45ACP BRASS

S

senecahornet

New member
How many times on the average can you reload brass before it starts to be a problem?
I have Win. brass that i have reloaded at lease 8-10 times. Lost count.
Seem to me that when i run a re-loaded round through a case gauge and it gets hung up at the rim, it is mostly because the extractor has left some teeth marks on the rim. If i file the bite marks down i usually can get the round to fit the case gauge, but sometimes i can not.
i am thinking that through repeated firings the base becomes flattened. The case lengths mic out o.k. What does repeated firings/reloads do to the brass?
 
I don't worry if the rim is the only thing that doesn't fit in the gauge. Some of my Win 45 auto brass is decades old and has been loaded dozens of times.

I lose them before I wear them out.
 
45 acp is a rather low pressure round so brass will last a long time .
It's rims gets chewed up by the extractor , it gets flung through the air and usually hits a concrete floor getting dented on the mouth . Keeping the rims filed clean of burrs helps a lot ...I have them go 20-25 loadings . Usually a crack shows up on the mouth , a small up and down split in the body develops or you loose them in the grass or under stuff at the range . 45 acp and 38 special target loads give the brass a good long life .
I inspect my brass, shot and reloaded in boxes of 50 or 100 , and replace any with a crack or split and just keep on reloading them .
Gary
 
Gotta say, in 50+ years of loading for the old .45 ACP, I've never worn out a case...lost a bunch of them in the long grass on my meadow home range, but never had a cracked one.

Also gotta say, that as they age, they harden around the case mouth, and that equates to varying neck tension...if you're into gilt edge accuracy for NRA Bullseye competition for example, that's a factor to be considered.

But for other uses: field carry where you're not worried about using them, or for defensive carry practice where 2-3" groups at 15 yds are enough, then old, many times reloaded brass is ok.

YMMv Rod
 
45 acp brass lasts forever.
Just for fun a few years ago I segregated and loaded a batch of 10 cases and shot them on every trip for a full year.
One finally split at the end of the year, after 47 loadings of bullseye target loads.
 
I'm still reloading brass my dad was reloading in the 1950's. And some of the head stamps are dated in the 40's.
 
I shoot all my pistol brass to failure. Failure is basically neck splits.

The auto brass tends to have issues like you describe with the rims that can give you troubles. On the other hand, it can be looked at as a training aide.

I dont see it as much with my 45 brass these days, as I dont shoot it as much as I did in the past, but with my 9mm, as time goes on, I see more and more random malfunctions of different types, and its because of the rims getting tore up over time from the extractors.

Works great for learning to deal with unexpected stoppages. They come out of nowhere and I just clear them easily now without thought.
 
Seem to me that when i run a re-loaded round through a case gauge and it gets hung up at the rim, it is mostly because the extractor has left some teeth marks on the rim. If i file the bite marks down i usually can get the round to fit the case gauge, but sometimes i can not.
Click to expand...

You will see that in a lot of guns in different calibers. My solution is the same as yours.

And it is easier to loose brass in pistol calibers than to wear it out, as some others have mentioned.
 
issue

My only problem with .45acp brass is some dim whit got the idea that after 100+ years, they would load some .45 with small pistol primers rather than traditional large.
 
Thank you one and all. Yes agree with cracks in case necks as sure sign cases have reached their limit. Also i lose some by doing something stupid in the reloading process or stepping on them at the range.
 
I once ran a test on 500 bulk-purchased Winchester cases, shooting them until the remaining ones had 50 loads at about 4 grains of Bullseye with either 200-grain or 185-grain (indoor season) cast bullets. I lost a few to split neck and many more were unintended offerings to the range gods. IIRC, about 300 made it all the way, so this was about 20,000 rounds altogether.

Two things happened to this brass during that time:
  1. The headstamp markings became increasingly indistinct due to impact with the breech face on the pistol slide gradually peening the edges of the markings over, and
  2. They all lost about 0.025" in length, getting about half a thousandth shorter with every load cycle.
That second effect happens because the 45 Auto isn't high enough in pressure (especially with target loads) to stick the brass to the chamber, so the whole case backs up and the sidewalls swell to conform the taper at the back of the chamber and apparently resizing doesn't get it all 100% back in place.

I never had a problem with inadequate bullet hold, but I was using a Dillon Square Deal during this time (still do) and it has a tight sizing die. However, because of the case shrinkage, headspacing on the case mouth became impossible, as the rim would meet the extractor hook first and that is bad for lead bullet accuracy, so I seated the bullets out to headspace on their contact with the throat of the barrel, which turns out, with soft bullets, to both significantly improve accuracy and reduce leading. The taper crimp die probably needed adjusting during that time for maximum continued effect, but it was long enough ago that I don't specifically recall doing it. But I probably did.

Note that the above results were possible in part because of the low operating pressure of the loads.
 
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