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Brass life testing

MK20

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Minuteman
  • Apr 17, 2018
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    The land of many waters
    I have access to a range with a reloading setup right next to it.

    Would there be any interest in some brass life testing, such as annealed vs not annealed, or one brand vs another?

    I would not do it until spring, but had the thought today.
     
    If you play with old "odd ball" read expensive brass you likely do this without even knowing it. That is me, I don't play what any of you would call a "long range" game, my stuff is generally a CMP match. But it is something I really want to do.

    But I can offer you some insight into what I have discovered in my informal testing.

    There are several things that go into it, not just the brand of brass. But I guess if you think everything the same you could figure out what brass is the "longest living".

    An automatic vs bolt is going to make a difference. How "hot" you load them is also going to make a difference.

    With the old guns I enjoy I load no where near max. I start about a quarter between starting and middle, and work my way up from there. In an automatic you need to get to a load where the gun will run in a reliable manner. With bolt I generally shoot for groups, some guns that are known to be on the "weak" side they may get to a point that I don't want to go over, and that is where they stay.

    I really see no value in pushing old guns hard. Now if you want to hunt with that old whatever, and the bullet need to move so fast for it to work its magic, that is one thing. If using it for a long rang hole punch or clapper that is something else.

    I have a few different rifles that shoot the same caliber, 1903 and Garand, MAS 49/56 Mas 36. The french shoot the same load, down to the same bullet depth, and the automatic is MUCH harder on the brass over the bolt rifle. The 1903 shoots only "youth" 3006 loads, as it is one of the rifles that is to blow up and take the entire western hemisphere with it.....if you believe the internet. The brass in it has lasted FOREVER. I am not home but I would bet 8-10 loads on them. The garand needs things a little more spicy, and the brass is more along the lines with "normal" life spans.

    It would be cool to see what someone that actually does real precision shooting has to say about it, do they fall off after X loads but show no signs of issues, cracks or anything. I will watch this one.
     
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    I'm curious how your going to preform this testing? Are you going to shoot and load the same piece/pieces of brass over and over until they fail?
    Are you going to purposely over load the brass to see how many firings before the pockets fail?
    Are you going to anneal X pieces VS not annealing X pieces? I see you said this but have to ask.
    Are you just planning to test the higher end brass? Are you going to full length size or neck size?
    Do you have any specialized equipment for this?

    Sorry for all the questions but your post just got me thinking....I did some brass testing(as well as a bunch of other tests)about 15yrs ago before I ever started posting on the gun forums but my testing was caveman compared to some of the equipment used/available today...plus I was
    poor-ish...kids, house, car payments ECT.
     
    I would recommend, testing loads in all the brass brands, then settle on different charge weights in each brass that generate very close to the same velocity. You might be doing 58,000 PSI in 1 brass brand, then in the other your down near 50,000. The 50k brass will last way longer. for example. For this reason, its hard to test different brass brands and reach any meaningful conclusion with just a few pieces you would have to do like 20 each, and run a pareto chart with each brand to see how many failed after X reloading. That would mean something. Also, as a general rule, Lapua brass and STARLINE 223 brass, or Nammo brass are going to win this test. This is because some of those brass weigh 100+ grains, while other brass brands weigh 90-91 grains. For 223. You think a brass with 10% more mass is going to last longer? yes, it will.
     
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    Some folks did testing a few years back on ARFCOM and shared their work. In terms of defining brass life, you have to set goals for what it even means to you. For example, split necks and loose pockets, or some other parameter?

    Here are the summary graphs that dealt with the value of annealing in their context. They started with a fairly good population (150) of brass for each treatment, No Anneal, Always Anneal, Random Anneal, and tracked how many survived. Cases that could not be reloaded or were not found were considered lost. This represented a year of work. Photobucket went downhill and started watermarking all the photos and graphs, and has ruined many good web posts. A good part of his testing was done to examine the concept of using range pick-up brass.

    Their work forced me to look at annealing my Service Rifle and Prairie Dog brass differently. YMMV
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    Here is a link if it helps plan your testing.
    https://www.ar15.com/forums/armory/-/42-422324/

    ETA: that represents 5977 shots, with 2027 for randomly annealing, 1858 for No Anneal, and 2092 for always anneal.
    The work was done in 2013 time frame.
     
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