Service rifle brass life

[Curt]

Just wondering the groups opinion, on my AR service rifle my brass is going into it's 3rd firing. When is a good time to throw the lot out and start over?
I take good care of my brass culling out the damaged brass, keeping it clean and trimmed only sizing it down about .004 below chamber size. I haven't had a problem yet but.

Information

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[gunner]

I change my brass as soon as i can feel that the bullets can be seated with less power than i need to seat them in newer brass. I mark them and give them away after shooting it. In my rifles this is after the 5th - 6th time of reloading it.

Regards

Gunner

[Edward Horton]

Why guess at it, good brass should last a long time as long as it is not over resized or over stressed.

Get a RCBS Case Mastering Gauge that can measure to less than a thousands of an inch of case stretching in the web area of the case.



Then get a precision Mic and some head space control shims and only resize enough to chamber a round. (.001 to .002 shorter than your fired round)





Now repeat after me.........

I'm a cheap bastard and I will NEVER throw good brass away

[gunner]

Hi Ed,

i would say.......... how goes the Bastard thing....? Must be Alzheimer that i cant repeat after you

All the best

Gunner

[Edward Horton]

Hi Ed,

i would say.......... how goes the Bastard thing....? Must be Alzheimer that i cant repeat after you

All the best

Gunner

Gunner

I'm so cheap when I break wind it sounds like a silent dog whistle.

[Kirk]

I've got 1 lot of LC brass on their 5th firing. I've had no head separations but did have a few split necks so I decided it is time to replace them.

[Calif-Steve]

I use the RCBS X-Die on my .30-06 brass. No idea when they will start failing. 6-8 reloads, perhaps, but the Garand is hard on brass and chews case rims.

[Curt]

Thanks, for the input.Getting brass is not a issue for me so I will just rotate it out every four firings.

[JBS]

On 5.56/.223 cases I anneal the case neck after every third firing. I neck size only and bump the shoulder every fifth reload. I normally retire this brass at 10 to 14 reloadings due to primer pocket problems. IMO the key to long case life in the 5.56/.223 is annealing the neck before it splits.

[duggaboy]

amen, amen to the case neck annealing. I have been annealing cases for a long time and have really never had a neck split that I took care to anneal correctly, or for that matter any case yet shot in my service guns.I have split/separated case in some guns I shot alot while prairie do shooting. I had to full length size these a bit too often , I think. 6mm rem improved with a hot load.