Mixed brass

[bill m]

I have always heard tell that mixed brass will affect accuracy. So when I bought a bunch of once-fired 45 Auto brass at a range, I had concerns. They don't sort.
I got home and dumped the bags out to see what I had. I think there was about 5 different makes in my pile. And a bunch of GAP. Threw them away.
The task of separating, and keeping separate, the 5 different makes seemed unreasonable. So I loaded without another thought.
I just finished the first 1000 rounds through my 24/7 and am very happy with the pistol and extremely happy with my first 45 auto reloads.
I shot at 25 yards, 50 yards, 100 yards, and then some fun stuff at 200 yards. The target at 25 was about 4 in. grp. from off-hand. The 50 yard was 5 in. grp. from rest. The 100 and 200 were clay pigeons and a pie plate respectively. We went for a plate at 200 because I just couldn't see the pigeons.
In the end, I believe that the only thing impeding me from group excellence is me. My ammo made me happy. The gun even happier.
6.5 gr. Unique behind a 200 swc with Wolf primers for about 800 fps. First time with the Wolf primers. No failures. Great consistancy.
I think that worries about mixed brass might be the concern of a serious or competition shooter. But I just don't think it mattered to me for target or hunting.
I had some Sierra cases in that mix. I shortly discovered that they have small primers. Finally I discovered somewhere that these were(I hope I get this right) environmental-friendly cartridges. It has something to do with Primers with less lead in them. And they are only made in small handgun primers. So Sierra, being environmentally concious, went with that and jacked up my reloading. I gave them to my partner. He'll load anything. I just didn't want that kind of mix. I hate sorting.

[Badger]

bill m,

I sort my brass by make for the reason I want consistent crimping on my SWC reloads. I do not trim my .45 ACP cases, but I do sort them by make so when I set the crimping die, I have better consistency.

Different cases could be of different length and there is the devil in the details.

Badger

[LE]

Cases do make a difference when you are going for optimum performance. What you get for general plinking probably won't show up. There are a lot of small differences between cases & even the lot the same cases were made from.

[bill m]

That's pretty much what I thought.
I think it is a fun thing to do to really hone in on a round to see what you can do with it. But for all except the competition shooter, the technical tweaking would probably go unnoticed.
I remember spending an ungodly amount of time working up some match rounds for my 6.5 Swede. The other rounds that I load for it are as similar as is generally reasonable. I lengthen them to take up as much of that cavernous throat as I can. Well, when we shot for a comparison, I just didn't see anything that mattered. All of that time and care just didn't show up. But it was fun to try. Of course, my Swede is a real pig; it eats anything.

That was a great point that Badger made about case length and crimping. I read that last night and immediately went out in my shop to measure brass. There is enough of a difference to possibly matter. I will pay attention to that. Thank you.

[Badger]

bill m,

I have obtained much brass for free over the years. I always sort the brass by make and and measured all makes and observed DIFFERENCES among them all. As long as one uses ONE type of brass, the crimping seems to be consistent. If one just used ,at RANDOM ,different brass, the crimping would be INCONSISTENT,

Be well,


Badger

[Gil Martin]

It depends. Since I do sort brass and trim as needed there is no real problem in dealing with mixed brass. Just load one brand at a time. Easy. All the best...
Gil

[carlsca]

Never reloaded pistol ammunition, but I am more concerned with pressure problems with mixed rifle brass than I am with accuracy problems. Is there a problem with pressure differences in pistol ammo?