.308 MACHINE GUN BRASS PROS/CONS

[mocos]

ANYBODY OUT THERE THAT CAN SHARE EXPERIENCES WITH RELOADING ONCE FIRED .308 MACHINE GUN BRASS AS OPPOSED TO NON-MACHINE GUN FIRED BRASS?

[Jicko]

No pros, only cons...

[CSACANNONEER]

I reload brass from my semi 1919. It all depends on if the MG is headspaced right. I can only assume it's similar to MG fired 50 brass in that, without proper headspacing, the brass over stretches and can cause a weak ring near the head. This leads to case-head separation and or shorter brass life.

[Jonathan Doe]

I used to have sevaral hundred 308 brass fired from M60 machine guns. I loaded a few, tested it and threw the rest away.

[mocos]

so ...if excessive case stretching and incipient case separation is typical of mg brass...then what's a good source for once fired non mg .308 or 7.62 brass....

thanx for your input

[Rem222]

Years ago I used to reload once fired military .308 brass. I never had a problem. Probably reloaded them several times. The military brass is thicker then your regular civilian stuff so your charges must be watched to insure you do not exceed maximum pressure. I still have some of the brass put away in case of a SHTF situation.

[wilshire1412]

My experience with MG fired 7.62 brass is that I had to put a lot of work into resizing the stuff just to save about 60% of all the cases I had, the rest I threw out. I resized through two differend dies, one a full length sizing with the neck expander removed and then into a second die that was a small base sizer. I checked each and every one with a Wilson case guage, before and after. I did go on to match prep all the ones I saved, about 600 pcs or so. I plan on pretty much just shooting the stuff once and disgarding it, which is a shame since it is a lot of work to go through for something that has a good chance of failing afterwards.

[westcoastr]

i've shot tons of once fired in 308. its "cheap" at 10-15 cent per. 99% was good to go for first loading, none had head rings (checked each w/ paperclip). cleaned up fine but after first firing by me, started to see lots (5-10%) incipiant case head separation issues. just wasn't thrilled by this after a while and bought some new brass (new LC/FC lake City), very happy now