Brass “break in” …

I was watching a YouTube video of an accomplished pro shooter and he talked about firing your brass with a minimum load to work harder the head of the brass. The idea is to make the case head harder and thus getting longer life on your brass.

Anyone do this?

I have always just worked up a ladder, however, this does make sense. It would be a lot of components with 200 pc of ADG brass to "break in".

Thoughts and discussion?

Steve

Would probably be hard to quantify of even justify the cost of the bullets to do it. But if he's a competitive f-class shooter or something it might make sense as he probably doesn't want to shoot any brass in a competition that is not fully formed to his chamber. That would seem more important than a hardened case head, to me anyways.

I agree with barrelnut about justifying the expense of this especially with shortages of most components. + time.

BoomFlop said:

I was watching a YouTube video of an accomplished pro shooter and he talked about firing your brass with a minimum load to work harder the head of the brass. The idea is to make the case head harder and thus getting longer life on your brass.

Anyone do this?

I have always just worked up a ladder, however, this does make sense. It would be a lot of components with 200 pc of ADG brass to "break in".

Thoughts and discussion?

Steve

Click to expand...

Yes!
All of my new brass gets 'run in', either by doing seating depth tests or powder/primer combo testing.
There's no correlation from new brass to fired and sized brass anyway, so working up a ladder with new brass isn't telling you much really. You might miss the loads completely just because the brass is using up power to expand the brass, if you get rid of this paradime first, then all should be well.

Cheers.

@MagnumManiac

So you do seating and primer tests? Do you do all this at minimum charge? Do you do any ladder testing during this time?

Although I get the theory, I also do not see how the benefits can outweigh the component factor. I realize that fired brass is not the same as virgin brass, however, knowledge can be gained to know a general area of load for fired brass. Correct?

Firing 200 cases with a simple seating and primer test as only knowledge gained seems like a lot of wasted components.

Thanks
Steve

Well I don't generally shoot 200 rounds doing primer and seating tests, but I rarely ever use new brass for powder work ups because it will be different when you switch to fired brass.
A 10 round string on once fired will tell you a lot more than a 3 shot group on unfired brass.
I also do lots, so I will take 50 pieces, sometimes 100, and use that lot of brass testing for seating depth, primer and powder combo, then primer crush on what looks good, when I have enough info, I then move to powder OCW testing.
I will load up 5 at each .5-1g increments for rough powder testing, then .3g above and below in 5 round testing with the final verdict shot at 300 and then 600 with 10 shot strings. I'm looking for zero fliers and a nice round group with zero vertical and zero horizontal.
Component use is neither here nor there for me, I buy in bulk whenever it's available.
It has to be said that I do not do this for off the shelf factory rifles. I'd still shoot 100 rounds of new brass through them to get them run in and sped up and then do powder OCW testing. But I limit primer testing to just a couple of brands and use a crush that has worked before. My new STW became a nuisance as the primer pockets are way deep, so seated .010"-.012" deep is challenging, but it does shoot well and I have only fired 40 rounds in it so far. Same goes for my 300 RUM. New 300WM has had only 30 rounds through it so far too, just need time to get out and shoot more.

Cheers.

I would just develop a load on that new brass. Then load the remainder and shoot them like factory ammo. Eventually, you'll get thru them not really wasting anything beyond load development.

Use of new brass (functionally) might seem less wasteful, but if you NEED/WANT developed load ammo, that isn't it.
I agree with MagnumManiac, and do the same. I go straight to what I need, and not waste efforts or convolute the full process otherwise.

Again, I'm not saying that once the brass is fired that your "load" may need to be adjusted. However, to simply fire 200 shots on a barrel just to get 1x fired brass seems wasteful to me.

I believe a simple load work up, seating depth and primer tests can be tested during the initial firing. I also feel that good accuracy can be had with virgin brass. Once all the brass has been fired, backing down or another simple ladder could get you back in the node and some fine tuning while providing a lot more useful use of components.

Steve

With 200 pieces of brass you should be able to do a barrel break in if new and load development with 100 then load up the other 100 for hunting or practice once they are shot up your brass will be equal and you can tweak your load a little if needed for the next 200 shots after that your brass should be stable you might have to tweak again or not this is the way I do it to keep from just blowing through components

My custom rifle will be chambered in 7 Sherman Short and I have 200 pc of formed ADG brass from Rich. I'm guessing that with reamer, dies and brass all being designed around each other that I should see much more uniform results with virgin vs fired than say a factory chamber. Only time will tell however.

W/regard to barrel wasting, why would you need 200pcs of fully formed brass?
50 would do, right? You could fully fire form 50 with 150shts, and around then the barrel itself should stabilize.

As far as reduced load brass seasoning, it seems plausible for those who size at webs.
A moderate firing and sizing cycle would break granular structure and work harden.
No reason that primer swapping and seating testing couldn't be done with this.
I don't ever size webs, but I know that brass wants to go where it's been, and never to use over pressurized brass again.
So with culled brass, I test for MyMax pressure, log it and stay under it (with good brass).
Typically MyMax ends up just past SAAMI max, but it could be a bigger difference depending on build.

I'm not so sure that 50 pc is enough for practice, confirming zero and hunting out of state. Maybe for quick trips to the range with the ability to load when needed. However, I'm not sure I like the idea of 50 pcs.

The general consensus from the target community is a soft first firing will allow the brass to "work harden" before hitting it with full power loads. I think it would be hard to prove, but I do it. Since most barrels aren't done speeding up until the 200 round count (give or take) I don't worry about doing load dev on my match barrels until I "fireform" 200 or so pieces.