Brass organization

[Kane0519]

I apologize if theirs another thread on this. I searched but couldn’t find one (other than a dud from 2011).

How do you guys organize and track your brass? I’m new to reloading and trying to setup an effective system. I was thinking I’d work lots of 100 through the various stages & keep notes in each container of the last step done with that lot.

Thoughts?

 

[culater]

For general semi auto plinking rifle or pistol. I just put the brass in different 5 gallon buckets of the same caliber. Lots of this brass is range pick up.As I go and clean and process the brass. I look for crack and ding up cases that I trash. Then load and go have fun.

But for the precision rifle loads I keep more notes for and are all NEW lots of a 100. The MtM boxes will help keep thing in order.

 

[Tnc]

For precision rifle I bought some cheap storage containers at the Walmart. Shoebox size maybe. Label them once fired, twice fired, etc

 

[Onyx Z]

I use cardboard boxes that are typically from Amazon orders. I write what caliber, times loaded, sized/not sized, cleaned/dirty, etc.

 

[Milo 2.5]

I tried bins awhile back, did not work for me, I use labled covered storage boxes(shoebox size) from Walmart also. Fired, primed, and in process stage only boxes I have.
I tried that, 2, 3, and 4 times fired crap, it never worked here, I fire all brass, then process it.

 

[MarinePMI]

Gallon zip lock bags. I mark them "F" "D" "T" "A" "R" "P" (Fired, deprimed, tumbled, annealed, resized and primed).
When I get back from the range, brass goes in a bag and is marked with the lot#. As the brass goes through the reloading process, each letter gets crossed out. The bags are stored in large plastic open ended bins (same bins used for parts storage). The bins are color coded for calibers (blue for .223, red for 6.5CM, yellow for .308, etc.). Loaded/finished ammo gets put in plastic ammo boxes and stored on the shelf until needed.

 

[isofahunter]

Costco Cashew containers. Put post it note on inside of lid with details of brass.

 

[JimLee]

 

[Kane0519]

Gallon zip lock bags. I mark them "F" "D" "T" "A" "R" "P" (Fired, deprimed, tumbled, annealed, resized and primed).
When I get back from the range, brass goes in a bag and is marked with the lot#. As the brass goes through the reloading process, each letter gets crossed out. The bags are stored in large plastic open ended bins (same bins used for parts storage). The bins are color coded for calibers (blue for .223, red for 6.5CM, yellow for .308, etc.). Loaded/finished ammo gets put in plastic ammo boxes and stored on the shelf until needed.

That sounds like a good system. How many pieces per lot?

 

[Deleted member 113831]

I use tubs to segregate brass by weight. I used to have all kinds of different containers around. Now I just sort it by caliber and headstamp of course, but just sort it into heavy and light (E.g. 308 Lake City, light = 173 grains to 177 grains and heavy = 177grains to 181 grains).... If I even do that. For instance, I don't sort 223 by weight at all.

I used to fire it in batches.... 1 fired.....2 fired....etc. Now I just seat primers using a hand priming tool and pay attention to seating pressure. When the primer pocket gets loose, I replace the brass with a fresh piece from the appropriate bucket.

 

[sjc929]

For precision rifle stuff, I usually buy 250 pieces from the same lot when I get a new barrel. I break these up into sublots of 50 pieces each and keep these in their own MTM round box. Every time they are fired and annealed, I put another talley on the box to keep track of their life. 200 will be used regularly, and the other 50 I use as spares for setting up AMP, making a modified case, or in case I lose a piece in the field. I use a lot size of 50 because that’s how many is convenient for me to load at a time usually, and it makes the ammo boxes small and easy to manage when packing stuff up when I know I’m not going to be shooting a lot.

 

[eicas]

Blasting ammo for pistols and rifles (like 300BO and 30-30) go into one container per caliber. Inspect as I go. Precision stuff is in lots of 100 and each lot is specific to both bullet and times fired. If for some reason I need to load a particular case (or cases) before the entire lot of 100 is cycled, they are marked with a sharpie appropriately so the cycles dont get out of whack.

Yea. I’m anal.

 

[MarinePMI]

That sounds like a good system. How many pieces per lot?

I usually keep the brass in 100 rd lots. It just makes it easier when tumbling (since that's around the limit of the tumbler). As far as total brass and lots, I try to buy in 500 or 1k increments. This allows brass to be mixed up without having to wonder about the different annealing programs (AMP) for different lots. I just try to keep all similar "number of times fired" together when tumbling (especially when trying to clean brass from 2-3 different 100rd boxes of ammo; 35 from one box, 45 from another, 20 from a third, etc.)