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I've read several reloading books and still have the question of when brass is at it's end of life.

What are ya'lls breakover for a good or bad case? (handgun)

When there is a sign of a crack forming or if I find a deep dent. That's when I through mine away.

Sputz

Semi-auto pistol brass usually gets lost before I wear it out. Revolver and rifle brass gets the once over each reloading and if I find too many that are bad I replace the whole lot. Too many bad ones means 20% to me.

MoJo wrote:Semi-auto pistol brass usually gets lost before I wear it out. Revolver and rifle brass gets the once over each reloading and if I find too many that are bad I replace the whole lot. Too many bad ones means 20% to me.

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Straight wall brass will have a neck split from the flaring / crimping process long before you need to worry about any type of detrimental explosions or leaky primer wells.

Pistol brass...When I go out to shoot I always come home with way more brass than I shot so I have plenty of 1X fired brass to choose from.

Rifle brass...here i get pickier.. I mark each case with the # of firings.

On 223/NATO rounds I have some 4X firings. No problems yet. By marking the case, I know which brass is mine when I go to pick it up after flying all over the place. I collect "stray" brass while Im getting mine. They go in a different container when I sort back at home.

With my 308 I started keeping the brass with the original box. I am up to 3X with no problems. This week or next i will be shooting the 3X reloads to see if any problems.

I have some 4X 30-30 with no defects.

So far I have found maybe 5 neck splits with the 223 and a couple of the 30-30s. Even after 2nd firing.

Anyway, I expect problems at anytime and inspect each case accordingly. But I think 4-7X is where the rifle cases may fail.

JackRR wrote:I mark each case with the # of firings.

Curious about your technique. How do you mark the case? Do you mark it before or after tumbling? Do you tumble mixed lots?

I check every piece of brass as it comes out of the tumbler. Any sign of splits or erosion - it gets tossed into the recycle box.
45 will last virtually forever, high pressure stuff like 357 or full house 44 mag - not so long.
Rifle brass in a tight chamber will usually neck split first.
Rifle brass in a sloppy chamber will crack at the web/case intersect.
Just give it a good look over. If it doesn't look or feel right, toss it.
After a while, you will know with a quick glance what's good and bad.

I usually pick up my brass after shooting. When I got home I found three cracked cases. I'm not totally sure they were my cases but you can bet that I will pay extra attention.

Jumping Frog wrote:

JackRR wrote:I mark each case with the # of firings.

Curious about your technique. How do you mark the case? Do you mark it before or after tumbling? Do you tumble mixed lots?

I use a sharpie to mark the case.
I mark them as the last step before I put them in a container or box as "ready to load"
with the 223s/NATO i will tumble mixed lots but they have the same # of firings.
30-30 tumble mixed lots but same headstamp and same # of firings
308 I tumble by lot/box and keep the cases with the original box. This may be overdoing it but is my system for now.
This means I have to tumble in 20 rd batches.
Im thinking of buying 100rds of 308 brass making the process less cumbersome.

Griz44 wrote:I check every piece of brass as it comes out of the tumbler. Any sign of splits or erosion - it gets tossed into the recycle box.

It is amazing how easy it is to hear the sound made by a cracked case if you roll a handful of brass around in your hand. I can always hear there is a cracked case before I actually see it.

I sort my brass by headstamp, just so things are consistent. When I first started reloading, I was sorting by number of firings. That went out the window as an impracticality, because everything I reload for is semi-auto and when brass gets flung, you always end up with brass you didn't shoot in your pile. I do always inspect each case. This is pretty easy, since I sort by headstamp into separate bins anyway. I do plan on sorting by number of firings for bolt-action brass. I'm planning on starting into 7.62x54R, as soon as I decide on what diameter bullets I'll be loading.

As for pistol brass, I think I've had one case crack in the past 2 years, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't a case that came from my stock originally. Generally they're more likely to get bent in an unrecoverable way by being stepped on at the range than to wear out.

For rifle brass, it's pretty easy to tell if there are problems with the case. I reload .223/5.56 and the only way I've had them go bad is from a split neck. This usually shows up after firing or after resizing. I've had a handful of cases do this in the past year that I've been reloading rifle brass. I don't have any system for throwing out rifle brass, I just throw it out when it cracks or is otherwise damaged in an unrecoverable way from being stepped on.

For those that are significantly bent on the wall but work themselves straight in the resizer, I will make sure to inspect the wall after resizing, as sometimes there will be obvious weakening there if the bend was sharp enough. If so, it gets tossed. This does not include the normal deflector dings that you get from brass ejected from an AR - those blow themselves back out at the next firing, to be replaced by a new ding at a different location.

JackRR wrote:Pistol brass...

I am up to 3X (.308) with no problems. This week or next i will be shooting the 3X reloads to see if any problems.

Shot the 3X today now 4X and no defects. Im going to load these again and not wait for the other lots to "catch up"
I have always expected problems at 4-7X so looking even more carefully now.

I bought some Lapua 308 brass as a test. I will let you know how that goes.