new 5.56 brass
- Thread starter rebs
- Start date
I have never bought new unloaded 5.56 brass of any manufacture. All my brass comes from rounds I have fired or rounds from the range. Fortunately, I live in an area where much training occurs and all military caliber brass is very available. I see no advantage to buying unfired brass of any common caliber to reload. Maybe, I am missing something?
If you do not want to sort brass by headstamp for accuracy loads, sure, might be one way to go.
Most range brass is a mix of commercial and 5.56 brass, which is not the same. Loaded the same, the ES and SD will be too large for my tastes. If you load mid to low end, not to worry. If you are loading at the upper end, it can cause you some trouble with mixed brass.
Most range brass is a mix of commercial and 5.56 brass, which is not the same. Loaded the same, the ES and SD will be too large for my tastes. If you load mid to low end, not to worry. If you are loading at the upper end, it can cause you some trouble with mixed brass.
I do buy new .223 brass, generally for my match loads. I don't mind once fired if I fire it myself or get it from friends who don't reload. But it's sure nice to control the prep process at the first firing and also not have to mess with primer crimps. General plinking loads or bug-out stash I'm not as picky about it but if I'm gonna pay for empty brass it will be new.
Average Joe
New member
No, I buy once fired LC brass , its much cheaper.
I hate doing the crimp removal, trim, deburr and chamfering. I would rather be reloading the brass instead of spending all that time getting it ready to reload. I have bought processed 5.56 one time and some of the case necks split on the first firing. I doubt it was once fired. This is the reason I am thinking about buying new. Even with brand new brass I think it will need to be trimmed after the first firing, right ?
If you buy new unprimed brass, then you have no primer crimp to deal with. Mostly I buy once fired, but at times I get a lot of brass with loose primer pockets from the first firing (if it is hot when it is fired).
You should be able to tell if your once fired brass was actually once fired by checking for crimps on the primer pockts.
firewrench044
New member
Advantages both ways, depends on you, your money, your time and
your needs
New -- you know its history
I size all brass I use including new, you still have to do the primer
pockets, flash holes and chamfer and possibly weigh them
you do not need to clean them
More expensive
Once fired -- I do not buy range brass ( unknown how many times it
has been fired or in what )
I do buy once fired military ( LC ), needs to be deprimed
and cleaned plus all the same case work
Less expensive ( about 70.00 to 80.00 per thousand )
I set the shoulder at 2 thou. under my chamber, new comes
5 thou. to 8 thou. smaller than SAAMI 0.0 ( 3thou. to
6 thou. smaller than I would size it )
your needs
New -- you know its history
I size all brass I use including new, you still have to do the primer
pockets, flash holes and chamfer and possibly weigh them
you do not need to clean them
More expensive
Once fired -- I do not buy range brass ( unknown how many times it
has been fired or in what )
I do buy once fired military ( LC ), needs to be deprimed
and cleaned plus all the same case work
Less expensive ( about 70.00 to 80.00 per thousand )
I set the shoulder at 2 thou. under my chamber, new comes
5 thou. to 8 thou. smaller than SAAMI 0.0 ( 3thou. to
6 thou. smaller than I would size it )
If I'm buying once fired I want it to be LC brass . It's the very fact I have to remove the primer crimp that insures It's only been fired once . You only do that once and if you're like me you have rather large lots of LC brass . So I have 500+ct lots already done so those are ready to load and continue to load . When I get new lots I do the crimp removal when I feel like it rather then when I want to go shoot and I have to do all the extra prep .
That's no different for most of us . If your budget is big then buying new brass should not be an issue .
Mine is not and I'm lucky that I'm a member of a club that the military uses as well . I get 5.56 , 9mm ,308 and 45acp pretty cheap . 500ct of 5.56 for $25 . I have LC 10 , 12 , 13 & 14 lots of at least 500 each the 14's I have 1k
Although I don't like that much case prep . I know my budget requires it which makes it much easier to except .
How about this . I recently bought a 1k ct of WCC 9mm brass from my club . It turned out what looked like a primer crimp was either not or so light my swager did nothing . So the next time at the range I bought another 1k of the same head stamp . Every one needs to be swaged
. OMG what a pita that is , I've barely got through 200 so far . I just do 50 or so at a time and I'll get through them eventually while I can still load and shoot the other lot .I bought once fired military brass by the 5 gallon bucketful when it was cheap, processed about half of what I have, stored the rest, and haven't bothered to reload any a second time. Maybe when I get a bucketful of personally fired brass, I'll reload that again.
We shoot quite a bit of factory loaded ammo because it works in various rifles w/o hiccup and when bought right, doesn't cost much compared to buying expensive varmint bullets and reloading.
We shoot quite a bit of factory loaded ammo because it works in various rifles w/o hiccup and when bought right, doesn't cost much compared to buying expensive varmint bullets and reloading.
IF you are loading for precision shooting…
I've bought thousands of new cases over time. The thing I've found is that even with military brass you get some lot-to-lot differences in weight and neck wall runout, and that can happen even when the heads all have the same year stamped on them. There might have been 20 lots run that year. No way to know. So buying them all at once generally gets them from the same lot. That, of course is usually still not highest purity. They typically are the mixed output of several sets of tooling. Even Lapua does that. So, if they are for match loads or other maximum precision testing loads, I lay out a piece of graph paper and mark it in tenths of a grain across the identified weight range and weight the cases to line them up. This results in a sort of histogram that tends to reveal what tools the cases came from by giving you rough bell curves for each tooling set. So the point in weighing is not to match case capacity, but tooling source. I frequently find one set of tools provides less neck wall runout than another and so on. This affects accuracy in some chambers more than others.
