Seperating Brass??

[M&PEE]

I am going to start reloading for pistol (9mm to get my feet wet) Is it a common practice to seperate brass by manuf. for this or any other pistol/rifle cal. ? I am mostly reloading for practice and such. I am not at this time too concerned with building any tac drivers just good reliable practice ammo. thanks for the help.

[cephas]

I don't for plinking rounds. For other work, hunting and defense loads I'll work up, and stick with the same brand. However it is advisable to keep them together as a lot, and note how many times they've been reloaded. If you start to notice neck cracks or loose primer pockets you can suspect that lot.

[csmith]

As a general rule with pistol brass I don't separate for taper crimp calibers. 357, 44, etc I usually separate by headstamp so I can get a consistent roll crimp.

[dk99358]

I generally do as I got in the habit when reloading rifle shells and those habits carried over after I started reloading pistol.

Dale

[twoguns]

I generally do as I got in the habit when reloading rifle shells and those habits carried over after I started reloading pistol.

Dale

I agree with dk.

Brass management is an important part of the reloading game. A lot of people tell me it is not necessary for pistol calibers, but I have carried the habit over from reloading for bolt action rifles..

Keeping your brass sorted by head-stamp, how many times it has been fired, if it has been trimmed or if it has been annealed. Also, keeping brass from the same case lot of ammo is very helpful for a long supply of re-loadable brass that will prove consistent in performance.

What you may find is that when you start to see some wear on a few cases of the same lot, it could be a good time to trash the rest of the lot before you load a piece of brass that is past its prime and it damages your rifle.

[Mush]

I seperate by head stamp as a quality control for reloading. With picking up range brass I examine cases before I clean for cracks and reasons to throw away. I throw away head stamps that I do not know (unknown quality of brass) and with 9mm Luger you will find crimped primers on some military brass. I find enough non crimped brass that I do not have to mess with removing crimped primer pockets.

[Pete D.]

A lot of people tell me it is not necessary for pistol calibers,

Not that I have told you that but I am one of those who believe that it is unnecessary. Can't hurt, though. Adds an extra step to little benefit (if any at all).
I am also of the mind that sorting rifle brass has little practical benefit for the vast majority of shooters and shooting tasks.
Pete

[Guns N'at]

I am going to start reloading for pistol (9mm to get my feet wet) Is it a common practice to seperate brass by manuf. for this or any other pistol/rifle cal. ? I am mostly reloading for practice and such. I am not at this time too concerned with building any tac drivers just good reliable practice ammo. thanks for the help.

Even with 9mm cases, you will find a pretty big difference between weights and lengths of some brands/lots of cases... ie, some of my Fed 9mm weigh in around 57 grains, PMC around 62, WCC and some CBC/Magtech around 64/65 grains per case. These differences can be seen over a chronograph to some degree because of combustion volume differences, but for this shooter accuracy seems pretty much the same despite my chronograph results. What this usually means is I have a Heinz 57 looking headstamp collection staring at me from my plinking boxes.

Obviously how uniform your taper crimps finished diameter is, is dictated by how uniform case length is, and cases can and will show a difference of brass thickness at the mouth (and other areas), and this can be a factor especially if you like to use 'fat' bullets (.357"+ diameter for example) to suit your particular guns groove diameter. As for rifle reloading, you can encounter a huge variance in weights, especially for calibers that have been military and commercial, or in situations where a military case has been converted to a commercial only cal like 7.62x51 to .358 Win, 7mm Express/.280 Rem from military 30/06, etc... Even concerning pure commercial cases, a large variance between brands and lots will be seen, and this definitely has an effect on the loaded rounds performance... I always separate my full power intended centerfire rifle rounds by brand, and many times by brand from the same lot, and same brand, lot and weight group for my target/varmint rifle. For my low intensity cast bullet rifle rounds, I usually load whatever brass I have that was initially used for 'normal' full power ammo.

I would suggest as a minimum that each 9mm case you intend to reload be inside chamfered, and outside de-burred, inspected for over expansion such as a 'guppy belly' near the rim, and that the cases you use are in fact boxer primed, and all brass... Not that you could not reload boxer primed steel, but there are brass/copper washed boxer primed 9mm cases out there, such as some used in certain S&B ammo that would need to be sorted out IMO and experience from the 'real' brass. Good luck.

[BandanaBandit1]

For plinking and practice purposes seperating brass wont matter.Now, if you get into precision shooting then thats a different story

[Rundownfid]

Whileit certainly can't hurt to segregate brass, I don't do it, even for matches. In .38 Spec., .45 acp & especially in 9mm it has proven of no value. Were I shooting a scoped handgun from a bench then it might be significant. However, only the better bulls eye shooters would benefit from so small an improvement when shooting offhand. For rifle the story is reversed, I segregate almost all of my brass by head stamp; or at least NATO from Commercial, if it is for practicing with cheap FMJ bullets.

Just be careful, as mentioned above, to be sure you get the damn Berdan primers out of the mix, as they are hell on de-capping pins. Also, running a magnet over the cases will attract the odd steel you might have missed.

Have fun reloading, set-up your dies as per the instructions, don't push maximum loads and check max overall lengths and you should be fine.