Brass life and inspection

I think you've covered it pretty well other than when you load, does the primer have resistance when seating it? If there's no resistance, that's an indication of loose primer pockets.

When I get to 6 or so loadings, I start checking a lot more with the bent paper clip. My current batch of Norma/Prime 6.5 cm brass had an unexpected head separation at 6 loadings, fortunately no damage to gun or me, just a stuck case minus the case head in the chamber which a .45 cal bore brush pulled out. I checked every case in the batch and ended up tossing about 20% of them because I could, with the paper clip, feel a groove starting to form forward of the case head. I think I'm going to retire the whole batch after another 2 loadings.

If your chamber is pretty tight and if the resizing die can minimally resize the case you could get 15 to 20 cycles out of a piece of brass. Do you know that you don't want to push the shoulder back more than needed? ( Like 0.002" )

For more standard dimensions of chambers and reloading dies the neck and shoulder area get overworked but your annealing step might offset that.

ShtrRdy said:

If your chamber is pretty tight and if the resizing die can minimally resize the case you could get 15 to 20 cycles out of a piece of brass. Do you know that you don't want to push the shoulder back more than needed? ( Like 0.002" )

For more standard dimensions of chambers and reloading dies the neck and shoulder area get overworked but your annealing step might offset that.

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It depends on the brass. My barrels are all Bartleins chambered by a trusted smith. I check my cases for shoulder bump every time I reload and I bump the shoulder .002" to .003" (with some variation across a batch of 500 cases). I also anneal with an AMP every other loading. I shot 6.5 cm Hornady brass for about 10 years and the first batches I had would last about 10 loadings before I had incipient head separations. The most recent Hornady brass that I shot a year ago would at most last 6 loadings before they were in danger of head separations. The Prime/Norma brass that I'm loading came from 1000 rounds of Prime ammo that I bought when the prices were really good. I just started loading it last year and it doesn't look like it will last more than 8 or so loadings. When it runs out, I'm switching to Peterson brass.

In 6.5 and 6mm calibers 15 to 20 loadings I've only heard about from the guys shooting Lapua brass. In 308, I have a bunch of Lake City 94 Match cases that I've gotten 15 loadings out of.

Annealing only affects the brass from the neck to just below the shoulder, so annealing would only extend case life when it comes to neck cracking, not head separations.

m1match said:

It depends on the brass. My barrels are all Bartleins chambered by a trusted smith. I check my cases for shoulder bump every time I reload and I bump the shoulder .002" to .003" (with some variation across a batch of 500 cases). I also anneal with an AMP every other loading. I shot 6.5 cm Hornady brass for about 10 years and the first batches I had would last about 10 loadings before I had incipient head separations. The most recent Hornady brass that I shot a year ago would at most last 6 loadings before they were in danger of head separations. The Prime/Norma brass that I'm loading came from 1000 rounds of Prime ammo that I bought when the prices were really good. I just started loading it last year and it doesn't look like it will last more than 8 or so loadings. When it runs out, I'm switching to Peterson brass.

15 to 20 loadings I've only heard about from the guys shooting Lapua brass. Annealing only affects the brass from the neck to just below the shoulder, so annealing would only extend case life when it comes to neck cracking, not head separations.

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I guess I should have mentioned that what I was suggesting was with Lapua brass. Thanks for clarifying. I have had the same, or worse, experiences with Hornady brass as you have.