same ammo for both rifles using same cartridge. The range isn't long deer hunting here and I don't care whether my shooting impresses someone else or not. All of these rifles are more than accurate enough as is. You can't screw up using the same ammo for two rifles. Either you brought the right ammo to deer camp or you really screwed up.

I keep ammo segregated by number of times it's been fired and alternate between the ammo. If one box has been fired more than the other I use up the higher number of firings first and then reload that box and use the other.

Thanks all. I'll probably keep doing what I'm doing for now. That is, keeping everything separate as Mathman says. However, it's good to know that on hunting ammo it's far less likely to change much.

There was a time when I meticulously separated brass by work history. No longer. I'm with HuntnShoot. Annealing erases most of work history.

When brass is factory fresh or newly annealed, I run a black Magic Marker around the primer. Next loading, I use a brown marker. Then red, orange, (skip yellow because it is too hard to see), green, blue, and violet. That way I can identify my brass at the range and can instantly tell the work history.

I agree that annealing equalizes neck tension in a given lot of brass with different work history, but there are other aspects of work history that I like to keep track of: how many neck sizings between each shoulder bump, neck length trimming, and I also keep track of firings when each batch was annealed so I'm not annealing some cases more frequently than I think I need to.

A kneeler is blessed by the heavens which in turn bequeaths lightning and thunder as required.

Aside from that, I mostly shoot a box or two of brass until they start to fail and go from there. No mixing of brands, or new with old. Shoot'em until they burp.

I have a 50 ct box that only has 28 pieces of brass in it.