What steps should be taken to prepare new brass for loading for the first time?

I purchased a bag (50 pcs.) of new Winchester .243 brass and was somewhat disappointed when I realized that the case mouth and necks were nowhere close to round. I lubed the cases and ran them through my RCBS dies (full length sizer dies are all I have), and proceeded to load them. About every 4th or 5th round left a fairly large copper "shaving" at the base of my press. I dismantled all of the rounds I loaded (15 total) and attempted to determine the problem. All of the bullets had severe scoring in the copper jacket, and at that point I realized I should have reamed the case mouths before loading the brass.

Is this a normal situation with new brass, or did I end up with some defective pieces?

Should I perform all of the steps (chamfering, reaming, measuring case neck thickness)for reloading brass with new brass?

Any suggestions would be appreciated, as I cant afford to toss out any more bullets.

hi there, I too load a 243. all my brass was new r.p's they too are outa round some due to whey they are made and piled up. they tell you to full size first. you should treat them as you would once fired brass, size em, trim em, chamfer em. this is what I do and have no problems. In all reload books I've read they tell the same thing.If you are using cast bullets there is a die that puts a slight bell to the neck for easier loading. Dave

New brass should be sized and Must be chamfered and deburred.

Check the flash hole to

I reload .243 also, and found new brass is sometimes uglier than once fired! treat all brass the same, just like it came out of the cleaner, size trim,etc etc etc!!

Remington or Winchester new ones I keep only loading and shooting. Then fine tunning.

or you could by nosler brass its already sorted by weight chamferd and debured only thing is it is more expensive but well worth it

Always resize new brass. You really don't know how many times it has been bounced off the factory floor or banged against each other during shipping. Inspect, trim (if needed) and chamfer, Inspect primer pockets and flash holes.

Welcome to this fine site...Hummm...I'm a hunter and I doubt that I would see the higher cost of Nosler or any other custom brass down range out any of my rifles. Winchester and Remington being my two favorites with Federal coming in at a close third...

I always full length resize, chamfer and deburr all new brass. So many times you see case mouths that are out of round possibly due to like Bushy says, being bounced off the factory floor etc. Remington, Winchester and Federal brass work just fine for me and I'm sure some Nosler brass has case mouths out of round as well, especially if it comes in a bulk pack.

I have no bulk back cases. They have the same lott number and are always in the own boxes. If You full lenght resize and trimming cases before shooting , Yuo must do it after first shooting too. I shoot those "unripes" first and then start all working.

I too reload .243 WIN and like Bushy use Winchester and Remington bulk brass. I have never encountered any problems with the Remington brass and have only found a couple of badly formed (split/unformed necks) in the Winchester.

I always inspect then full length size and measure new brass, regardless of the brand, prior to loading. The only time I will trim is if they don't measure up correctly and a thorough inspection will usually indicate if the brass needs deburring and chamfering. Tikkat3 also has a valid point....check the flashholes for burrs etc.

I batch my cases and treat every case in the batch the same. If I do something to one, I do it to every case in the batch. Also, I shoot every round in the batch before reloading the batch.

Once fired, I full length size every case (although I may revisit this idea if I ever get a Neck Size Collet Die from Lee), measure and trim if necessary. I do this every time I reload the cases to ensure uniformity from reload to reload.

I can be a bit anal about the way I reload so at the very least take heed of all the advice given here by the other members.....its all good advice.

Cheers, Vince

Sorting brass by weight is something I prefer, although, except for some bench rifles the benefit for hunting is academic. More and more, I am ending up with Nosler Custom brass as it is already weight sorted, sized, trimmed and chamfered. It costs more, but, in some cases I find the price is justifiable.

Thanks for all the great info guys!!

As always, your advice is greatly appreciated.

Vince wrote:

I batch my cases and treat every case in the batch the same. If I do something to one, I do it to every case in the batch. Also, I shoot every round in the batch before reloading the batch.

Vince,

By batching, do you mean you work in 20, 30, 40, or 50 round lots?

