OLD brass.
 

Well dad managed to pick me up somewhere around 400+ pieces of old 38 special brass from a guy who bought it from an estate out of an old desk. Some of the brass have newer handstamps, but some of it has headstamps from 58, 66, 67, etc. I am culling as I deprime and clean and have only had to toss a dozen or so pieces so far (not bad for $15 for the brass) BUT I have a question. Some of the brass has what almost looks like surface corrosion, but it is red instead of green. On most of the pieces a quick twist or two with very fine steel wool and it takes it off of the surface, but it leaves a stain in the brass that concerns me, IE I am concerened about a deeper non-evident damage. Anything that even appears to be thin, flimsy, or cracking goes in the toss box, but what about the pieces that have these stains still but look solid?

Oh as for the previous previous owners handloads his boxes all listed 3 grains of bullseye with a 148gr bbwc hand written on old Western cartridge boxes Yes alot of this is old western brass. Some of it is newer winchester, starline, etc. Some of the headstamps I don't even know like R A 5 8 (I am assuming some company 1958) or C O 6 7 (Again assuming some company 1967).

Thanks

GoodOlBoy

I got a bunch of .38 special brass from a guy several years ago that his dad had.....some of it from the 50's as well. Some of it was corroded, and I did the same as you (discard the heavily corroded stuff). I reloaded it all, and all I can tell you is some of the stuff is so brittle that the cases split when fired....no stains or corrosion, ect. Some with the stains have been fired a couple of times without incident.
Take from my experience what you will..............

I kinda figured that was what I was looking at. So far so good and if I can come out of it with a hundred or so good peices after first firing (which I think I probably will) I will be satisfied.

GoodOlBoy

Headstamps
 

RA 58 is of course Remington Arms 1958 CO I don't remember maybe Ogden... Good grief GOB..I have new brass I sell for 8 bucks a box. Yep..I also have lots of old 30-06 military brass from as far back as the 40's. But when I start loadin I do as new as I can..38 isn't so bad..but if you do High intensity stuff go with as new as you can get. Even the 45 Colt I have is once fired stuff. Cowboy stuff in fact. Onea these days I might even load some of it again..

Guess I've been lucky...only corroded brass I've ever had was stuff I left in ammo carriers for hunting or on war belts....(remember when they made em outta leather). I pulled rounds and tossed em. Old brass......I've got NM rifle stuff from the late sixty's that I'm still loading...no problems.Course, ya gotta remembr I'm kinda new to this reloading stuff.
Dan
:cool:

GOB. That "redish" brass sounds like stuff that has been sitting out in the sun and has oxidized. Should be a deep reddish brown in color. Stuff loads and shoots just fine. The only thing I know of that will remove the oxidation is Worcestershire sauce. :eek: Soak some 0000 steel wool with the W/S and twirl the brass with the four O betwen your soon to be sore fingers and you'll have sone pretty in pink brass. I did that with some 30-06 brass and it came out pink. :confused: Shot just fine though. It's that green stuff, verdigis that can end up eating holes in brass.

Mr. 16 Gauge. I hear you on some brittle brass. I once bought two boxed (100 rounds) of Federal brand target ammo to compare against my home cast target wadcutter loads. Almost 50 percent split lengthwise and accuracy sucked big time. :eek: That's with brand new factory ammo.:mad: That stuff was expensive.
Paul B.

GOB,

It sounds like you have brass cartridge cases, right? I prefer nickel cases for all the corrosion cases you tossed. The dated stuff, "58 and 65" indicates military brass and may have crimped primers.

Will you be travelling to PA anytime soon? If not, send me a PM with your mailing address. How many cases do you need/want?

Adam

When cleaning out my loading cabinet a while back I found 10 .30-30 rounds I had loaded back in the 70s. They were made up with Reloader-11 powder which you can no longer get. I figured I'd just shoot them to recover the cases. When I did, about 6-7 out of the 10 rounds resulted in case splits. I wondered at the time if the cases were too old and/or work-hardened. Obviously I tossed the remaining cases. All were Remington cases.
:eek:

yeah I aint wanting to bet how many I lose during resize. :p

GoodOlBoy

Clean the cases well and then anneal them..probably won't crack then..

and what would you recommend for annealing. I see so many variations and everybody claims theirs is the only one that works and nobody elses does. . . .

GoodOlBoy

Uhhh Well the 2 ways I have annealed is as follows..Stand in water..heat the neck(propane torch) and tip over..or if doing Rifle brass..use a lead pot..dip the necks in the melted lead 4 or 5 seconds. Dump in water.. If done right you will see the color change in the brass at the neck area..

I will hafta give that a shot (the torch method that is)

GoodOlBoy

I've used the torch method on rifle brass, with good results. With the torch method, do it in dim light, and as soon as you see color change, tip the cases into the water.
Skeet's right about it being a good way to salvage old brass- I used the torch method on some obsolete brass for a friend- from the late 1920's or early 1930's- worked like a charm.

If the splits were at the neck, that's called "season cracking". Either the brass was improperly annlealed from the factory or as you guessed, work hardened. A simple anneal before loading them propbably would have prevented that.
Here's a real tear jerker for you. I like to load my ammo in fairly large lots. I spemt the time loading up some .308s a few years back with my pet load. About a year later, I go to the range and accuracy just did not exist, WTF? When I looked at the brass that gave the flyers the necks had spit. When I got home, I inspected some of the unfired ammo from that lot of 500 round and over 300 had split necks. :eek: Salvage time on a grand scale. I could pull the bullet from the split neck brass with my fingers and I used a bullet puller to break the rest down. After repriming the now empty brass, the bad brass went into the scrap bucket destined for the recyclers and the ones with the still so far good necks were annealed. So far, they're still going strong. Now all that extra work in not the real tear jerker part. The fact that the brass was new unfired factory brass is. :eek::mad: I guess sometimes stuff just happens. :(
Paul B.