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The cost and availability issues of buying factory fresh brass where I am mean that it is both easier and cheaper to buy bargain-price ammo and shoot it for the cartridge cases (and the practice). I'm not bothered if any particular brand I pick to do this doesn't shoot worth a damn when compared to the premium stuff (or my own handloads, if they turn out that good), but is there any brand of brass that anyone would advise me to steer clear of, or has had specific problems with in the past?

I also decided I'd better start picking range discards up and stashing it away. The first harvesting was fruitful, with a range of sporting ammo headstamps found. I also recognised what looked like military headstamps, but there was enough "civilian" brass to suit my needs that I could afford to leave the military stuff behind, and not enough of the military brass to justify buying a primer pocket reamer. Based on recommendations (or un-recommendations!!) above, I would be tempted to modify my "harvesting" habits, or at least assign priorities in terms of what got cleaned, resized, trimmed etc. first and what got put in the pile marked "Desperation".

Thanks all.

NOTE: All the ammo will be shot from a bolt-action repeater, so any factory ammo shot in my gun gets neck-sized and the rest goes through the full-length die once.