reloading 1X fired brass

[xtratoy]

I have been reloading brass not originally shot from my rifles for many different cartridges for decades and haven't encountered any problems as long as I full length resized before using. My question is have I been wrong??? I had a deal to sell some 1X fired brass to a guy and at the last moment he backed out stating "Sorry but I cannot buy that brass. Just spoke with the guy who is building my rifle he advised me to not buy any brass thay has been fired. Apparently the cases have memory to your chamber. If yoir chamber is larger than mine the case will try to expand to that once fired in mine causing ejection problems. He told me its not worth the risk." I have never encountered that problem and am wondering if his gunsmith is making pre-excuses for a crappy build? Any thoughts on this and should I throw away all my old brass and go and buy all new brass. I would have to cash out the IRA account but if that is what it takes.....

 

[Hntelk]

x 1 fired brass works just fine for me...he is prob just running out of money cause his rifle build is costing him so much and now has figured what it will cost to get glass put on it....either that or he found a better deal somewhere.

 

[Joe King]

When I rebarreled both the 7 mag and 22-250, I reused all the brass from the factory chambers. The only issue I ran into was if the case had, had enough reloadings on it to have hardened the shoulder some, it would chamber hard, but annealing fixed that. NO I think your process of full length sizing is fine, but annealing seems to alleviate some issues.

 

[westcliffe01]

The biggest risk with once fired brass is that if the chamber was way out of spec the wall of the cartridge near the base might have stretched quite a bit, which is irreversible. Its not easy to detect and measure either, unless you have a special gauge made up to do it and check each cartridge individually.

Given that a lot of surplus brass that people use is 223 or 308 and both are fired in high volumes from various machine guns, which by their nature require "loose" headspace to be reliable, I do all I can to only buy brass that was fired in regular rifles or even better in bolt guns. In the last while, new brass has been unobtainable.

 

[MudRunner2005]

I've never had any issues firing 1-fired brass I bought used or picked up at the range. I use a SB die for my 5.56 brass so it sizes them back to factory spec for a loose chamber. My bolt guns I just neck-size them after depriming and cleaning, and have never had any issues. Maybe I've been lucky?

 

[newmexkid]

If you are going to throw out all your brass, I'll take it!! LOL. Because of what's going on I'll be shooting fired brass from other rifles in my new 25.06. I haven't given it a second thought.

 

[ultraedge]

xtratoy, What the riflebuilder said is true.It may not be the case every time,but it happens often.It happened to me with my first custom. I used my brass that was fired in a factory chamber in my new custom .300 RUM rifle and I had brass to stick in the chamber several times. Changing to new brass solved the problem. A fairly reliable way to check used brass is to cycle it through your action before it has been resized. Sometimes people resize their brass too much in order to get it to fit in a new chamber. If this process continues, sooner or later the cartridge case will separate at the web and part of the case will be stuck in the chamber. Some people are lucky and this never happens to them, but it is possible. Gary

 

[westcliffe01]

I would have thought that annealing the neck/shoulder would forever banish any "memory" effects - that's why they call it annealing ? Now if you don't anneal or it has been fired 4 times or more - all bets are off...

 

[Joe King]

I would have thought that annealing the neck/shoulder would forever banish any "memory" effects - that's why they call it annealing ? Now if you don't anneal or it has been fired 4 times or more - all bets are off...

That's been my experience

 

[varmintH8R]

The biggest risk with once fired brass is that if the chamber was way out of spec the wall of the cartridge near the base might have stretched quite a bit, which is irreversible.

I had this happen recently in a custom. I had another LRH'er generously donate a fired (maybe more than 1x) case to shoot and thread for my oal gauge so that i didnt have to sacrifice a new case. The area just forward of the case head was too wide and would not chamber easily. There was no way with a standard fl die to size it any farther down. Only time I have ever seen it, but it can happen

 

[barnesuser28]

I had this happen recently in a custom. I had another LRH'er generously donate a fired (maybe more than 1x) case to shoot and thread for my oal gauge so that i didnt have to sacrifice a new case. The area just forward of the case head was too wide and would not chamber easily. There was no way with a standard fl die to size it any farther down. Only time I have ever seen it, but it can happen

It was only fired once, i guess that tells me that the chamber in my savage is very wide. Man i want to re-barrel that thing... Sorry about that, i could have pulled the bullet and powder from a factory unfired round and sent it to you if i had known.

 

[varmintH8R]

It was only fired once, i guess that tells me that the chamber in my savage is very wide. Man i want to re-barrel that thing... Sorry about that, i could have pulled the bullet and powder from a factory unfired round and sent it to you if i had known.

Ha! I bet myself I would see a response from you. Gave an over/under of 4 hours. Waaaaay too conservative!

No apologies needed, I appreciate you sending me a favor and never gripe about free! Plus, I shot it and used it for its intended purpose using a secret technique that I will not disclose here (read: I'm not going to be made fun of).

 

[barnesuser28]

Ha! I bet myself I would see a response from you. Gave an over/under of 4 hours. Waaaaay too conservative!

No apologies needed, I appreciate you sending me a favor and never gripe about free! Plus, I shot it and used it for its intended purpose using a secret technique that I will not disclose here (read: I'm not going to be made fun of).

LOL, thats funny right there. Let me guess.. you had your buddy with the lathe turn the base of it down? lightbulb

 

[Mikecr]

It's an interesting concept.
I don't FL size & don't even have any FL size dies, otherwise I'd test the idea.
Perhaps someone here has or would.

Take a well hammered case that's FL sized back into chambering well, reduce the charge ~5% & see if after firing it still requires FL sizing to rechamber well.
If no memory, it shouldn't need FL sizing.
If memory, it will, and I could see this presenting an issue if reused in a tighter chamber.

I wonder because I've noticed that I can go ~5-8 firings before needing to bump shoulders. But once reaching that point(always a sad day for me), I forever have to bump that lot of cases.
This does 'seem' as though there is memory.
Well, there it is, I should try my test on shoulders!