Different experiences with different brass/ammunition

[r.gray87]

Hi All

I was out shooting my pistol yesterday and I noticed that the two types of ammo I was using yielded significantly different results as far as how the brass looked after I was picking it up. I've never paid much attention to my spent casings as I have never reloaded, but I am considering starting reloading my own ammunition and figured a good place to start was to at least make sure I pick up all my spent casings.

I was shooting my .45 with two types of factory loads. One was Blazer Brass and the other was Remington UMC. I noticed that all/most of the Blazer Brass casings were slightly shaved on the rim at the bottom (primer end) and slightly bent. While the Remington UMC brass was in good shape afterwards. I got curious and alternated ammunition in the magazines in an attempt to perform an ABA type of comparison and sure enough, the UMC was always appeared to eject and be in good shape and the Blazer always appeared to be dented and shaved.

Have any of you had this experience with different types of ammunition? I assume that my weapon just didn't agree with the Blazer ammunition, the same way that my stomach doesn't agree with certain types of foods. Would this be a good assumption?

Or the alternative is that for some reason my gun is not ejecting those shells as it should be, however it is ejecting the UMC. I assume there are standard tolerances for ammunition, and perhaps Blazer makes their ammunition to one end of the spectrum while Remington gravitates towards the other and maybe my gun is better suited for one end rather than the other. If this would be the case, I shoot a plain jane 1911 style .45 caliber pistol, is there a "normal" upgrade that I could install that would help to fix this issue?

Another question as well, if I wanted to use some of this slightly bent ammunition to reload, is there a salvage process? Or is it best to just throw it away and only use brass that does not have these damages? Is there any ammunition brands/types that are known not to be good candidates for reloading after that initial firing? If I have any I won't waste my time picking up the brass, or I won't waste my money buying it in the first place.

 

[warthog]

There are certainly differences in brass made by different companies. It is the main reason that many reloaders, myself included, buy virgin brass from Starline for their handgun reloads. I do keep my brass when I shoot commercial ammo as well but I keep it in reserve for time like this, when Starline can't be purchased due to overwhelming demand.

For my rifle reloads made for precision distance shooting in .223/556 and .308/762 I use ONLY Remington cases. They are the cases my loads are tuned to use and when i use different cases I can see a difference in how they perform at distances beyond 200 yards. For mass production for my semi-autos like my SR556 & FAL, I use NATO Brass as it tends to reload the most times and has the most consistent interior dimensions over a broad base of makers.

So your assumptions are spot on, you need to find the cases as well as bullets, primers and powders that your particular weapons and shooting style most agree with in order to get the most out of reloading rounds. If you want to use the bent up stuff for plinking, a full length sizing will usually make them go back to the good as new shape and bring them back to spec for you. Brass is amazingly resilient and the only time I figure it is unusable is when it is crushed flat. That or cracked or has a loos primer pocket etc but this is found out as I inspect them later prior to loading usually unless the spilt it obvious. This is why, when the useful life of my Starline or any other brass has been reached, I flatten it before I put it into the scrap bucket. I don't want to feel like I didn't do all I could to prevent some newbie from taking home my old Starline to reload thinking it was left to be sold by the range. I left it because it was junk.