Permanently marking brass?

E

emcon5

New member
Anyone figured out a way of permanently marking brass?

I load for a couple of Enfield rifles in .303 British, and have a pretty good supply of cases, all of which have the same headstamp (PPU). I neck size, so I would like to come up with a way to permanently mark half of the cases so I can easily tell which rifle they are sized for.

.303 headspaces on the rim, and the rifles tend to have pretty generous chambers, FL resizing really shortens case life.

Anyone come up with a solution for keeping different batches of cases with the same head stamp segregated?

Thanks,
 
I used to shoot in a league where we all reloaded and we marked our brass with different color magic markers so we could get our own brass back. IIRC the marker survived at least a couple trips through the corn cob media of my brass tumbler.
 
Permanently might mean using something like a fine punch on the case head; maybe using 1 dot, 2 dot, etc.

Marker seems to be a lot easier.
 
I haven't done it, so don't sue me if it doesn't work for you, but I have heard of folks taking a triangular file and filing a small "v" notch in the rim to permanently mark their cases.
 
I tried the market and made sure it was in the depression of the head case stamp.

My tumbler took almost all of them away, sometimes a few still marked.

If you could come up with something that worked you would make a fortune.
 
If you're not going to tumble them in a weak acid solution, Birchwood-Casey's Brass Black will produce a durable color change.

If you can keep the cases separate during the reloading process (i.e. process group #1 separately from group #2) you can use different color fingernail polish to put a colored ring around the primer. Dab some polish on the primer, wait a couple of seconds and then wipe away the excess with a paper towel. The fingernail polish will be popped out with the primer when you decap, so you will have had to have sorted the brass before you reach that stage.

I do this to keep the 223 for my semi-automatic rilfes separate from the 223 used in my bolt gun (which only gets neck sized). Black ring on semi-automatic stuff. Red ring on the bolt gun.
 
If you're not going to tumble them in a weak acid solution, Birchwood-Casey's Brass Black will produce a durable color change.
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I did not know that existed. That is probably the easy button, and it is pretty inexpensive. I dry-tumble to clean, so the acid wouldn't be a problem.

I'll throw some on my next Amazon order.

Thanks.

I will give this a bump to let everyone know how it works.
 
"I haven't done it, so don't sue me if it doesn't work for you, but I have heard of folks taking a triangular file and filing a small "v" notch in the rim to permanently mark their cases."
This will work. 1 nick= rifle A, 2 nicks= rifle B
 
there are a number of manufacturers that make markers specifically for metal, just do a google search. Markal, Nissen, Sharpie industrial grade and others

Alternately clean the base of the cartridge with alcohol or other degreaser and use some oil based paints and use it to stain the head stamp indentations.


I just go simple and store the cartridges for my various 308 rifles in labeled ziplock baggies in batches of of 50 and only process one batch at a time in the tumbler, annealer, or whatever
 
Arsenals notched cases in the old days, many reloaders claim blank cases were manufactured to be blanks, I disagree, I have purchased metal linked 30/06 blanks that were once or twice fired cases that had a notch cut into the rim. I have formed many of the marked cases to 338/06 and 35 Whalen.I have found nothing suspect about these cases except for the problem of necking up a cases. I have decreased the length of the case from the shoulder to the case head for one of my wildcats when forming and necking up I have found some of the cases shorten as much as .045".

When the case shortens when formed and or necked up I use longer cases. For most reloaders that is a problem because manufacturers do not sell cases to reloaders that know what they are doing. R_P did manufacturer a case they called 'cylinder brass' with a 35 Whelen head stamp. The case was a straight wall case that was 2.650" long from the mouth of the case to the case head. I could ask how could a reloader miss? But first they would be required to learn a list of hacks and or new tricks or they could learn how to do it 'flat rate'.

F. Guffey
 
And then there is the 303; I measure the thickness of the rim and I measure the distance from the cup above the web to the case head when dealing with the 303. When firing 303 cases I apply the 'leaver policy', when I fire/form the case in the 303 chamber and the shoulder forms to the chamber I apply the leaver policy, meaning when the case forms I leaver formed.

