Stepped 9mm brass, range report

[nahpungnome]

For those of you wondering if you can reload the stepped brass in 9mm, you can, at least once I took my G19 for this test.

I had a bunch of 9mm brass from my old Freedom Munitions 9mm factory new so I decided to load them. I also had a few mixed brass that wasn't stepped.

I used CFE Pistol, with Winchester Small Mag Primers, and 124gr Xtreme Bullets. These are the only small pistol primers that I have since I only initially loaded .357Mag. Anyway, I used .2gr above Hodgdon's minimum load for 124gr to account for the use of magnum primers.

During loading, there was a noticeable height difference in powder for the same charge. I double checked to make sure the height difference was the same weight.

Anyway, I took 200 rounds with me, mostly the stepped brass, with a bunch of regular brass in there and noticed no difference. The only reason I decided to try them out was because I knew where they came from... so they've been fired once by me in factory rounds.

Would I risk picking these up randomly and loading them? I don't know that I would. I didn't see anything odd like pressure signs, but I wouldn't want to risk unknown cases that have had separation issues. I decided to only reload these once, so I left all my brass behind.

[Par5In2]

Couple things;

124s don't seat that far in the case... bullet base distortion due to the step becomes an issue if you load short or use some 135 or 147 grain bullets.

Second it the case separation. Glad your 200 didnt, but plenty have. I'll never, ever use stepped brass.

[nahpungnome]

Couple things;

124s don't seat that far in the case... bullet base distortion due to the step becomes an issue if you load short or use some 135 or 147 grain bullets.

Second it the case separation. Glad your 200 didnt, but plenty have. I'll never, ever use stepped brass.

Yeah I hear ya, but I just had these laying around and tossing/scraping them seemed like a waste Once these are gone, that's it for me as far as stepped brass.

[Kurgan]

I'm going to channel my dad:

"Son, just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should do something".

[TexasJackKin]

After reading the other thread on this subject, I find this all very interesting. I've been loading the stepped and un-stepped interchangeably with out issues, but I only load bunny fart loads, so maybe that is the reason I haven't had any problems. Originally, I thought cool, that step was there to help stop bullet set back in a rough cycling pistol

But, I'm thinking I need to start sorting them out, it's like the stupid small primer .45 brass....

[Rusty_Shackleferd]

I have around 450 once fired stepped brass from Freedom Munitions. I had a couple failures to eject when shooting their NIB ammo. I don't think I'm going to reload their stepped brass.

[mjmagee67]

Seen too many USPSA shooters matches end with a ring of brass stuck in the chamber from coming apart. No thank you.

Now I'm going to quote my dad.

"Son you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it think"

[Eljay]

Seen too many USPSA shooters matches end with a ring of brass stuck in the chamber from coming apart. No thank you.

I suspect a lot of those were shot at least once through an open gun.

Personally, whenever I do brass prep I pull them out, but I don't always do much in the way of brass prep if I'm cranking out practice rounds so I do load them occasionally. If one separates during practice I'll just switch to another identical gun.

[stilly]

I dare you to try it again...

[mjmagee67]

I suspect a lot of those were shot at least once through an open gun.

Personally, whenever I do brass prep I pull them out, but I don't always do much in the way of brass prep if I'm cranking out practice rounds so I do load them occasionally. If one separates during practice I'll just switch to another identical gun.

There's enough good reloadable brass in the world. All stepped brass goes in the recycle bucket.

Also every open shooter I know gets rid of the stepped brass. I don't know anyone who loads it intentionally. But I've seen a gun or 2 messed up by one that got through. Both open and production, the last one was a Glock 34, couldn't get the piece of brass out of the chamber at the range, they gun ended up sharing guns with another guy.

[nahpungnome]

lol, well like I said in my original post, I'd only reload them once and only after it's been fired from a new cartridge. Would they be okay to do more than that? Probably, but I'd just rather move on. I got around 300 more to go, I'll update the post if any cases separate or if I have any issues.

[Eljay]

There's enough good reloadable brass in the world. All stepped brass goes in the recycle bucket.

Also every open shooter I know gets rid of the stepped brass. I don't know anyone who loads it intentionally. But I've seen a gun or 2 messed up by one that got through. Both open and production, the last one was a Glock 34, couldn't get the piece of brass out of the chamber at the range, they gun ended up sharing guns with another guy.

I've seen enough pictures of people who had them split in half in open guns that SOMEBODY must be loading the things, but perhaps not on purpose. :-)

For USPSA production I always have two identical guns with me. For practice if I couldn't get a piece out I'd just grab the other one. For matches as I noted I do check the brass pretty carefully.

[ShoootA]

Glad I stumbled on this thread. I just tooled up to load 9mm. I just sorted brass I had been saving for a while, almost 1k cases of 9mm but it's practically all IMT stepped.

Any suggestions for places to get safe cases to reload on the cheap?

[stilly]

OP: I still dare you to try it again...

Glad I stumbled on this thread. I just tooled up to load 9mm. I just sorted brass I had been saving for a while, almost 1k cases of 9mm but it's practically all IMT stepped.

Any suggestions for places to get safe cases to reload on the cheap?

Where you at G? What City?

[ShoootA]

Norwalk