So I have some "Top Brass" that I pulled out last night and started processing. I got it during when it was about the only thing I could find. After just putting it through the works and seeing the small somewhat hard dings in a lot of it I have to ask myself is it even worth the initial fire forming. I'm really on the fence about this stuff. Cause it may take 2 firings to really get some of the dings out. Some are really close at the shoulder or on the shoulder. It's all 308 win brass. I thought about finishing processing it all and just put it on the shelf for a really rainy day if needed. I kind of think in todays times with powder, primers, and bullets, being not as available and time and cost, when especially trying to make items as consistent as possible for longer ranges my gut is telling its not worth the trouble. You can put your best suit on a turd but it still stinks. What are some of y'all's thoughts? I can get some better brass pretty easy now it seem like Scheels carries a few good brands. I think Hornady would even be much better.
I was also going to test out some neck mandrels on it and see if I could get some more consistent velocity's out of the stuff. I think I did about 150 cases last night. Annealing, sizing, trimming, deburring, debutring the primer pockets, cleaning the primer pockets, and a corn cob tumble I have a few hours in it now. Maybe I'll load up some of the worse ones and see if it straightens them out. I think the first 50 I did were ok but the next 150 had a mix of some decent dings in them. Probably just need to get me a deburring station instead of doing this all by hand. Hands get to cramping after a while.
hey, not to ruin your mood, but Top Brass is military machine gun ammo. It's all jacked up, dented, dinged and not perfect brass. I actually do rather well with the .308 (7.62x51mm) brass. Of course I was in the military and a lot of the brass most likely came from DRMO. You can't take it home from basic, you aren't allowed to take brass off the range. It's decent brass and will work for hunting and even long range. Just sort it by head stamp. Process it and fire form it. If you wanted better match brass, you pay more. I still use the same brass to shoot 1,000 yards with. I only shoot 175's through my M40A5. The new sniper ammo that took over Lake City is now Federal, called AB39 / Mk-319 ammo. Federal won the contract. No more M-118 brass. Just my 2 cents….i retired from the military 15 Apr 2015.
