found some .45 ACP Pistol Brass

[charlz]

At major matches where you act as Range Officer, you can "clean up" on your stage. The only real Payment for the RO's is to be able to clean up the brass. At a normal local monthly match the competitors pickup their own brass, but at a major match the RO's get it. Most major matches will have at least 100 competitors, sometimes many more. And most stages will have 20- 30 to 40 rounds per competitor. So you are looking at a bunch of brass laying there at the end. You can pick it up yourself and either sell it or keep it, or I have just "sold the rights" to others for an agreed upon price and let them pick it up. Brass will always have value, sometime quite a bit of value.
James K0UA

I just picked up (2) 5-gallon buckets of brass after a major 3-gun match.... just from two firing positions Not much .45 but lots of .40 and tons of 9mm for pistol brass, a few hundred 38 super auto which is a real pain to separate out.. About 3 gallons of that was 5.56/223 brass which I wanted since I didn't really have any and want to start reloading that. The RO's etc just take the easy stuff that is laying on the catch blankets, I picked up what was laying in the dirt. They shoot a lot of rounds at this particular 3-gun

Most of the reloaders here don't like the small primer .45 but I can see where it would be handy if all your other pistol loads were small primer.

 

[Car Doc]

There is never going to be a reason that makes any rational sense why a cartridge like 45 acp that's been around over a hundred years needs an update w/o changing case dimensions IE 45 gap (choke). It will be a failure in history and is one now as far as the old school 45 guys are concerned. my .002

Yeah you cant even pick up brass at a Glock match as laid back as they are you walk away and the next guy steps up. In reality they cant run any big match waiting for everybody to get their brass its unsafe in lots of instances anyway where there may be multiple stages placed all over the place.

 

[k0ua]

It begs the question, why do we need 2 sizes of pistol primers to start with?.. Apparently small pistol primers work fine in the big ole fat .45acp case, so why was it designed for Large? The small pistol primer would simply make the case web stronger right?. But to change now, is going to be painful.. and possibly dangerous. Maybe long ago, primer compounds were weaker? And we needed larger primers to light off powder charges reliably? But now that is not the case? Does anyone know.?

James K0UA

 

[Soundguy]

as with mixing smal primer 45acp with regualr lrp 45acp.. your 9mm with a mil crimped primer was simply a case of not inspecting your brass well.

primer pocket reamers are standard hand tools for relaoders. doesn't have to be military surplus brass either. I've found some commercial brass with crimped primers.

key here is to inspect your brass gery good.

Here is what I did setting a primer in a pocket that was too small. After looking at the case that I taped to the side for posterity I see it was a military 9mm with a swagged primer pocket that was caused by me accidentally mixing range brass with my stock bad me. I knew better I have done it before and detonated the one I was setting but never had a chain reaction like this Dillon called it a chain fire fwtw. Right where the knurled piece is the tube is swelled up and shows roughly how many went off 20 or so.

Anyway regardless how it happens having a primer go off 12-18" from your face is one thing on a progressive it could be up to a hundred yikes but getting a small primer 45 case could do the same exact thing to the next guy maybe even me be careful! Oh and my reloading room used to be my daughters if you wonder about the pics on the wall haha when she went off to college I moved my stuff in left some things like I found them. I even commandeered her desk to mount that loader.

 

[EE_Bota]

In general it seems that the "tight guns and ammo" climate is undergoing climate change. Cheaper than dirt and others are starting to have ammo in stock ready for shipment and in stock .223 AR style rifles well under $1000.

Bass pro surprised me with their in-stock ammo supplies. Wally World is still having trouble keeping popular calibers on the shelves.

Pat

I find that weapons are more available and less expensive (relatively) than the actual rounds. I kept sales brochures from last fall, and many of the rounds are still quite expensive compared to "normal" pricing.

I want some rounds "in stock" at home, but I don't want to get burned due to timing of my order, so I check back to old pricing to see how bad I am doing.

 

[Soundguy]

i bought a rifle in january that came with a duffle bag full of factory ammo. 2/3 the price i paid just covered the ammo. gun was virtually free in my eyes.

 

[Car Doc]

as with mixing smal primer 45acp with regualr lrp 45acp.. your 9mm with a mil crimped primer was simply a case of not inspecting your brass well.

primer pocket reamers are standard hand tools for relaoders. doesn't have to be military surplus brass either. I've found some commercial brass with crimped primers.

key here is to inspect your brass gery good.

Well duh I wasn't blaming it on anyone but me I already said what I did! I know how to reload I also know things happen to the best of us and why.

Also you have to realize I have a case collator and we dump a couple hundred cases in and go loading. I rarely clean my brass every time either so I dont handle them as much as a single stagger guy would or if I was loading match ammo then it gets a lot of scrutiny as far as individual cases and how many times loaded etc etc and gaging afterwards.fwtw.

 

[Soundguy]

not so much a reply to you.. but a point to other, perhaps less experienced relaoders. IE inspect your brass. i've seen many a new relaoder overlook that nad try to run some pretty BAD brass thru... which can / will be a safety concern for the firearm and the shooter.

no one wants a catastrophic case failure.

inspecting the brass at pickup to cull bad stuff, then inspecting again after cleaning.. then inspecting again after resize, and then fianl once over after loading can save lots of hassles.

have seen times where everything was fine till loading the projectile and that las step produced a case mouth crack.. etc.

I've seen people that used to only load for pistol, then moved onto rifle, and paid very verly little attnetion to the primer pockets.. in that instance, a fissure had opened in the primer pocket and let gas escape. fortunately no one was injurted and the boltface was merely carbon marked... this was a high pressur eround and it could hav ebeen bad. inches from the face and all. a good inspection of the brass prior to laoding could have prevented that.

i seemed to have ruffled your feathers.. I'll remedy that.

 

[k0ua]

As a high volume re-loader, I usually don't inspect brass as well as we all should.. One thing I do is always tumble the brass to remove dirt, and I will usually take them by the small handful and "jingle" them.. that is toss the around in your hand.. believe it or not if there is a case in your hand with a cracked mouth you can usually tell it by listening.. Some of you might not believe this but you can hear a bad case. It will be lower pitched and not "ring like a bell" Also when you tumble .45 brass the .40 cases will usually be stuck inside the .45 cases, and if you tumble 40 cases the 9mm will usually be stuck inside of them. Of course I sort the brass before going in the tumbler, and of course pick out the rocks and any cases left over from the last match that have mud in them!:shocked: So I do inspect, just not each and every one getting a complete inspection. It is more of a cursory inspection. It has worked for me for a lot of years, with very little problems.

James K0uA

 

[clemsonfor]

how bout them hidden ones. brass but berdan..

( oddly enough.. I have seen steel case and boxer. go figure..

Have come across a dozen or more of those in 9mm. I forget what there are but they seem to be nato headstamped and dated, i gues euro stuff? I derime and resize them then notice the holes i guess so i guess i poked a hole in the bottom? I ll have to pull some out of the just brass jug and look. I know i noticed them when i was handeling them after resize so the primer must have been removed?