Brass Case weight

Melnic · Dec 17, 2019

I have been prepping brass like crazy getting ready to make up a bunch of 223. I have some plinking surplus 55gr FMJ from Widenes, Nosler Varminter (black plastic tip) and 69gr Sierra SMK

I have an assortment of brass and thought I'd weigh the prepped and primmed cases just to see. Below is the brass plus an average of 5 cases rounded up/down. I tend to seperate the brass and reload them grouped together. Up until now, I have only used LC for my 69smk.

LC 95gr
Geco 102.5
Perfecta 102
PMC 96
Wolf 99
FC 96
PSD 96

Now that I notice that Perfecta and Geco are much heavier than the others, I'll be curious to know why. Thicker? more brass at the base? Wonder how it would affect the POI one 96gr case shot vs a 102gr case with the same bullet and load?

What say the MDS brain trust?

Park ranger · Dec 17, 2019

Thicker brass can lead to higher pressures. Work a thin piece up to max, thick piece might blow a primer. It's really internal volume that matters, but weight is a good indication of volume

Doco Overboard · Dec 17, 2019

First thing that comes to my mind is that the Perfecta and Geco may be European manufactured so there could be slight differences in the rim width/ extractor groove. The second is how many times they have been trimmed/prepped. Even with that they seem surprisingly relatively close for weight which really doesn't mean anything except taking into consideration of internal volume above when you reload them when using a near max starting charge.
I do not hand-load a ton of 223/556 but when I did it was always once fired from the same rifle till they wore out. LC was the manufacture and it was just enough to barely work the action.

Melnic · Dec 17, 2019

All this brass was reloaded 1-2 times. I have plenty of 223 and up until this year, did not shoot alot of it. I had snagged up lots of 223 back when ammo was expensive and it sat around in a big plastic bin. I was swaging primer pockets after the factory firing then labeling the ones from reloads so I would not need to swage. I found the Geco and Aguila really needed swaging. Some of the others did not expecially perfecta. None of my reloads are up high on the load ranges.

Doco Overboard · Dec 17, 2019

Because of the type of shooting I get myself primarily involved in I rarely ever approach maximum loads either. Some are close but not to the point I have to become overly concerned with internal volume of brass cases to its at the point it becomes a critical safety measure for a rifle.
I do however find significant difference in the methods used to control other aspects of shooting that are more important to me than I can always repeat with hand loading cartridges to the nth degree of absolute repetitiveness.
It is all very interesting to me though.

Brass Case weight

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