Brass is "used up" when it fails - failure could consist of a split in the neck, a crack in the side wall, an incipient head separation, or a primer pocket that is stretched tothe point that it takes little or no pressure to seat a new primer. If any of these conditions is observed, "retire" that case!

I never arbitrarily throw out a cartridge case just because it has been reloaded "X" number of times. How long a case will last depends on how agressively you work the brass, how sloppy your chamber is, how hot a load you use, and perhaps several other factors as well.

Eld, one, your right, but how many times have you ripped a rim off? I have seen it a few times and tried to help getting the brass out. Its sucks. And don't you ever worry about feeling those hot gas's across you face? And lastly, my accuracy goes down with brittle necks.

All that said, your right, my starline brass seems to last 10-12 loads fine, but my same caliber hornady only 3-5 before splits.

Yeah, I will try keeping track of batchs of brass I think. Like I said, I started noticing the ring forming and I didnt want to encounter the dreaded seperation or whatever they call it. I only have used H380 and Varget in the 38-39.5 gr load range so nothing too hot and with the collet die we'll see how it goes.

Take a small paperclip and bend a small 'L' into it. Small enough to fit into the case. Sharpen the short end of the 'L' a little. Run the paperclip up and down the inside of the case and you will be able to feel the point near the casehead where the separation is about to occur (at the ring you see on the outside). Now run the tool inside a new piece of brass. You will be able to tell the difference.

Use this expensive tool to find the case weakness before the ring appears. Then scrap the entire batch. I do at for each batch before I waste time and energy cleaning and resizing.

I have had a case head come off a couple of times. As you say, this is a PITA!! They were .348 Win. cases and maybe a couple of .303 British. From that I learned to spot incipient head separations BEFOREthehead comesoff. Yes, I DO throw those out BEFORE total case failure occurs!

That shiny, bright, flat-appearing ring is a good clue, and the paperclip trick will allow you to verifythat this failure is happening well before you have to use a broken shell extractor of some kind to get the front part of the case out of the chamber....

Always watch my cases closely for those shiny rings.Witnessed a serious case head separationon the Ft. Sill range in 1979. Was standing behind the guy when it happened.The gun was a beautiful old Model 70 Winchester in .220 Swift: Was as in past tense. It blew the floorplate out of the gun and wrecked the stock and scope. The shooter was unharmed except for the bloody black specks all over his face.Had he not been wearing good shooting glasses he would probably have had serious eye injuries.

A case head separation in any gun with a coned breech can be a very bad scene. Part of the rear of the case hangs out in the air. Some Model 70s, all Springfield 03s and all1917 Enfieldshave coned breeches.In the case of the 03 about 5/16" of the case is not supported by the chamber.

I only neck size my 22-250 brass and trimmed them after five reloads. I'm on my 8th reload now, and maybe I'm getting one split neck in 20 shots. I'll probably toss them all after ten reloads.

I've also been pondering buying a collet die because with neck sizing, the place most likely to limit case life is overworking the neck.

I also agree with some of the earlier posters that FL sizing is probably not a good idea, especially if you're just varminting. I had a case separation 20 years ago in a nice Ruger 77. (I was a newbie to reloading then, so I didn't know FL sizing from neck only sizing.) Dropped it off at the gun store on the way back from the range. Two days later I'm driving to work and heard on the radio that the gun store had burned down! (Owner was test firing in the basement in a tube of soundproofing that was supposed to be fireproof, but it caught fire. When the fire hit the powder magazine it killed all four employees trying to save the store.)

I have to disagree with a few on here. I FL resize everytime. And I absolutely believe in trashing after a set number of reloads. It varies from rifle to rifle depending on pressures. On a 250 I throw them in the recycle bin after 10 reloads. If they've made it that long without being scrapped due to other signs I figure I've pushed my luck far enough. Generally I have to trim after 2-3 reloads. Necks usually start looking fishy around the 6th reload, and primer pockets get too easy to seat primers in. Its a feel thing...if the primer seats too easy I trash em.