Pistol Brass
 

Should I bother to sort my brass if all of the brass was fired through my pistol without any problems?

Thanks,

HA

Since I inspect my brass while sorting I always sort. Always inspect your "fired" brass for "swells", cracks, blown primer pockets, or any other deformity. Since you are inspecting it anyway, may as well sort it right?

When you say sort - are you asking whether you should separate brass by brand? As in you shot some Rem UMC, Win white box, and some PMC, and now want to reload all of them in one batch?

Personally, I don't like mixing brass. Guys do it all the time, and if you're running your charges in the middle of the road, and not expecting supreme accuracy, you probably won't see any negative effect. Just not for me. It's too easy to build lots of the same brass for me to bother with mixing.

:fighting0007:

Sounds good, I'll sort them.

Thanks,

HA

You should do more than sort, you should insect the casings as well. I used to load around 500 .38 special ammo weekly, as you reload the brass starts to develope weakness, I cannot tell you how many shells I discovered that had small cracks around the case mouth and I was not loading hot, I was loading wadcutters for target practice.

As SH54 mentioned, you should definitely inspect ANY case that you plan to reload whether it's for a handgun or rifle to insure there are no cracks or splits, swells, primer and/or pocket problems, etc. At the same time in order to be extra safe it's just really a good idea to load by brand so that everything is done the same, especially if you are loading close to max charges.

To put it in better perspective, I load 4 different loads for 4 different 9mm, 3 different loads for 3 different .45acp, 3 different loads for 3 different .44mag, and 2 different loads for 2 different .500 S&W (Big Dog and HUGE Dog) so sorting to me is not just safety but a definite need. In some cases like 2 of the 9mm loads I use the same Starline brass but there is a 3 grain difference in the powder load. So I have to be very careful not to mix them up. Big dog is the 4 inch barrel and Huge dog is the 10.5 inch. I actually load the 4 inch a touch hotter because that is my "oh crap it's going to try to eat me" defense when I am hunting Alaska in the Big Brown neighborhood. Big Brown doesn't like 700 grains of lead smacking into his/her head one little bit. I hog hunt with the 10.5 inch and keep 400gr loads for that one. Just a small bit of perspective on how keeping your brass both well sorted as well as inspected can save you some serious headaches down the road.

You're not saying what chambering your are shooting. I do agree that sorting is a good idea with the heavy hitters and 100% case inspection is required. If you only have one pistol in 9mm I wouldn't bother sorting them. Unless you are a first class pistol shot you aren't going to notice the accuracy difference between case brands.
But I can't stress the importance of case inspection enough. Just some things that require discarding a case includes split case mouths, cracks, bulges, enlarged primer pockets and any thing else that looks out of the ordinary. Its not worth taking a chance.

I always toss them in the tumbler and wipe them down afterwards and inspect them at that time. I'll be reloading for a 9mm, .357/38, .45acp and the 44 mag. One gun for each. The 9 is my "have fun" pistol and that was what my op was referring to. I'm not out for optimum accuracy with it, just a lot of shooting.

Thanks for everyone's input.

HA

Guess I'm not the best one to post for you then because I go for the utmost accuracy I can get out of each firearm I load for. Even my "plinkers" I load the best possible load I have found for them.

As long as you are inspecting them closely and not allowing anything bad to get through, since you aren't that big on utmost accuracy, then no a sort isn't really needed.