For those of you who shoot mixed brass in 45 ACP:
After sorting and sizing the two thousand or so once fired cases that I had collected, I noticed that some Federal and Speer cases had abnormally large flash-holes. In fact, they were some 50% larger. So, I sorted the cases by flash-hole size within the Federal and Speer lots and ran a test.
I worked-up a load for the small hole brass that averaged 1" at 50ft. Then, I tried it in the small hole brass, but the average group size doubled. I tried this in both Federal and Speer lots. The results were the same.
This was low-pressure target ammo. Just imagine the implications in some of the +P level reloads.
Another issue is brass tension on the bullet. I noticed that the small hole Federal cases required a lot more effort to expand and bell the case mouth. There was no difference between the small hole and the large hole Speer cases, however.
In my limited test, it seems, that sorting brass by headstamp, flash-hole size, and maybe by brass tension makes sense. What do you all think?
After sorting and sizing the two thousand or so once fired cases that I had collected, I noticed that some Federal and Speer cases had abnormally large flash-holes. In fact, they were some 50% larger. So, I sorted the cases by flash-hole size within the Federal and Speer lots and ran a test.
I worked-up a load for the small hole brass that averaged 1" at 50ft. Then, I tried it in the small hole brass, but the average group size doubled. I tried this in both Federal and Speer lots. The results were the same.
This was low-pressure target ammo. Just imagine the implications in some of the +P level reloads.
Another issue is brass tension on the bullet. I noticed that the small hole Federal cases required a lot more effort to expand and bell the case mouth. There was no difference between the small hole and the large hole Speer cases, however.
In my limited test, it seems, that sorting brass by headstamp, flash-hole size, and maybe by brass tension makes sense. What do you all think?