New brass

[hotrod_361]

Quick question about to reload new brass should I run it thru the resizing die first. Thanks

[Unclenick]

Some do, some don't. Personally, I don't do that unless I see proof the brass needs it because as the act adds a cycle of work-hardening to the neck. Normally new brass is exactly as it would be when a manufacturer loads new ammo using it, so there is no theoretical necessity to do it. Indeed, it used to be much more common than now for manufacturers to sell factory-primed new brass, and there was obviously no expectation that would be run through a sizing die.

The only real caveat is that you usually find some dented necks in new brass. I have one of the Sinclair die bodies that holds neck turning mandrels, and I take an undersized mandrel and just run the case over that to remove dents. You can also remove the decapping pin from a die and run the mouth in just far enough to go over the expander to round the neck out.

[std7mag]

Yes.

You'd be surprised how much that first pass sizes.

[hounddawg]

magic 8 ball says maybe/maybe not. I have been breaking in some Peterson .260 brass. Did base to ogive measurements on 25 and all were plus or minus .001 and well within SAMMI specs so I just loaded and shot them. Shot a 97% 60 shot aggregate today using some straight from the box

[Zen Archery]

Norma, Lapua - No
Hornady, Nosler - The ones with jacked up necks, Yes.

[RC20]

Lapua No. PPU no.

The lonely thing I do is Lyman M die now if the necks are dented.

I do trim as the Tri Timmer (or equal) gives it a nice lip and some I have found are pushing the length limits, it gets em all to ground zero.

[44 AMP]

Once upon a time, new brass came in a box. Often the exact same box, other than labels/marking that loaded ammo came in. Boxes with individual partitions for each case.

Today, everything seems to come in a bag, or loose in a box. Cases can gt dinged and case mouths bent from shipping and handling. I've found bent case mouths most often in large caliber rifle cases. .45-70 and .458 Win Mag are the two I load, and its common to find at least one, and sometimes several bent case mouths in new bagged brass in these calibers. The cases are large and heavy and the mouths are (comparatively) thin.

I do run virgin brass through my sizer, it ensures uniformity, and proper neck tension. If ONE pass through the sizer takes off too much of the case life to make you happy, I suggest you take a good look at what makes you happy.

[Nathan]

I would run it through a case gauge and see how it fits.

[hounddawg]

Once upon a time, new brass came in a box. Often the exact same box, other than labels/marking that loaded ammo came in. Boxes with individual partitions for each case.

Peterson and Alpha brass both come in plastic ammo boxes with individual dividers just like you buy at the reloading shop. Both are American made match quality brass and Peterson even includes a little handwritten thank you note in the plastic ammo box

[jamaica]

Yes, lube, size and prime just like you would loading any others.

[T. O'Heir]

BNIB brass is not ready to load. It needs to be checked for length(usually ok though and doesn't need trimming.), FL sized and the mouths of rifle brass need to be chamfered as a minimum. Even over priced Lapua and Prvi.
"...exactly as it would be when a manufacturer loads new ammo..." And it gets FL sized.

[gwpercle]

I always resize , but you don't have to . It's just good practice and helps with consistency.
Gary

[Unclenick]

Originally Posted by T. O'Heir

BNIB brass is not ready to load. It needs to be checked for length(usually ok though and doesn't need trimming.), FL sized and the mouths of rifle brass need to be chamfered as a minimum. Even over priced Lapua and Prvi.
"...exactly as it would be when a manufacturer loads new ammo..." And it gets FL sized.

Now you're just making things up. If you had ever actually seen NIB Lapua brass, you would know it comes chamfered by the factory. If you had ever bothered to look it up, you would know Prvi is an economy brand from a former Soviet Bloc country (Serbia) whose component brass is typically less expensive than Federal, Winchester, Remington, or other domestic brands. If you think a high volume manufacturer of new brass final sizes it twice, then you may believe they run all their finished bullets through an additional sizing step before using them, too.

Nobody in mass manufacturing wants to pay for duplication of effort. High volume manufacturers are not using reloading type equipment so there is no resizing step built in. The brass comes to the loading machine with forming lube already washed off of and, unless an annealing stain is being left, it is already polished and they have no motivation to repeat lubricating and sizing and cleaning and have extra tooling to wear out and extra process costs.

I prefer measurements to speculation. I happen to have collected a lot of new bulk brass in .308 Winchester from different sources for different experiments. Some are just small samples of 25 or so, while some are 1000's. I went to the cellar and measured samples against a Clymer .308 GO gauge of new and never loaded or fired brass from Starline, IMI, LC, Winchester, Remington, Hornady, Federal, Sig Sauer, Norma, and Lapua. None exceeded SAAMI maximum case length of 2.015". None exceeded the SAAMI maximum head-to-shoulder datum maximum dimension of 1.634". All but one brand had that dimension shorter than SAAMI minimum chamber length of 1.630" by one to five thousandths (and yes, that minimum chamber is shorter than the maximum case dimension because SAAMI allows that there is room in a minimum chamber for a case to expand under closing force from the bolt, though that is not something I would use with a self-loader). Only the Hornady Match brass was longer, with maximum values of 1.632".

So what you have is brass that is just fine to load and fire as-is. Glen Zediker reported in his book, Handloading for Competition, that he loads and shoots Winchester .223 factory-primed brass on the brass's first pass. Can you shorten brass more with a resizing die? Yes. Brass has spring-back, though, so those dies are made to over-resize a little to allow for that. But when the case isn't fireformed to begin with, that just makes it even smaller and looser in the chamber and it works the brass unnecessarily. It is better, in that instance, to just handle mouth dents by one of the methods already described. You can chamfer if you want to. Most factories don't do it, but they do make sure the trim saw marks are burnished by tumbling.

So, when would you want to resize new brass? The Hornady Match brass I measured would be an example of an occasion for sizing smaller if you were running it in a self-loader, but it will still function in a bolt gun, and until all your brass has been fireformed once in your chamber, using a sizing die will not uniform it very well.

The bottom line here is to measure what you've got and decide for yourself if you want it even smaller or just want to fireform it before you start messing with it. Personally, I go for the latter. If I don't think I can trust the new brass in a match due to variation, it gets loaded for practice or plinking on the first pass.