45 ACP Cases

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Bucksnort1

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I have several thousand 45 ACP cases of various manufacturers. I'm sorting by mfg. I have a fair amount of cases made off shore. Can anyone tell me which of these off shore cases to avoid?
 
I have a magnet that I use to check my cases. Some cases look like they are brass but are really steal cases. By running the magnet through the cases you will be able to pick out those that are steal and remove them. Some cases are aluminum, I would avoid those also.

Jim
 
Use only large rifle primer crush the small pistol primer ones
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I'm guessing you mean to say large pistol and not large rifle. Regardless, I wouldn't toss any of the small pistol primer cases since they are perfectly good cases that reload the same as large primer cases.

In 45 I'd pretty much keep and use anything that's not steel, aluminum, or AMERC. 45 is the kind if cartridge where you're going to lose brass long before you'll wear it out, so no reason to be really picky with brass. AMERC brass is a just a PITA to work with, so out or spec it'll cause you more problems than it's worth. But everything else brass I'd keep and load.

Eric
 
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Steel and aluminum go into the trash, small primer pockets get separated and saved for the day I may find myself out of large primers.
 
Use only large rifle primer crush the small pistol primer ones
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Although I hate these as much as the next guy, I sort them out of my fired brass as I do my reloading on a progressive press. Once I have a hundred or so of these small pistol primers cases, I just use a hand primer to re-prime them and then insert them into my progressive press at the powder drop station.

I keep them labeled as small primer cases and try to shoot them separately of others so they don't get mixed up.
 
I have been uing both small and large primer 45 cases for years. I sort them (experience helps) and load them in batches. Our Department provided Speer ammo for years, I have thousands of small primer cases. So I just deal with it. I prime all cases off the bench, so it is no hassle for me past that step. I have never seen any performance difference. HOWEVER, I load all of my "hotter" loads with CCI primers so I almost exclusively use large ones for convenience since I hoard the LPP for that use because I have a load my pistol likes, a lot.

Again, other than that convenience, I see no difference in the use.
 
I sort all my brass by head stamp, the variations are to much to ignore. I use R-P for .452" lead.
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Variations in 45? What kinds of variations are you seeing that has made it worth sorting headstamps in pistol brass? I shoot a large volume of pistol and have never personally found enough of a difference to merit sorting, so I'm curious what you're seeing that I'm not.
 
Case wall thickness, length, and alloy composition. This effects your tension on the bullet which effects pressure, velocity and accuracy.
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I get that brass differs from one headstamp to the next, but I don't know that the variations translate to much actual difference in accuracy in a handgun cartridge. I mean if you're a competitive bullseye shooter I can see it maybe being worth it, but for most any other shooter I don't see it making enough of a difference in a handgun to make it worth sorting by headstamp. But hey, if it's worth it to you then more power to you. ;)

Eric
 
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