Sorting brass ?

R

rebs

New member
How do you guys sort your 223 s 5.56 brass ? Do,you sort and keep track of how many times fired ?
 
None of my .223 brass is new, or even from factory ammo i shot and picked up, it's all range pick with unknown history, with the exception of any military brass I pick up, I assume it's only once fired if its still got a primer crimp.

I sort mine into two groups, commercial, and military.............and that's good enough for me.

I know a couple of reloaders that separate commercial by headlamp, and separate the military by maker and year, but I just lump it all together within the two main groups.

I don't keep track of times reloaded either. I inspect the cases as I load, anything cracked, creased, loose primer pockets, or super corroded gets tossed in the recycle jug, the rest goes into the commercial or military container after its prepped, and I pull out however many I want to load as I need them.
 
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I sort mine by headstamp and I do keep track of the number of firings, just to know. I do not sort LC brass by year, they all go into one pot.
 
I sort by military and commercial then keep those in separate piles. The only time I sort by commercial headstamp is for loading my bolt rifles. The AR's get everything else. I don't keep track of the number of times they have been reloaded. I inspect as I reload and toss into recycle anything that is "iffy".
 
"...Do you sort and keep track of..." No AR's in my house and I don't use milsurp brass, but I don't sort or keep track for any of my rifles. Not worth the effort unless you're shooting Bench Rest.
The brass will tell you when it's had enough. Case mouth will crack. Then you pitch that one and anneal the rest.
 
Every even year I load 223. I will trim the case and load it up. On the odd years it goes in a bucket to be processed next year.
 
Do you sort and keep track of..." No AR's in my house and I don't use milsurp brass, but I don't sort or keep track for any of my rifles. Not worth the effort unless you're shooting Bench Rest.
The brass will tell you when it's had enough. Case mouth will crack. Then you pitch that one and anneal the rest
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That's what I do. I'm an LEO and have access to as much .223/5.56 brass as I can carry from our department's range. 3 different agencies use our range and there's a mixture of military/commercial brass I pick up. I have several 5 gallon buckets full. I sort it by usable/unusable and don't track how many times I've loaded it. When I notice a case neck split or primer pocket get loose, it gets replaced with one from the stash.

With the mixed brass, my bolt gun still shoots .5" at 100 yards.
 
I sort by headstamp and/or year group for '06 and 5.56/.223 because it makes a difference at 200, 300, & 600 yds when shooting over the Nat'l Match Course. I also keep rounds sorted by number of times reloaded and when I've trimmed them. It makes a difference in the scores I'm able to post.

For all other ammunition, whether for hunting or range practice fodder, I sort by headstamp. I like accurate ammunition, and find that the expense in time and $ to produce good loads is worth it. I do not obsess however on sparkling clean brass, primer pockets cleaned and uniformed to a thousandths nor neck turning; having long ago determined that for my shooting (no bench rest competition), those tedius operations make no discernable difference.

HTH's and pick the procedure that works for your shooting needs. Don't be intimidated by some arm chair commando who's got all the answers and belittles any who doubt his expertise.

Rod
 
Do,you sort and keep track of how many times fired ?
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Yes , I remember guys saying no need to separate either rifle or pistol . I had been loading rifle for a few years before loading pistol . So when I started loading pistol at first I separated the brass to keep track . About 6 months in I decided to just throw a bunch of mixed brass in to one lot and load them up . I instantly noticed there where differences in the brass . Case wall thickness being the biggest issue . If I had set my crimp to lightly crimp one of the thicker walled cases . I would get no crimp on the thinner walled cases and the opposite if set the crimp die to a thin walled case . I could feel the difference when I sized the cases as well as other things .

All that bothered me so much I could not keep mixing my brass . OK I do have mixed lots of pistol brass but it's still separated by thin walled and thicker walled cases . That alone seems to give me a much more consistent case prep and loading experience .

