I recently saw a discussion elsewhere about sorting 38 Special brass. This made me wonder about sorting other handgun brass, .357, 44 Mag, .45 Colt and 45 ACP.

I have always kept my brass segregated and mark each box with the number of times loaded. Am I wasting my time?

I have also always been an experimenter, and it may be time to give that up and stick with a standard load or two for each caliber. This would make brass sorting seem like even more of a waste of time.

For some loads I will try to keep brass together, others I don't worry about it.

Cases from autos end up on the ground and all get picked up in one batch, sometimes mixed with range brass. It is not practical for me to keep them separate.

For revolver ammo I can more easily keep the cases in their own 50-round box.

I don't think it matters for my shooting though. Most of my shooting is casual plinking where a slight difference in accuracy isn't a factor. I like to keep them together as much as I can so that the loaded rounds all look about the same, and so they will start failing all at about the same time.

For the ammo that we shoot in matches I do try to keep it together and I keep track of the number of loadings so I can throw it all out at the same time. This can be hard to do because it ends up on the ground, but I've observed how other people do it and I have a new plan. On the next new batch of brass that I prep, I will use a colored Sharpie to mark a colored band in the groove in front of the rim. This should help me keep my brass separate from my daughter's brass.

I have one or two loads for each cartridge, usually one, and they are stored bulk in ammo cans. For .32-20 I've got one cast bullet load and one jacketed bullet load and they are stored separately. Dittos, .45 Colt for rifle and Colt SA type revolver. But for .30-30, except for specialty loads, one load all the time, all the same. No I don't sort the brass anymore. Bad brass goes to the scrap bucket and that is about the extent of sorting aside from sorting by cartridge.

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Sincerely,

Hobie

Maybe, maybe not.......My belief is for general shooting/plinking it really doesn't matter, as long as you have good brass to start with. I would not mix some unknown or crappy brass with good brass. For over 20 years I shot IPSC with a 1911 45acp and sorted, tracked, primer pocket cleaned, calipered every case on every loading, took a long time to load a 100 round. After a while I stopped doing all the extra work and just cranked out ammo on my Dillon, I never saw a difference in accuracy. But I only used good brass, Winchester, Starline or TZZ, if I found some unknown brass I tossed it and I never picked up range brass. Good compenents loaded on good equipment with proper technique equals good ammo.

When I shot handgun silhouettes I usually started the year with a new batch of prepped brass and went thru the whole batch before I reloaded the cases again. Once the cases had 14-16 loadings I started using a new set. The old set was added to the general use bin and never tracked, prepped, trimmed etc again.

Gunner

but my question was primarily about handgun brass, which in my case is also likely to be fired from a levergun.

I suspect that trimming all my brass will make more difference than sorting, because of more uniform crimps. I need to come up with a better method to trim than my hand cranked Lyman and Forster trimmers.

Many years ago I shot in an indoor rifle league. I found that my handloads with ball powder loads straight from the powder measure were every bit as accurate as my meticulously weighed loads. And my powder measure wasn't anything exotic, just a run of the mill RCBS Uniflow.

Handgun ammo is what I am talking, here are some examples.....

http://gunner.sixshootercommunity.org/range.htm

All were shot with non-sorted, non-trimmed nor prepped brass, just reached into the brass bin and loaded.

Gunner

And only if I am trying to shoot itty bitty groups.

range shooting, but not so much handgun. The only exception is 454C - if you don't stay on top of number of times fired, length and hardness you WILL see crimp jumping with heavy loads.

Except for my long range BPCR and 6.5x55 for my FA single shot, everything else just goes right through the 550 or 1050. Learned a long time ago weighing each charge was a waste of time for general usage.

Will also insert a plug for the Dillon powered trimmer if you have bunches of brass to process. Just the ticket for 223. I still trim my 454C in my lathe using a 5C collet and collet stop, but that is usually only 100 at a time.

One more thing - work hardening of brass is why I don't pick up range scrap. A person has no idea what loads or how many times that case has been reloaded.

of how many times reloaded. If you start with sorted brass, keeping them sorted is not hard; same with tracking number of loads, IMO. YMMV. Does it make a difference, don't really know. I do have a few thousand 38 Special cases that have been loaded so many times the nickel is almost gone, I just use them until they split now. Same for my batch of 45 Colt cases used for cowboy shooting. Anything for more potent loads get selected brass, usually the headstamp in which the load was developed.

A guy I know was asked once how many times .45 ACP brass could be reloaded. He thought about it a few seconds and said: "Until it splits, and then maybe one more time."

That's taking it a little far, but I don't separate out .45 ACP brass, except for the small primer stuff.

Rod M