Below is a drawing of what a case line-up histogram I made with some Winchester 308 cases looks like. The drawing after it is and Excel histogram made from weights of a smaller sample of some Lapua .308 cases. That saves me making the histogram of cases, but since I am weighing anyway, the cases on graph paper makes more sense as it saves me the Excel entry work.
Now the big question: does this make a clear difference on paper? Occasionally yes, but most often not that I can tell. But me being able to tell isn't my criteria. I know that increased uniformity, while it often makes no obvious improvement, nonetheless cannot hurt, while the reverse is not true. I once found a single Winchester case in a bulk purchase that had 0.004" difference in neck wall thickness across its diameter. A fluke, yes, but in the lot just the same. You could see it clearly by naked eye. I shot that case out in a 10-FP, loading at the range and rotating it 90° at each chambering for eight rounds, then putting it always at 12:00 for 7 more rounds (its neck split on the last round or it would have been 8; I didn't have annealing equipment with me). The former group was just over 1.0 moa, while the latter was just under 0.6 moa. So in that gun's chamber, it would have opened up groups if allowed to position itself randomly, as when feeding from a magazine.
I also know that when I am shooting groups too big for case sorting to make a clear difference, such as from standing offhand, that even though you can't demonstrate an improvement by measuring groups shot that way with uniform cases as compared to groups shot that way without to any serious degree of confidence, that, nonetheless, perhaps only once in 100 or 200 shots or so, that small difference will cause a bullet to scratch a scoring ring that would have just missed scratching it by a tiny fraction without it. So I pick up the very occasional added point. It won't happen often, but why throw away a potential tie breaker? So I continue to sort for matches.
I've bought thousands of new cases over time. The thing I've found is that even with military brass you get some lot-to-lot differences in weight and neck wall runout, and that can happen even when the heads all have the same year stamped on them. There might have been 20 lots run that year. No way to know. So buying them all at once generally gets them from the same lot. That, of course is usually still not highest purity. They typically are the mixed output of several sets of tooling. Even Lapua does that. So, if they are for match loads or other maximum precision testing loads, I lay out a piece of graph paper and mark it in tenths of a grain across the identified weight range and weight the cases to line them up. This results in a sort of histogram that tends to reveal what tools the cases came from by giving you rough bell curves for each tooling set. So the point in weighing is not to match case capacity, but tooling source. I frequently find one set of tools provides less neck wall runout than another and so on. This affects accuracy in some chambers more than others.
Below is a drawing of what a case line-up histogram I made with some Winchester 308 cases looks like. The drawing after it is and Excel histogram made from weights of a smaller sample of some Lapua .308 cases. That saves me making the histogram of cases, but since I am weighing anyway, the cases on graph paper makes more sense as it saves me the Excel entry work.
Now the big question: does this make a clear difference on paper? Occasionally yes, but most often not that I can tell. But me being able to tell isn't my criteria. I know that increased uniformity, while it often makes no obvious improvement, nonetheless cannot hurt, while the reverse is not true. I once found a single Winchester case in a bulk purchase that had 0.004" difference in neck wall thickness across its diameter. A fluke, yes, but in the lot just the same. You could see it clearly by naked eye. I shot that case out in a 10-FP, loading at the range and rotating it 90° at each chambering for eight rounds, then putting it always at 12:00 for 7 more rounds (its neck split on the last round or it would have been 8; I didn't have annealing equipment with me). The former group was just over 1.0 moa, while the latter was just under 0.6 moa. So in that gun's chamber, it would have opened up groups if allowed to position itself randomly, as when feeding from a magazine.
I also know that when I am shooting groups too big for case sorting to make a clear difference, such as from standing offhand, that even though you can't demonstrate an improvement by measuring groups shot that way with uniform cases as compared to groups shot that way without to any serious degree of confidence, that, nonetheless, perhaps only once in 100 or 200 shots or so, that small difference will cause a bullet to scratch a scoring ring that would have just missed scratching it by a tiny fraction without it. So I pick up the very occasional added point. It won't happen often, but why throw away a potential tie breaker? So I continue to sort for matches.
With the exception of occasionally buying new Lapua in.223 Remington or .308 Winchester for loading match ammunition I use for the most part pre sorted LC once fired brass or WCC. I generally buy from Brass Bombers. I never bother picking up unknown "range brass" I see laying on the range. There are occasions when I run into a group of SWAT guys on the range and they give me their once fired .308 Remington once fired Federal Gold Medal Match stuff. That I happly take and say thank you.
Ron
Ron
I reload 54r (.311) ammo which is kinda like .308. I bought unprimed PRVI and loaded WIN rounds. I weigh the bullets after loading and noticed the PRVI averages 22.7 gm and WIN averages 24.3 gm. The only difference is the case which to me, seems like a huge difference. I've reloaded three times so far and still waiting to see which case will give out first. My money's on PRVI.
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