45 colt brass life

shootuadeal

i was just wondering how many times you guys can reload 45 colt brass before discarding them. my loads are really light 3.5 grains of bullseye for cas, and 6.5 gr for target shooting. i have heard anything from 12,20, and never having to. i have reloaded some of them around 10 times already. thanks

Deborah

I have been shooting SASS for about 10 years,I probably get 20 to 30 reloads with clays powder,I have started to shoot some bigger matches in recent years where you don,t get your rifle brass back,so I dont reload in big batches anymore and keep reloading same brass after every match then I use my oldest brass for the no pick up matches.Shoot it till it splits.

Wolf.

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Yes, with CAS loads and the .45LC straight-sided case, they should last a good long time. I don't think I am exagerating when I say they should go 30 to 40 times. If you anneal the upper half of the case after maybe 15 or 20 reloads, you'll get even more life out of them. Since you are a CAS competitor, I'm sure you do this, but for those who don't know, just make sure you inspect your brass carefully, very carefully for splits, large and small. Not good to have a failure to feed in the middle of competition.

machine gun moran

Case life can depend on the gun as well as the load, too. My Colt SAA allows the brass to bulge considerably, much more than my Uberti or Rugers. I'v even had Remington factory ammo split just about full length in the Colt. I've read that when my gun was made (1976) Colt was still using the old Government-dimension chambers, designed to allow the continued chambering of cartridges when a lot of black-powder fouling was present. Anyway, brass life for this gun has been shorter than the others. In all other respects, I can't speak enough good. After over 10,000 rounds the timing and lock-up are still as new. I broke the locking bolt spring (the gun probably had 20,000 firings and dry-cycles on it, combined) and when I wrote to Colt, a lady there sent me two new ones for free.