Brass

[Loki_762]

I have been shooting the Black Hills remanufactured ammo in my .223 for about a year and a half, and I have saved up a lot of brass in that time for when I begin reloading.  However, I have read that Black Hills uses once fired military brass for reloading, and that military brass has a small capacity, due to having thicker walls.  Is this true?  Should I buy new brass to get the most out of my loads, or is military brass going to get me the performance, in terms of accuracy and velocity, that I will want?  
Thanks,
Loki

[Thomas Krupinski]

Military brass will do just fine, just adjust your powder charge a tad lower when working up your loads to compensate for the extremly slight reduction in capacity.

I load lots of it and use both military and commerical brass with the same load data.  I keep it under max a little to compensate for other factors such as high outside temps when shooting during the summer.

[Questor]

I believe the Speer manual recommends a reduction of 10%.  Do you have a chronograph? I'd want to see how the velocity compares to the expected velocity for the load.

[hogship]

I have been shooting the Black Hills remanufactured ammo in my .223 for about a year and a half, and I have saved up a lot of brass in that time for when I begin reloading.  However, I have read that Black Hills uses once fired military brass for reloading, and that military brass has a small capacity, due to having thicker walls.  Is this true?  Should I buy new brass to get the most out of my loads, or is military brass going to get me the performance, in terms of accuracy and velocity, that I will want?  
Thanks,
Loki

Loki.....

Yes, it's true.....military brass has a slightly smaller capacity for the reason you mentioned. Military brass has no disadvantage at the target....they are capable of outstanding accuracy.

One thing about it, if you are using a bolt rifle, all that fire formed brass is a potential asset to accuracy....if you intend to reload for the same rifle you originally fired the cases in.  If you are shooting a semi-automatic rifle, you'll want to FL size your cases anyway.

Hog

[Wlscott]

I could have sworn I posted a reply to this topic when it first came out.

Oh well.

I don't know if I buy into the theory that military brass is thicker.  I have compared Lake City Arsenal brass, RP, and Winchester brass by weighing them seperately on a scale.  I haven't really found that there is that big of a difference.  In fact, I have even found some LC brass that is lighter than Winchester.  

Any time you're working up loads, you're going to start about 10% below max and work up.  YOu'll be fine if you follow this procedure.  Do this even if you change from one brand of brass to another because you will run into inconsistancies fom one brand to another.  This probably won't cause you any problems, but if you're working with max loads, it's better to be safe than sorry.

[Duffy]

I measured the internal volume of a mess of military and commertial brass and found on a average that the
Military brass held 32.1 grains of water and the commertial
held 33.5 grains of water. So on a average if you take your pet load in WW brass and reduce it 4% it is pretty close in military brass. As said above if you don't load to max it'll be a bit warmer but shouldn't put it over the top. I have chronoed some with the actual reduction of 1.4 grains and they are usually a bit under what the commertial brass is. Remington brass is actually pretty close to mil also.