What criteria do you use to discard brass for reloading?

[CINDERS]

Some collectors are scammers trying to drive you down so they get a good deal, I pay a fair price for stuff do the research on going prices and go from there pity your there I'd be there in a flash to have a gecko I did get taken for a ride from a friend some years ago who offered me a bulk lot for $XXX.oo's as he said it was a substantial lot (Not) and when I had sorted it it had a few choice pieces (3-4) out of 200 the rest were well bloody shite.
There was a chap who passed a little while ago an old gunsmith and had a really good selection of rare cartridges and ordnence very nice indeed I offered him a substantial sum of $4 thousand dollars well above what it was actually worth but I really wanted that collection it really had some very rare gear, in the end my friend swooped on it paying half what I offered and then skited about it when I asked him how much he paid.

Bit wiser now.....I am still friends with the chap and have brought other gear from him but call his bluff and walk if its to high he usually comes around. If I find stuff I shut my trap until I can poke it under his nose I mean at last count he had over 200 rifles & shotties in his collection!

Information

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[Grounghog4]

For the rinse or wet tumble use about 1/8 teaspoon of lemi-shine in a pint to a quart of hot water with a good squirt of dawn dish soap. I have never soaked them overnight due to the citric acid in the lemi shine. I have wet tumbled very dirty range brass in the above solution for 30 minutes and my brass comes out clean and shiny. After the brass dries I dry tumble it in a vibratory tumbler with crushed walnut shell media with a capfull of mineral spirits or paint thinner and a capfull of Nu-finish car polish for 3 hours and it shines the brass and protects it from tarnish. I have 30-06 brass in zip-loc bags that went through this process a couple years ago and they are still clean and quite shiny. I use the Harbor Freight rock tumblers for the wet tumbling and it works great.
As for your dads reloads, I would clean lightly with 0000 steel wool and inspect very carefully, then fire the ones that pass inspection. As others have said reject for any major defects, cracks, corrosion that is rough to the touch, incipient head separation etc. Only you can decide on the condition, if you aren't sure of the reliability pull down and check, or scrap.
A while back a friend gave me some old brass he had from old hunts in 30-30 and 30-06, they all were pretty dark with some green on them. I used my tumble process above, they came out very clean. Loaded and fired with no problem. I would not advise someone else to load them because they don't know the quality of these cases. Your mileage may vary. Bottom line, if in doubt, pull it down and scrap the brass.

[paulo57509]

I usually start with once fired (in my own guns) or new cases so I pretty much know their history.

On the one occasion that I was given several boxes of reloaded .30-06, I pulled and saved the bullets and pitched the cases. More than a few looked like this:



Never shoot reloads other than your own.

[bombdoc]

Just a word of warning ..!

Never tumble loaded ammunition! Particularly old loaded ammunition, especially if it is cordite loaded... The danger is not that it will go off in the tumbler, but that the tumbling breaks up the propellant grains, increasing the surface area of the propellant and significantly increasing the burning rate. Propellant becomes brittle as it ages, and cordite is particularly susceptible to this type of failure.

You may think that nobody would be that stupid, however history would prove you wrong. There were several instances a while back as a result of some bright boy "refurbishing" milsurp ammuniton by tumbling it in a cement mixer with sand...!

Increased burning rate can lead to burst guns.. so be warned!

I would also be inclined to anneal all old cases as a matter of course.. brass does age harden, and a quick anneal at least puts them all back to a known state!

[Daan Kemp]

Good brass cleaner is per 5 litre hot water, teaspoon dish washing liquid and a teaspoon tartaric acid. Mix well, add brass let it stand couple of hours. Stir a couple times. Rinse with clean water, dry in the sun. Doesn't tarnish again.

Been working for me for 30 years.

[CINDERS]

Bruce is bang on (Pun) with the handling of your brass the more you handle it whilst checking it over the more you see and after its done the rounds it gets finally to the press loaded inspected again wiped over with a clean rag and then stored ready for the range or hunt don't matter.

If your just an average shooter hunter then you won't load the hundrds of rounds some of us do a year but the process is the same for all there ain't no skimping on it your playing with enormous forces a few inces from your beak and face with the result if it lets go the damage to you could be catastophic to say the least.
I run my 6.5 x 284 reasonably hot about 2900Fps with 140Gn VLD Bergers or 143Gn Hornady ELD X's and its in around @53 - 55,000's PSI so its a fait bit of oomph going on up front.
So learn from what those of us that have trudged the path of discovery with reloading as I am quite an*l about all my ammo hunting or target it has to be the best I can possibly make to get consistent hits or groups because if you do not take the care and be a bit slappy happy howdy doo-dee with it your gunna come a cropper and I or us here do not want that at all.
Advice is free gaining the knowledge to give that advice is a very expensive pass time indeed wish computers were around like this 43 years ago would have saved allot of us here $'s and headaches.................