What Comes With the .45 Colt Brass

C

chris downs

New member
I received and I am working on some "one fired" .45 colt cases that I ordered. So I've attached a photo of some of the cases. From left to right:
Case 1: .45 Colt. Looks perfect.
Case 2: .44 Magnum I caught it during resizing as there was no resistance
Case 3: .45 Colt. But nickel plated. Looks cool.
Case 4: .454 Casull. Caught this one while cleaning primer pockets.
Case 5: .45 Colt, but with a deep crimp about 1cm from the end.
Case 6: Another .44 mag
 

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Sounds like what you got as "once fired" brass was actually "range pick-up" (which is usually once fired) where somebody sweeps up the brass, does a rough sort by size, (picks the 9mm out of the 45 brass but might miss a .44) then bags and sells it, with the odd case of a different but similar size mixed in. Sorting takes time, and costs money...

You've got mixed headstamp brass, with a couple of the wrong caliber cases mixed in. I hope you didn't pay a lot, and you got at least as many usable cases as you should have.

If you paid for 100 and only got 97 in the right caliber, you have a valid gripe.
 
I saw them on Ammoseek and ordered 2 boxes of 125 cases. I thought, two more boxes would be nice, but they said out of stock so I apparently got the last two. In short, I feel lucky.
 
If the 3 wrong caliber cases were the only ones in the batch, that's not too bad. The one with the crimp is not a problem. Some have the crimp, some don't - doesn't matter.
 
I ended up 3 over. But I had 3 nickel plated cases that I could not get to chamber. All three nickel cases were Hornady head stamped. They were too fat in the front. There were only three, so I said screw it, didn't investigate, and tossed those.
 
...And now you have an excuse to buy a .44 Mag and a .454 Casull, if you don't have them already.

The crimp way down (actually, a knurl or a rolled-in groove) you see on number four is an old practice. Originally, it was where the bullet base stopped. Some 19th Century ammunition makers used that to stop the bullet going any deeper when they hand-seated, then crimped the bullets. More recently, knurls on cases are often used to identify a particular loading from others with the same headstamp. Shooting will iron it out and you can ignore it.
 
I ended up 3 over. But I had 3 nickel plated cases that I could not get to chamber. All three nickel cases were Hornady head stamped. They were too fat in the front
Click to expand...
Did you resize them before trying to chamber them?
 
Or do you mean running the LOADED cartridge into the sizer?
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Before you loaded them. If you were to put a completed round through a pass through bulge buster die the bullet would be loosened up no longer being crimped
 
Don P
If you were to put a completed round through a pass through bulge buster die the bullet would be loosened up no longer being crimped
Click to expand...

I would not do such a thing. It would not occur to me to try it. But if asked why not I wouldn't have really had an answer. Now I do. Thanks Don P.

I like this site.
 
It's OK to do that. The Bulge Buster uses the cartridge OD sizing ring in a Lee Carbide Factory Crimp Die, which sizes every round it crimps that way, assuming it is wide enough to need it. However, in this case it would have to be used as a die in a press or with the crimp ring removed because the Bulge Buster, which pushes rounds all the way through the ring, is only for rimless cases.
 
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