I understand mixing brass from different manufacturers has ill effects on precision. But, does it matter if you mix once-fired with twice or three times fired, as long as all are from the same manufacturer?

Yea, it could matter, because neck tension changes the more your brass is worked. It gets work hardened. In your average hunting rifle, though, I doubt you'd see much if any difference, but you might.

Personally, I wouldn't mix brass this way. I wouldn't want to loose track of how many times my brass was used since eventually it could fail leading to ruptures, splits and so forth.

I agree with Solitary Man - up to a point. As for failures with cases, usually they can be prevented by careful inspection of each case, after cleaning and sizing. Incipent case head separations or neck- splitting is usually easy to spot.

Having said that, I will reiterate that I do agree that it is best not to mix up batches of brass. Besides the failure issue, if the brass is all mixed together, it's hard to have any idea of how many firings one is getting from a case....and indeed when it is likely that a case is about at the end of it's useful life. It's not difficult to keep the batches separated - it simply requires a little more care - and perhaps a bit more record-keeping. I separate my brass into different gallon-size ziploc bags. I simply mark the outside of the bags with the number of firings..and any other pertinent info. When reloading, I keep each batch separate, by pulling from each bag separately....and placing the finished rounds in different ammo boxes, with appropriate markings. I also attempt to cycle through all of my brass, before re-firing any of it (for example....I have 215 cases. I try to fire all 215, before I fire any of them a second time. I reload pretty much after each trip to the range - but I rotate the cartridges so I am always using the "youngest" brass first. In this way, I am able to keep my brass (mostly) all the same "age". This does not always work, but I try.)

IMO the addage of not mixing brass has more to do with safety than accuracy.

Especially military brass in some cases.....

There's marked difference in internal combustion room and this makes for higher pressures in some cases over others.

As a general rule one should heep his cases segregated to the extent possible.......accuracy may also be affected.

WRONG...you couldn't be more wrong if you tried! Brass is NOT brass..it is so varied that it's not even funny...one load in one brand may cause pressure problems gallore in another brand. The internal and external thicknesses are usually as different as night and day....there sometimes are differences in one brand of brass from the same company with different lot numbers. As a competition/benchrest shooter for many years, I've certainly seen the results of such a thought and it is dead wrong to think that ALL BRASS is the SAME..it is "NOT".

I have to agree with everyone else. Keep track of how many times your brass has been fired.

Okay I'll disagree just to be ornery. I use Winchester ,Remington and Federal brass in my '06 and can't see a wit of difference in hunting loads. Same with the .243. Having said that, I wouldn't recommend mixing military or off the wall brass ie. Imperial in the mix. But the more common brass all works fine. I've weighed them all and the Remingtons run a little heavier and the Winchesters run a bit lighter.....nothing to fret about. Now if you have aspirations of Camp Perry........that's another story!Regards, Rick.

I do not mix brass.If you doubt that it makes a difference,chronograph a few loads using different brass and you will see the difference.If you are using maximum loads,changing brass could result in pressure signs.

In my experence mixing brass is a no no.... I won't mix brands and i won't mix how many times it's been fired.

I've measured the capacity of hundreds of rounds (probable much more than that) of brass, and unless your useing "low pressure" loads, in my opinion it's not even safe to mix brass...

Drilling Man

I AGREE whole heartedly. Brass is not all them same!!!!Besides what has been said,different manufact.will have different volumes to them as well,which creates different problems and or results. vangunsmith