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what not to reload

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dh1984

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Jun 14, 2009
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Location
union county tennessee
i need a couple of questions answered about reloading once fired brass.

i had a few .243 brass that buddy gave me last week that had some dents not bad dents but they where noticeable. my question is can you still reload them and shoot them with out messing something up or blowing my brother gun up.

the other thing is on once fired brass how many times can you reload and trim them before tossing them out?
 
I've reloaded brass with small dents with good results. After firing them the dent blows back out. Not a good practice for a competition shoot but It's the same concept as fire forming. Be careful though its really up to you, hard to say what I would do with out seeing it first hand. Dents can cause splits, especially if it's gouged. Most will probably say toss the dented brass cause it could be a bit dangerous. When in doubt toss damaged brass.

Keep brass sorted by how many times it's been fired when I start seeing splits that batch gets tossed after that cycle. The number of cycles varies usually at least 3, some go many more. Annealing can more than double brass life. If all the brass is going through the same bolt gun just bumping the shoulder a little instead of full length will help extend brass life also.
 
Dents are OK as long as there is no cracks or looks like a crack is coming into a case. The dent will blow out the first time it is fired. Like was said I wouldn't want to use them for any kind of completion but just playing around should be OK.
 
New brass often comes with dents in it. Small dents are not a problem.

As far as how many times can you fire, resize, and reload?... It depends. Full length resizing works the brass more than neck sizing, but some rifles require neck sizing. If you neck size then your brass will last longer and not have to be trimmed as often. Inspect your brass after every firing looking for split necks/shoulders and case head separation/cracking. You can detect case head separation before it occurs using a paper clip formed into an "L" to feel the inside of the case toward the base. You may feel a void, valley, crack, or rough spot on the inside of the casing indicating that it is near the end of its life cycle. Just test one or two from each batch as random samples. This is why it is a good practice to keep up with brass in batches separated by number of firings, although it is not 100% necessary.
 
I've got 308 brass that I full length resize. Couldn't tell you how many times it's been loaded. I toss mine when the necks split. None of it has been annealed other than what they do when it's made. Hot loads will shorten bras life too. As far as the dents. What they said. Shoot it.
 
ok thanks everyone this is the first time i ever reloaded anything and i was just worried about the brass being dented because i didn't want to blow any of my rifles up LOL.
 

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