VikingsGuy
Well-known member
I am new to reloading this year and am now getting to the point that how many reload cycles can brass be reused is a relevant question. I have not been annealing and at this point am more likely to throw out old brass and buy new rather than resort to annealing, but this may change. The loads I have spent the most time on have been 25-06 (pushing a 100grain TTSX about 3250 fps) and .270Win (pushing a 130grain TTSX about 3050 fps). I began with new "prepped" Nosler brass, sprayed it with Hornady One Shot and ran through my Lee full length resizing dies, champfered, deburred, primed and loaded. After firing once, I cleaned in a tumbler, full length resized and repeated the process - everything was simple with no surprises. After firing a second time, cleaning and full length resizing I need to trim - so I did. But this brass was a little harder to push through the die, and the cases seem to have little visual blemishes - no puckers or dents but some seem to show faint "rings" in the case body that seemed to be rubbed out, but not always or light black vertical striations around the neck -- but no structural cracks.
Now I am getting a little paranoid. Basis my reading/investigation, it seemed like with decent quality brass and loading within book specs that 3 fired cycles without annealing should be expected (and safe). Now I am wondering if that is true - maybe the Nosler brass isn't up to the task, or maybe the little items are cosmetic and I just need to clean the inside of my dies, or maybe the light resizing I did to the new brass ended up being enough "working" that this cost me a cycle and I should have just loaded straight out of the box, or maybe I am not lubing enough before resizing, etc.
Any thoughts, reactions, advice?
Now I am getting a little paranoid. Basis my reading/investigation, it seemed like with decent quality brass and loading within book specs that 3 fired cycles without annealing should be expected (and safe). Now I am wondering if that is true - maybe the Nosler brass isn't up to the task, or maybe the little items are cosmetic and I just need to clean the inside of my dies, or maybe the light resizing I did to the new brass ended up being enough "working" that this cost me a cycle and I should have just loaded straight out of the box, or maybe I am not lubing enough before resizing, etc.
Any thoughts, reactions, advice?