Reloading steel

**mongo** · February 26th, 2013, 07:31 PM

Being the cheap old fart that I am, I offten try to pick up brass left at shooting places. By the way, left on the ground brass here in NEPA is getting hard to find. Anyway, looked at some Tula 223, and it is boxer primed. So what the hell, I gave it a try, and it worked! Used a not so hot load and no problems. Just askin, has anybody else tried to load Tula steel?????

**Mike3888** · February 26th, 2013, 07:39 PM

I have heard of it being done. I have never done it I'm sure others have tried it.
Just out of curiosity was it screeching when you sized it ?

**Svickstc** · February 26th, 2013, 07:58 PM

for the cost of steel it wouldnt be worth MY time to even sit there and load it

**mongo** · February 26th, 2013, 08:02 PM

I used case lube, and also placed some inside the case mouth. To my surprise, the body of the case did not require much sizing. This could be from the type of firearm it was fired from. I used a 55gr FMJ with a boat tail. It took a little more force than usual to seat it. I just put a verry light crimp on the case. Hey, I'm verry happy to get just one reload but, you know, I will just have to see how many reloads I can get out of a steel case....

**762xIan** · February 26th, 2013, 08:06 PM

Just out of curiosity was it screeching when you sized it ?

I have also done this for the hell of it.

I did a few boxer primed .223 and about a dozen .45's.

No screeching, the steel they use is pretty soft, full length resized, passed case gauge and reloaded them as normal. No issues, I imagine steel wouldn't last as long as brass but it can be done without issue.

I did it because the "people on the internet" said it couldn't be done.

Now I know.

**hornady** · February 26th, 2013, 08:14 PM

As with many aspects of reloading I believe this too if done with care, and mild loads should not be a problem. I have over the years read many posts on here as well as other forums on this subject. And as many swear reloading steel is safe, and they did not see any real damage to their reloading Dies. Personally I am not willing to take the chance and only reload Brass.