# Good news, and the bad news....



## Chuck R. (Apr 24, 2008)

Went to a carbine class MON-WED this week taught by a 16y SWAT veteran from Memphis TN, one of the few full time SWAT teams in USA. Awesome instructor, great class (this was my 5th carbine specific class). The majority of the students were LEOs with only 4 of us non-LEO, but Army. We were invited down by the PD that sponsored the class after having shot with them in a Dave Spaulding Vehicular Combatives class last fall.

So, 16 students, shooting factory new ammo, nobody but me a reloader. I asked about the brass (wanting to at least get mine back) and was told "it's all mine". So I spend lunch breaks policing brass. 

The good news; I've got 1.5 kitty litter containers worth of once fired .223/5.56

The bad news; I've got 1.5 kitty litter containers worth of once fired .223/5.56 that needs to be processed.......

Looks like my "weather sucks, what to do" quandaries are solved for the near future.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

When I first jumped on the .300 BO bandwagon, brass was still kinda scarce and I thought I’d probably be reloading for it forever.

I had a couple days worth of meetings down at AAC, and mentioned to Brittingham, at lunch, that I saw that they were burning a bunch of factory ammo, testing guns, and joked that I’d take some of the brass off his hands- you know, to improve safety in his range. He said he’d get one of his guys to hook me up.

I had forgotten about it until that evening when I was leaving, and chalked my missing out up to casual conversation. I dropped the tailgate of my truck to chuck a gun case in there, and there were 3 or 4 plastic totes, probably 2’x2’x2’ full of spent cases.

I was giving the stuff away for years, and still had more than I’d probably go through in 20 years. I ended up with a decent stock of factory-loaded, and probably haven’t reloaded more than 5% of those empty bottles.

That 20 year supply has probably turned into 50.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

running it with CFE-BLK the pressure is so low it might be 3 lifetimes worth of 300 brass if you don't loose it to tall grass.


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## Chuck R. (Apr 24, 2008)

The good and bad part about .223 is it normally gets lost at a match or during a class long before it wears out.

I normally anneal my brass almost every firing (have a machine) so about the only brass I loose is due to loosened primer pockets.


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## Texaspredatorhu (Sep 15, 2015)

Chuck R. said:


> The good and bad part about .223 is it normally gets lost at a match or during a class long before it wears out.
> 
> I normally anneal my brass almost every firing (have a machine) so about the only brass I loose is due to loosened primer pockets.


Annealing makes cases last a long time. I have a machine too and love it. Usually I can get my 8 year old daughter to feed it while I do other things.


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## swampratt (Feb 1, 2011)

You guys hit the big score for sure.
I just stuck a couple hundred cases in the Homemade pin tumbler.
Yes prep is horrible..I am all about accuracy so I go through many steps and a lot of measuring and sorting before I load a primer.
Sometimes I am more concerned where my brass went than where the bullet impacted. I know where the bullet hit.

I have hear CFE223 is temp sensitive.
But in the same breath varget has not treated me well when it comes to group sizes and temp changes.
H4895 for my 5.56 and .223 rifles and IMR 4064 or 8208 for my 308 and 30-06 rifles.

Same group sizes at 10 degrees to 98+


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

Caldwell brass catcher not necessarily great for classes where you may need access to the ejection port but great for practice and not loosing brass


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