Need to refresh my memory

[cornchuck]

I have some brand new brass for a new rifle that I want to start reloading with. It has been awhile that I have used new brass. I have always reloaded my fired brass. The questions is, do I run the new brass through my resizing die before loading and do I go ahead and bump the shoulder back? I do have once fired brass from this gun to get the resizing die set.

Thank you for any feed back.

Jason

 

[Mikecr]

Some of your approach, your plan, is tied to the cartridge.
Will the formed cartridge be different for the reloading brass? That is, are you going from 260 to 260AI, or 243 to 22-250(as an example)? Or are you just loading something like 25-06 to stay as SAAMI 25-06?

If you're not changing the design with initial forming, then just let the cases fireform to your chamber, and then reload it normally.
I don't count on un-fireformed cases to perform consistently. They hold capacity variance, and FL sizing of new brass won't help with this because fired brass is forever different than new brass.
So I consider the first shot of it to be wasted anyway.

For a first shot of new brass, you can just run a moderate load with cheap bullets seated long(to jam).
Now even though the brass isn't 'fully formed' at one firing, it's close enough if you're going to change it all with FL sizing anyway.
You probably won't need or be able to bump shoulders until 3-5 cycles.

 

[CRNA]

I only neck size my new brass just to straighten the necks and that's it. You shouldn't need to bump the shoulder for a couple of firings. Get some measuring equipment (Hornady LNL headspace gauge) for example and take the guesswork out.

 

[cowboy]

I only neck size my new brass just to straighten the necks and that's it. You shouldn't need to bump the shoulder for a couple of firings. Get some measuring equipment (Hornady LNL headspace gauge) for example and take the guesswork out.

In addition to neck sizing, I deburr the flash hole, uniform the primer pocket, load and shoot.