Using range pick-up brass

[hotrail]

I didn't have any 45ACP to reload recently, so on my last trip to the gun club I bought a bag of the brass they pick up. They sort it and sell it for a couple bucks a pound. Naturally its dirty. I know some don't even tumble their brass (I do) but this stuff has picked up a certain amount of dirt from the ground at an outdoor range. Some of them are a bit smashed, as if they were stepped on. No problem, I just throw those in my recycle pile.

I look at the tumbled cases as I put them in the sizing die. If I see any bad dents, splitting, etc. I err on the side of caution and throw the case in the recycle bin. I almost never spot any cases with splitting. I suspect a lot of the brass is fairly new. I also look at the primer pockets and separate the small primer cases so I can prime those as a separate batch. I don't check case length.

Q 1. Is there anything else I should be doing to inspect these cases before I reload them?

Q 2: In the batch, there were at least a couple dozen cases with no primer. I wonder why? Many of these cases went through the sizing die and the expander very easily. Of course the felt resistance was less because I didn't have to press out the old primer. But frankly the cases felt like they had already been sized. And expanded. I didn't think to try to put a bullet in one to see if it really was expanded. Anyway, I did not see any damage to these cases, other than the usual scratches, so I left them in my batch of cases. I just wonder why someone apparently discarded a bunch of deprimed cases. If so, they must have had a reason. Is there something else I should be checking cases these for?

Q 3. Does anyone check your brass for case length?

Thanks for any suggestions. Just want to be sure I am doing a thorough job of weeding out any bad cases.

[mjmagee67]

Yea stop throwing away good brass! Dents are ok as well as slightly crushed. If it will fit in the resizing die it gets resized. I've only has a few crushed cases that wouldn't resize back into shape. I only throw out small primer 45 and cases with splits, anything else gets reloaded. They have to be pretty well crushed not to give resizing a try.

As far as case length, I have never measured a straight walled pistol case and I've reloaded 10s of thousands or pistol rounds.

[MrElectric03]

I always pickup any range brass I find. I wet tumble, usually I'll tumble without stainless media first, then sort it. Once I run low on ready to load brass I'll run a batch, for pistol(straight walled) I deprime and tumble, for rifle I anneal, deprime, size, trim, then tumble in stainless.

So I keep two levels of brass. Range brass and ready to load brass. During the prep I usually catch split neck rifle brass, damaged cases etc. Not worth keeping or fixing them. I agree with the above post though, little dent here or there will come out when fired. If it fits in the sizing die and bullet starts ok they are usually ok. If you are nervous about it though then toss them.

How are you priming the brass? By hand or on a progressive press. The primer may have fallen out of those cases in which case I would toss them. The range may have deprimed them for some reason but I doubt it.

As for case length I always check it on rifle brass. Never on pistol. It doesn't grow as much during firing as bottleneck cases do.

[J-cat]

There could be several reasons why the brass you found on the ground does not have primers. One is that someone threw away their brass because they didn’t want it anymore for various reasons and did not want to throw it in the trash, knowing ranges recycle brass. Another could be the brass was loaded too hot and the primer fell out during ejection. In either case I would not use that brass.

[TexasJackKin]

If it weren't for range brass, I'd have no brass at all, Well I'd have a lot less. I don't check straight walled pistol brass for length, but maybe I should. You can't get real consistent crimps with different length brass. I've had a couple of short .45 ACP cases cause me problems over the years, really getting hung up in the chamber. Just not quite going all the way into battery, they can wedge pretty tightly.

[russ69]

I'm not a fan of used brass for a couple of reasons, one of them being that the brass I leave at the range is used up and about ready to separate. I'm not so worried about straight walled pistol cartridges including the low pressure 45 ACP. However I would measure all cases for length and toss out the ones that are too long. That is an indicator that brass is flowing and getting thinner. Once fired brass won't show that typically.

[OpenSightsOnly]

Use range pick ups if you can "verify" that it is brand new brass that is once fired.

Otherwise, why compromise your safety? Food for thought.

[hotrail]

Yea stop throwing away good brass! Dents are ok as well as slightly crushed. If it will fit in the resizing die it gets resized. I've only has a few crushed cases that wouldn't resize back into shape. I only throw out small primer 45 and cases with splits, anything else gets reloaded. They have to be pretty well crushed not to give resizing a try.

As far as case length, I have never measured a straight walled pistol case and I've reloaded 10s of thousands or pistol rounds.

You make a good point about not throwing out dented brass, but why toss the small primer stuff? I just separate them and when I have a hundred then I prime those and load them. I use a hand primer so its not a big problem to switch primers.

[bazineta]

With rifle cases, this is, frankly, a completely different discussion. However, 45 ACP is low pressure and the cases last a long, long, long time; toss them if they split, or when the rims get so chewed up as to be annoying, but they're close to immortal so long as you're not getting aggressive with the expander die. With pickup brass, a good cleaning can be helpful to make it easier to see things like splits, which can otherwise be lost in the grime.

[tonyjr]

It depends on where dent is .
if on wall of cases , I toss in to recycle
If on bullet / pill end , if resizing clears
without splitting - good to go .
On base [ the end with the primer ] most
of time I toss . To many have cracked when
straightened and not worth the time . No
primer - either a hot round or wore out case
- they get tossed

[hotrail]

Thanks all for the good info. In the future I will just toss any cases with a missing primer.

[mjmagee67]

You make a good point about not throwing out dented brass, but why toss the small primer stuff? I just separate them and when I have a hundred then I prime those and load them. I use a hand primer so its not a big problem to switch primers.

I load on a Dillon and SPP 45 just causes too many issues. Plus I not changing over the priming system to do a few 100 rounds.

As far as dents on the side...ejection can cause dents. Once run through the resizer the dents go away %95 of the time. The other %5 of the time I still load and fire form the dents out....never had a problem. Brass is pretty forgiving and 45acp is a low pressure round. Also I wouldn't waste my time measuring length on straight wall pistol cases. The other day I loaded over 2000 9mm, I case gauged them a few failed, one had split..no time to measure 2000 cases for pistol.

[RiskyBusiness]

You make a good point about not throwing out dented brass, but why toss the small primer stuff? I just separate them and when I have a hundred then I prime those and load them. I use a hand primer so its not a big problem to switch primers.

how can you tell its a small primer casing visually is it that much different than the large? Say i have a small primer pocket casing and try to insert a large primer with my hand primer. Will it not enter?

[RiskyBusiness]

I load on a Dillon and SPP 45 just causes too many issues. Plus I not changing over the priming system to do a few 100 rounds.

As far as dents on the side...ejection can cause dents. Once run through the resizer the dents go away %95 of the time. The other %5 of the time I still load and fire form the dents out....never had a problem. Brass is pretty forgiving and 45acp is a low pressure round. Also I wouldn't waste my time measuring length on straight wall pistol cases. The other day I loaded over 2000 9mm, I case gauged them a few failed, one had split..no time to measure 2000 cases for pistol.

for straight walled cases such as a 45-70, i got a few dents from the unburnt kernals. i found a case with the imprint of one and as im not going to be full length sizing because they're going in the same gun, are those little dents okay to be left alone?

[Inkman]

All i use is range pick up brass. It all gets loaded and chamber checked. When i find split cases, if they still chamber they get used in practice. If they don't then the bullets get pulled.

Al