Most of what I've loaded so far (except the new brass mentioned at the start of this string) has been once-fired factory ammo. When I purchased the .22-250 barrel for the Encore, I bought 3 boxes (120 rounds) of Winchester USA ammo with the intent of reloading the brass. The original 120 rounds was broken down to 4 thirty round "groups". Since I'm still in the initial "load development" stage, each 30 round group is broken into 3 slightly different 10 round "sub-groups"(which are always kept seperate and clearly marked). I don't always fire all 10 (or 30) rounds at the same time (again, I'm still in the initial load development stage, and can tell after the first 5-round group if it's worth continuing to shoot that particular load). Sometimes if the niece and nephew are with me, I'll let them shoot the remaining rounds in the "sub-group", but they are not always around. Which now means that some of the brass has been fired twice, some three times, and some is on it's fourth load. And all are being kept separated( a recordkeeping nightmare). Once I have developed acceptable loads, I hope to eliminate some of the "variables" and just load-em-shoot-em-n-reload-em.

Same situation with the .243 Win I'm working on loads for, along with the upcoming work for the .300 Win Mag (the barrel is on order) and the .308 Win which has been getting kinda lonely lately!

Should I be sorting my brass by weight? If so, what happens when I trim 2.50 gn from a certain case? Does it now belong to the "fired twice" group, or does it belong to the "weighs 158 grains" group?

Please forgive my ignorance, but I am still new to loading, and any help anyone here can offer is greatly appreciated!

hunterjoe21 wrote:

Vince wrote: I batch my cases and treat every case in the batch the same. If I do something to one, I do it to every case in the batch. Also, I shoot every round in the batch before reloading the batch. Vince, By batching, do you mean you work in 20, 30, 40, or 50 round lots? Since I'm still in the initial "load development" stage, each 30 round group is broken into 3 slightly different 10 round "sub-groups"(which are always kept seperate and clearly marked). Should I be sorting my brass by weight? If so, what happens when I trim 2.50 gn from a certain case? Does it now belong to the "fired twice" group, or does it belong to the "weighs 158 grains" group? Please forgive my ignorance, but I am still new to loading, and any help anyone here can offer is greatly appreciated!

Gidday HJ21. Yes mate, I batch my loads into lots of 50 rounds, cause thats how many rounds are in an MTM Box.

I also keep a batch purely for load development. I don't pay any more attention to these than the other cases, but because they get used for all different loads I keep them separate from my hunting loads .

For ease of "bookkeeping" I put a label inside the top of each box showing the following details:

Date Loaded: 7/12/06
Calibre: .243 Winchester
Case: Remington
Bullet: Remington 80gn PSP
Powder/Load: AR2208 (Varget), 38gn
Batch #: 3
Velocity: 3057 fps
# of times Loaded: 1
Zero Info: 240 yd, Max PBR 280 yd
Comments: First Load, Factory Crimp,
2.59" high @ 100 yds

You can put whatever info you like on your label, but I have found that the above meets my needs. I redo the label when I reload the batch. Easy enough to make on the computer and print out. Also this will give you an "audit trail" of the loads you have made in the past.

If you are not into a computer printed label then you can always write the info into the top of the lid with a OHP Marker pen. Easy enough to change when necessary. Whichever option you choose it is only a couple of minutes to record the details of the batch.

As for weighing each case and grouping according to weight....well I suppose if you are interested in shooting the flea off'n the PD's butt out at 500m or if you are into Bench Rest shooting, then I suppose that there is value in doing it. Personally I don't see a need for it. I don't necessarily load to Minute Of Angle....I am more interested in Minute of Deer, Minute of Fox, Minute of Pig, Minute of Rabbit etc. Now thats not to say that my loads aren't capable of MOA, they are, but teeny tiny groups are secondary to my desired level of accuracy.

I suppose the most important thing about reloading, apart from the mandatory safety aspects, is to be concise and consistent with the necessary detail but to not get bogged down with excess or superfluous detail.

Cheers, Vince