Older .30-06 casings

[browningautorifle]

a brass 12 ga case

Those are worth good money now, about $10CDN around here these days.

[TDH]

It could be about 8 here then with the rate of exchange. It looks better in my collection.

[browningautorifle]

Brass shotgun ammo shows up here pretty regular, a shop I frequent here has both live and fire, some are even new. I have one in the collection so that's good...

[butlersrangers]

'kickwrench' - My 2 Cents is to just scrap the old .30-06 U.S. Military brass, (keeping a few for curiosities).

It is very easy to get newer, G.I. and commercial, once-fired, .30-06 Brass, anywhere in the U.S. There is a thing called 'false economy'. You will put a lot of labor and expense into your reloads, so use 'good' Brass.

The "DM 42" cartridges were made at Des Moines Ord. Plant in 1942 (WW2 - 74 years old). The "TW 53" cartridges were made at Twin Cities Ord. Plant (Minneapolis) in 1953 (Korean War- 63 years old). Brass gets brittle with age. Case necks need to be annealed periodically to counteract hardening of brass and keep case necks from work-hardening.

These cartridge lots both utilized corrosive potassium chlorate priming. The primers left a corrosive salt residue inside the cases, unless it was washed out after firing. (Check inside of cases for corrosion).

G.I. cases have a heavy primer-pocket 'crimp'. The pockets have to be swaged or reamed to remove the crimp for ease of re-priming.

IMHO - All this is 'Doable', but, not worth your time or risk. Use 'fresher' brass.

(I recently bought a bag of 15 rounds of .30-40 Krag ammo. It was of various makes from the 1920s or 1930s. The cartridges came out of an old Spaulding web belt and were quite clean. 13 out of 15 had split necks, probably just from age. I kept the two good cartridges for my collection. I am pulling the bullets on the split cartridges for experimenting).
Attachment 78178Attachment 78177

[browningautorifle]

I am pulling the bullets on the split cartridges for experimenting).

I had over 100 rds of military ball 30-40 come to me a few years ago. I pulled all the bullets and replaced all the primers and re-seated the bullets. About four or five powder charges needed replaced. They all went off but about half cracked in some way or another. The rest are slowly giving up, not all are cracked at the neck either.