6.5 Creedmoor Brass Endurance Testing- firing the same cases 15 times

I think the issue with a lot of folks is they dont have tight chambers and they are full length resizing. working the brass much more than neck sizing.


i found it odd his velocity increased as the cases where reused. Although I did not see he did this test in one day under same weather/enviromental conditions.
like i said my after reading retention sucks today so i dont remeber if he annealed the caee necks or not.

i can tell by the ring of my trimmer when the cases need annealing.
The brass out of my match barrel AR is only sized to push the shoulder back .002" that brass is LC 2012. No annealing made it to 9 resizes before i got neck splits on the 10th fireing
im sure if i annealed it would have made it more.
My garand with new barrel ,HXP 1972 brass and as tight to min I could muster when finish reaming chamber can go 3 neck size only with out cycling/feeding issues. Then i full length size just lightly with just a minimum of shoulder set back.
Its all good and good brass goes a long way. I had 50 cases of hornady brass from some vintage match ammo. Nice brass but on my 4th loading i got neck splits and some loose feeling primer pockets.
Some might argue that the ability to resize brass many times does not make it good brass. Its just tough brass.
I watched the best shooter i know measure his case wall thickness/neck and he also measured the web thickness.
He also had a mark on his brass and would load that mark up to a mark on the chamber. He shot bench rest with a fancy left side loading port. Fun stuff
 
RCBS ‘X’ dies will extend your brass life in semi-autos too. Look up Larry Gibson’s (a guru at the CBA) article on them, he got up to 11 or 14 firings per case out of a semi-auto M1A high power load before he gave up. No case failures. Prior to the X die he’d toss the brass after 3 or 4 loads.
 
Yup Larry has a lot to offer.
I have a set of X dies somewhere for 223 but I have not had much shooting time with 223 since I bought them. I have about a years worth of 223 to burn through before I need To reload more
 
I have a batch of Lapua brass that is on ~7 or 8 reloads. I have lost some due to damage attrition (someone steps on it, case mouth hits something and gets a big ding) but have yet to see one fail. I have some LC '67 NM brass that looks like I need to keep a close eye on it after the 3rd firing.

I don't anneal. I have seen some Federal cases split after multiple benchrest reloads including a very stout fire-forming load. Otherwise I'm losing more brass to misc attrition and doubt I'd recoup any expense on annealing.

I didn't like the X-dies. Too difficult for me to keep set up properly so that I didn't create 'donuts' and other sizing anomalies. They worked fine once set up, but if I changed brass manufacturer, I'd have to start all over again for adjustments. My Lapua, LC, and HXP brass needs only one trim at most and I'm getting plenty of reloads so no real need for the X-dies. Operator error, I'm sure, but I decided to just punt and use regular dies. Mostly I use RCBS competition die sets.

I think the key to long brass life is don't beat the crap out of it. Almost all of my rifle calibers are loaded to 2600 to 2700 fps. When I load something to 2900 fps and beyond, I can definitely see and measure much more movement of the brass.
 
Not Creedmoor, but just out of curiosity, I reloaded Blazer Aluminum 9mm seven times without any issues before giving up on tracking these cases. I wouldn't make a habit of using the aluminum cases, but it isn't totally out of the question, especially when the zombies are out on your street.

Al9mm5.jpg
 
NavelOfficer said:
Not Creedmoor, but just out of curiosity, I reloaded Blazer Aluminum 9mm seven times without any issues before giving up on tracking these cases. I wouldn't make a habit of using the aluminum cases, but it isn't totally out of the question, especially when the zombies are out on your street.

View attachment 244062
Click to expand...
I did wolf steel cases for pistol and 223 for a bit myself. Why ? Why not. I don't know how many times steel can be reloaded but I went 3 times. The necks lost there grip. I could really notice when seating a bullet that they almost dropped in. They passed the tip push on the bench test
 
mac1911 said:
I did wolf steel cases for pistol and 223 for a bit myself. Why ? Why not. I don't know how many times steel can be reloaded but I went 3 times. The necks lost there grip. I could really notice when seating a bullet that they almost dropped in. They passed the tip push on the bench test
Click to expand...

Yes, same here. Reloaded plenty of Romanian 8mm and all varieties of steel-cased .45 ACP, 7.62x39mm and .308 Winchester. Not really necessary in .45 ACP and .308 Winchester, but it can be done.
The Hakim was fairly brutal on brass, so the steel held up quite a bit better.
 

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