Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns .44 Rem mag brass ?

I just bought 100 pieces of Starline Nickel brass for my .44 mag. I'm shooting 240 grain lead SWC over 8 grains of Unique for a plinking practice load. My question is, how many times will I be able to reload at this level and what are the first signs that the brass has had enough?

The case mouth will crack from the repeated bell/crimp operation, next will be loose primer pockets.

I have nickel cases that have been used and tumbled so much they look like brass.
I have .44 cases shot over 40X without a loss.
Any cracked necks I have had seem to be with the first or second loading.

As long as you do not excessively bell or crimp the brass during the loading process, it will last a very, very long time. I do a visual check though when at the bench for cracks when loading. If I see anything it gets pitched.

Brass is cheap compared to firearms, fingers and eyeballs.

That's a pretty mild load; I would expect you to get a dozen reloads or more out of that brass, but keep a close watch on the case mouths for splitting.

Thanks for the tips. Only on the second loading so far but at least I'm getting some practice with a gun I could otherwise not afford to shoot much.

If I get 8-10 loads I'm happy and I'll make up a reason to pitch the brass around then. Maybe that's wasteful, but it works out to a couple bucks worth of brass for 50-rounds and I can live with that.

Tis human nature to want to reload a piece of brass to excess. So be it.

Check every piece of brass, after sizing and before charging, for split neck and base separation.

You will have some splits after 2 or 3 loadings. After that, a dozen reloadings in not uncommon, and as posted above, much higher is sometimes possible.

If after 7 or so reloads you find a number of split cases at one sitting, trash the whole batch and start over with new brass.

DO NOT 'undercrimp' to save on brass wear.

That is a very light load for .44 mag, your brass will last forever with it. Like BFR I have some that the nickle has worn off.

My practice is to use .44 brass for about 5 heavy loads then relegate it to loads such as yours. Eventually one will split at the mouth, you can anneal the rest and carry on or toss them if you're worried.

I use the brass for one or two heavy loads then another one or two light loads. After that I load it up and store it like a squirrel with nuts. Just incase I need rounds for zombies....

a different caliber for sure, but I have a friend that is still using nickel brass for .38special from when he was driving F4's in vietnam, got a five gallon bucket of it off the firing range and is still using that stuff. Ain't too much nickel left