I know reloaders believe they move the shoulder on the 303 cases. I disagree, if they knew what they were doing they would understand moving the shoulder forward on the 303 case is the worst thing that can happen to it.

The 303 British rifle is a hump bolt rifle, the lugs on the bolt are located at the rear of the bolt. all of my 303s have bolts with the lugs at the front of the bolt, my favorites 303 rifles have forward locking lugs.

My most accurate 303 rifle is a 1905 Ross. It has forward locking lugs, but, when checking it for barrel diameter I must have used the wrong method and or technique so there is nothing that compels me to shoot that rifle even thought it is one accurate rifle.

F. Guffey
 
Look for an "automatic" center punch or "marking punch". Very easy to use (hold case in one hand and the punch in the other. Place point where you want a "dot" and push. Tool will automatically "strike" the point and punch a small dent in the brass.). As a machinist/mechanic I have accumulated 3, one for heavy center punching, one medium-light, and one light.

https://www.mcmaster.com/#automatic-center-punches/=19kfbtk

The "light" punch I use is from HF. https://www.harborfreight.com/catal...ured+Weight,f,Sale+Rank,f&q=auto+center+punch
 
A few years back, actually quite a few years back I had some extremely grungy 30-06 brass that the tumbler would not clean up. Mentioned it in passing to a fellow shooter and he said rub lightly with 0000 steel wool soaked in Worstershire sauce. :eek: Cleaned that grungy brass up real nice but tuned them all pink. After rinsing them off (there were a bit sticky) and running then in the tumbler overnight they were as shiny as new brass but pink. :o Even after several firings and runs through the tumbler the color never changed. Might be a way to work for the gentleman with the two .303's. ;)
Paul B.
 
After rinsing them off (there were a bit sticky) and running then in the tumbler overnight they were as shiny as new brass but pink.
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I limit my case cleaning time with an acid to 15 minutes, I limit my cleaning chemical to vinegar 5%. All of the cases I have cleaned with vinegar with total disregard to time turned pink and or orange. I make spinners, when using a spinner I use 3M green pads and steel wool for that show off shine.

F. Guffey
 
Brass black or metal markers/dyes.

If I were to do it, I'd probably go for brass black.
...But I just keep the brass separated. If there isn't enough of "lot X" for .270 Win to be worth running the tumbler, I'll add some 'lot 56' .223 Rem, some 'lot A' 6x45mm, and maybe some 'perma-tumble'*.


*"perma-tumble": Brass and loaded rounds that are of little or no use to me, and I keep around simply to add to the tumbler when more filler is needed in the batch. Yes, I did say loaded rounds. They're very shiny!
Feel free to freak out, Mr. I-hide-in-the-shadows-and-never-post-anything-useful-but-come-out-of-the-woodwork-to-propagate-old-myths-Man...
 
F Guffey wrote:
I limit my case cleaning time with an acid to 15 minutes, I limit my cleaning chemical to vinegar 5%. All of the cases I have cleaned with vinegar with total disregard to time turned pink and or orange.
Click to expand...

Same here. Fifteen minutes with 30 seconds of good agitation every five minutes to make sure that where the cases are touching doesn't get shielded from the acid.

As you said, longer than that and you start to liberate metal from the substrate that forms compounds with the acid. Pink, Tan, Green are all ones I've seen. Fortunately, they can generally be tumbled back to brass color.
 
FrankenMauser wrote:
Yes, I did say loaded rounds.
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Same here.

Spent more than a month one time tumbling over a thousand 20+ year old M1 Carbine rounds that had gotten seriously tarnished onto the verge of corrosion. 50 cases at a time for 8 hours at a time, two shifts per day (one at bedtime, the second when I left for work). Tumbling them not only shined them up, but made much easier to conduct a thorough visual inspection.
 
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