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How Many Firings???

J

jlorensen

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Dec 9, 2020
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135
Kansas City
Good Morning,

Acquired a m700 from my Dad in .222 Rem, along with a ton of empty brass. I ran everything through my tumbler, but have no idea how many times they've been fired/sized. Is there anything I can look for to help me determine if these are ok to reload again?

Thanks
Joe
 
If a new primer still goes in snug, they are likely ok. If you use a hand primer, you should be able to tell by feel if some should go into the 'fire one last time and chuck' pile.
Of course you'd want to look them over for split necks and other defects.
If you are able to, annealing them should bring them all back to a good baseline with regard to consistent shoulder bump and neck tension.
And it's less likely, but if your dad resized them too small (re: headspace) too many times, there's a chance of case head separation. You could do the old 'check for a thin spot near the case head with a paperclip' thing.
 
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Is some of it resized already with the original resizer and press configuration (by your dad?)
Check the headspace against fired brass.
Even if you do not have a device for it, you can do this by placing anything circular over the case shoulders and measuring the distance.

Say, .a 308 diameter case. Just takes a lot of fiddling until you get repeatable results but nothing particularly difficult.

If the resized measure more than 0.004 less than fired ones, the cases should be definitely checked for case head separation as the number of firings is unknown.
 
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Near miss said:
Is some of it resized already with the original resizer and press configuration (by your dad?)
Check the headspace against fired brass.
Even if you do not have a device for it, you can do this by placing anything circular over the case shoulders and measuring the distance.

Say, .a 308 diameter case. Just takes a lot of fiddling until you get repeatable results but nothing particularly difficult.

If the resized measure more than 0.004 less than fired ones, the cases should be definitely checked for case head separation as the number of firings is unknown.
Click to expand...
I'll give this a shot this evening...... I'm pretty sure there are 50 resized/primed cases for comparison.
 
This fella did a test comparing .223 cases annealed every loading vs. not annealing at all.

5_56mm_Brass_Anneal_Test_Scorpius_png-2659338.JPG
 
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sinister said:
This fella did a test comparing .223 cases annealed every loading vs. not annealing at all.

5_56mm_Brass_Anneal_Test_Scorpius_png-2659338.JPG
Click to expand...
This is interesting......if I'm reading this correctly, this data shows roughly a 10% loss between reload #6 and #7 for non-annealed brass. I can't imagine the brass in question has been fired/reloaded that many times, as I just don't think my Dad shot that much over the last 15 yrs or so......but he also has a tendency to hang on to things forever, so who knows :). I'm definitely interested in taking some measurements this evening, as my daughter has confirmed there are both fired cases and resized (and unprimed) cases to look at.
 
Near miss said:
Is some of it resized already with the original resizer and press configuration (by your dad?)
Check the headspace against fired brass.
Even if you do not have a device for it, you can do this by placing anything circular over the case shoulders and measuring the distance.

Say, .a 308 diameter case. Just takes a lot of fiddling until you get repeatable results but nothing particularly difficult.

If the resized measure more than 0.004 less than fired ones, the cases should be definitely checked for case head separation as the number of firings is unknown.
Click to expand...
Measured up 10 fired cases and 10 resized cases with a Hornady comparator.......very consistent measurements case to case, with the resized cases being .016 shorter than the fired cases.

Based on your thoughts above, would it be wise of me to scrap this brass and buy new?
 
Depending on how you see tending to them time-wise vs financially. Test few (or more) of them for head separation line but 16k is quite much for brass, be it just a one or couple of firings.

Not even annealing helps with that very much and if the brass is a liability, no idea wasting time annealing it.
If the brass is quality, it might suck it up better but this ain't good news.

If you keep an eye on that brass it might still work out but I doubt it is worth it. Maybe someone can tell just how bad 16k is for brass, it is a lot. But that 16k growth to chamber size comes from the case wall..

I fortunately do not have enough experience about this to make a final call.
 
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Near miss said:
Click to expand...

Full separations are rare. They may etch the chamber.

I shoot my brass until

(a) I get the shiny ring that means I will get a separation on the next shot or
(b) I get a separation - partial or full - or
(c) I get a neck split

I put such brass into a gallon zip-lock bag. I think the bag has 300 or 400 pieces of brass in it. Full separations sit on my bench as a reminder. Right now there is a 303 Brit full separation, a 223 neck split, and something else, they have been there a long time.
 
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Lots of variables involved. The test batch of IMI SS109 cases pictured below have been loaded and fired 19 times from multiple semi-automatic AR-15s.


imi_ss109_01-2660601.jpg




imi_ss109_02-2660602.jpg



.....
 
After watching a handful of videos and reading a few things, I decided I wouldn't chance it. I felt like this brass was ok, but once I saw a few photos of the "shiny ring", I realized there were quite a few pieces in my stash that looked the same.....thus, ordered 100 new pieces and a Hornady Modified Case. I'm very curious to see what it takes to find the lands...not so much to load to this length, but just to see.

Thanks for all the input folks.....I'm feeling pretty good about things now. My kids are anxious to shoot " grandpa's rifle" too, and while I don't know how dangerous a case head separation is, I don't think I want to learn when my kids are behind the rifle.
 
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