Roughly how many reloads?

[Tactical30]

I had just got into reloading about 4months ago and mainly the only brass i have been reloading is the factory ammo I shoot which is mainly brass from Black Hills (red box) and Remington Premier Match ammunition.
I have reloaded them about 4 more times a piece and see no signs of crappin' out. Is this normal? About roughly how many reloads should you get out of this type of brass?
I am shooting out of an AR-15(.223), I do not anneal and I FL size all brass cuz of the semi-auto.

 

[918v]

Re: Roughly how many reloads?

Depends how hot your load is, how big your chamber is, whether or not you anneal, and how you size.

 

[Tactical30]

Re: Roughly how many reloads?

Im shooting out of an AR-15 (.223)- I do not Anneal- I FL size.

 

[918v]

Re: Roughly how many reloads?

How much do you bump the shoulder?

 

[McCrazy]

Re: Roughly how many reloads?

If you are loading hot and working the brass a lot by re-sizing significantly you may not see more than a couple more reloads. If you aren't pushing hard though you may get another 10 reloads on the brass or so.

 

[Hummer]

Re: Roughly how many reloads?

You really need to stress relieve necks. There is a thread on here about case annealing with input by Suasponte who is very knowledgeable in this area. I found it back on page 8.

http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1269188#Post1269188

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Re: Roughly how many reloads?

When A) the primers don't stay seated, or B) the necks split, or C) The necks shave copper off the bullet when it's getting seated, your brass is too tired to go on.

The nemesis of reloading brass is a process called 'work hardening', where expansion and contraction due to firing and resizing make the brass successively harder and harder. It loses its ability to flow under pressure to seal the chember pressures in, and then spring back to dimensions that are compatible with re-use. Sooty necks on a standard load that didn't soot the necks previously is a symptom that necks are getting significantly harder.

Depending on how hard you drive your brass (by running hotter loads), you should get anywhere from 3-10 or more loads from a case. Typically, hot loads and soft brass are the worst combination, and will exhibit loose primer pockets as point of failure. Milder loads with harder brass will generally fail with neck splits.

Case length growth is less obvious, and can be resolved by trimming the brass from the max length to the 'trim-to length', which is typically found in loading manuals. Ignoring case length can be serious stuff. Overlength brass caused the only gun destruction I was ever present for.

Greg

 

[Hummer]

Re: Roughly how many reloads?

Greg is right on the money.

You have a lose lose proposition here. You have a AR which most likely has a gov't spec chamber which falls somewhere between damn big and jumbo thus a lot of case expansion.

Commercial cases are delicate and won't take near the abuse a LC case will. Weigh five of each and write down the weights and compare them by manufacturer. GI cases will generally always be heavier than commercial.

Take a micrometer and measure loaded rounds .200" up from the rim. Now measure your fired cases and see how much they have expanded.

Bear in mind all dies don't size cases to the same dimension and it is not uncommon to find dies that size from say .001" larger than factory specs to maybe .005" larger than factory specs. Any time I find dupe dies to the ones I have and they are cheap I pick them up and chart them as to how much they take base dimension down and try and match cases to a die that works them the least amount on the base.
Basically a fired case base (say 308) that comes out .471 run in a die that makes the base .469 gives you .002" of air thusly sizing the case to factory spec of .465 really overworks the case and it will fail soon.

Best chamber I ever had on a factory gun was a Police Patrol Rifle 7615. You can read all the problems and final results this fine little rifle produced.
http://www.eotacforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=107&t=50302&sid=d159a4073ea58fd1a4b1dee754cfa0df

You can also find dies that don't move the shoulder at all or not enough to allow easy closing.

I set my dies to FL size by running them in a L.E. Wilson Case Gage for the caliber. It tells you all kinds of neat things like OAL for case, where the shoulder is in relation to a factory chamber. Size of case base and whether your die is taking it down enough to chamber easily.

The tolerance range on dies I have seen will just about make you chuck your cookies.

I was sizing a couple hundred 243 cases yesterday and to my horror I did not realize or I cannot find my Wilson case gage for 243 so I had to use a 7/08 case gage to set my FL die. Next project is to either find or buy a 243 case gage. Then again I will most likely buy one and "find" the one I thought I had haha.