Just recently I came across a large stash of mixed 223 & 5.56 brass ( about 700ct ) I decided to just prep them all out the same including removing primer crimp even in cases that had not been crimped . I just ran every case through the swager . Sized and trimmed them all the same and started loading . Guess what ? Yep they're not all the same . I do all rifle loading on a single stage press so I load in 50rd batches . I charged 50 cases weighing each charge and when I looked at the whole lot of 50 in the loading block . I could see 7 cases were fuller then the rest . I thought that was odd so I checked there head stamp . Every one was a CBC case .

What I did then was go ahead and seat the bullets in all the cases but kept the CBC head stamped cases separate . When I got to the range I compared the CBC cases loaded at the same time with the same components to the other mixed cases . I ran the 7 CBC cases over the chrono then 7 of the other mixed brass . The CBC loads avg 115fps faster then the others .

When I got home I did a water volume test on the cases tested over the chrono . The CBC cases avg 2.3gr less volume which apparently resulted in there velocities being 115fps faster .

So can you mix brass ? Sure , but your not going to be loading very consistent cartridges . Will you notice the difference when you shoot . ? Maybe , maybe not but the fact I notice the differences when I'm loading them makes it hard for me to just keep loading what I know will be sub par ammo .

Now I don't use a progressive press and I assume guys that do would not feel and or see those differences when loading . I'd think each time the handle is pulled . The press is doing so many things . You are unable to feel the individual stations and how each may differ . I can say though when using a single stage I can see and or feel those differences . That alone plays on my mind when loading and I don't like feeling or seeing those differences .
 
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How do you guys sort your 223 s 5.56 brass ?
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Mostly once fired GI brass and I sort by head stamp and year, for example I may cull out 100 cases from a large lot and choose LC 11 brass. Then it is all trimmed. The object is that I want my brass as uniform as possible without getting OCD about it. This holds true for 5.56 as well as 7.62 brass.

Do,you sort and keep track of how many times fired ?
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Yes, along with the load data. Brass fired in my semi-automatic guns like AR-15, AR-10 or M1A I load four or five times and trash it. I generally don't wait for a split neck or case head separation.Brass fired in my bolt guns I run longer.

When I want really high quality brass I like Lapua in .223 Remington and .308 Winchester. However, for the most part I am happy using once fired GI brass from Brass Bombers and other sources.

My handgun brass is generally commercial remaining from once fired new ammunition. When I happen to see a good deal or sale price on quality ammunition I buy it and set it aside. When I shoot it I save the brass for reloading.

Ron
 
Mixed brass, mixed results, mixed opinions

I have a colt sporter. It's nothing fancy and doesn't have dingle berries hanging off of it for the extra tacticool effect. I literally have to try ever trick in the book to get it to shoot under an inch at a hundred. One of those tricks is year stamp sorting lake city brass found at the range and then weight sorting those (by a couple grains) after trimming. On the flip side I have a couple friends with very expensive sport rifles that literally pick up brass they find, put their pet load recipe in it and shoot 1/2 moa consistently. So if you're having a tough time getting accuracy through a broad range of testing try what I mentioned above.
 
My accuracy is great with both my ar's. I was just asking about sorting brass. I generally sort 223 from 5.56 and head stamp but not by year or weight.
I jhave a load with Hornady 55 gr sp and cfe223 powder that shoots great in my 16" and 20" barrels.
 
Glad to hear you're having good luck rebs. There's nothing better than a rifle that doesn't require 10 sessions at the range to work up a good load. But back to the subject here. Brass varies quite a bit from one manufacturer to the next. Even if I had a rifle that shot anything great I'd still, at the very least, brand sort my brass because of the extreme velocity difference that comes with mixed brass. I was pretty surprised after I worked up a good load with sorted brass. I got an sd of 8 in a 10 shot string with some ar comp. Regardless if that is meaningless to me considering I'll never shoot it past a few hundred yards, it's a good feeling to see consistent results.
 
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