Had to buy once-fired brass...

[HaveGun]

Spent a couple of hours in the reloading room evaluating my .40 S&W stash in anticipation of the new Glock arriving next week and discovered that I was light on brass. I only had around 500 cases of various headstamps that I had collected the past few years and reloaded a few times. Had around 100 fresh cases. Normally, that is fine. But with things getting crazy, I was not satisfied.

So I went online and searched for new brass. Could not find it anywhere. I did find some Hornady cases, but it got bad reviews. I've always used either Starline, Winchester, or Sig Sauer cases.

I found a company called Northwest Iowa Brass that had 1000 cases of once-fired brass for $40. They get great reviews for quality, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Anybody use them before? I don't like the idea of using range pickup brass due to me being OCD about reloading, but not sure I have much of a choice in today's climate. Supposedly, they have a pretty stringent system of sorting their brass to eliminate bad cases, so there's that.

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[Alexx1401]

Spent a couple of hours in the reloading room evaluating my .40 S&W stash in anticipation of the new Glock arriving next week and discovered that I was light on brass. I only had around 500 cases of various headstamps that I had collected the past few years and reloaded a few times. Had around 100 fresh cases. Normally, that is fine. But with things getting crazy, I was not satisfied.

So I went online and searched for new brass. Could not find it anywhere. I did find some Hornady cases, but it got bad reviews. I've always used either Starline, Winchester, or Sig Sauer cases.

I found a company called Northwest Iowa Brass that had 1000 cases of once-fired brass for $40. They get great reviews for quality, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Anybody use them before? I don't like the idea of using range pickup brass due to me being OCD about reloading, but not sure I have much of a choice in today's climate. Supposedly, they have a pretty stringent system of sorting their brass to eliminate bad cases, so there's that.

Since it was all you had only thing to do is just watch it carefully. Have had a couple cases blow out on Commercial reloads for .40. They were not bad or damaging. Did not even know until I went to pick up the brass. It is of course a rather high pressure round but as long as you are careful to watch the cases can't see why not. Assuming it's just for "fun" loads so no you can keep them on the low side? Until the latest panic is past just have to due what you can

 

[P7M13]

Never bought from them..
Please let us know what you think.
Have reloaded 40S&W since 2000, 1,000s of rounds. Never paid much attention to headstamp.
Typically when I pick up my brass, I'll snag a bunch that I didn't shoot. A lot of shooters are slobs and don't police their brass. When I first started out, I attempted to salvage as much brass as possible. Not any more.

The obvious ones are easy, damaged case mouths, splits, clear bulges, etc.
I sort all my pistol brass before tumble, separating calibers: 45, 44, 40/10, 357/38, 9×19, 9x18, 380. Several will get culled here.
Wet tumble. Inspection #2 & a few more are tossed.
Those that make it to the press are placed on my loading table, mouths up.
I inspect for thinning brass at the case mouth, case head bulge, wrong caliber, case too long (10mm), etc.
Don't know how to describe "thinning brass", but when you look at so many, you just *see* it.
I don't see much "Glock bulge" anymore.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Spent a couple of hours in the reloading room evaluating my .40 S&W stash in anticipation of the new Glock arriving next week and discovered that I was light on brass. I only had around 500 cases of various headstamps that I had collected the past few years and reloaded a few times. Had around 100 fresh cases. Normally, that is fine. But with things getting crazy, I was not satisfied.

So I went online and searched for new brass. Could not find it anywhere. I did find some Hornady cases, but it got bad reviews. I've always used either Starline, Winchester, or Sig Sauer cases.

I found a company called Northwest Iowa Brass that had 1000 cases of once-fired brass for $40. They get great reviews for quality, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Anybody use them before? I don't like the idea of using range pickup brass due to me being OCD about reloading, but not sure I have much of a choice in today's climate. Supposedly, they have a pretty stringent system of sorting their brass to eliminate bad cases, so there's that.

The main header of their website reads "Reconditioned once fired Rifle and Pistol brass for all your reloading needs."
And then elsewhere on their site..
"All our brass is sourced from shooting ranges, and as such once fired and reloaded casings are intermixed. There is no way to distinguish a once-fired round from one that has been reloaded."
These two statements do not go together as they are contradictory.

And also, bullcrap. Unremoved primer crimps are proof of only once fired brass so there's a lie. Also, in the old days and perhaps now, brass could be gotten from facilities that only fired factory ammo and assurances had actual weight.

Just say it's "reconditioned" brass, not once fired if it's not.

 

[Pepe-lepew]

For 40 S&W or other similar pistol cartridges, once fired doesn't matter much at all. They can be reloaded so many times with only resizing and the very very rare cracks are easy to spot.

 

[arrowshooter]

Did you try ammoseek.com? There is some Winchester listed there.

 

[Certaindeaf]

For 40 S&W or other similar pistol cartridges, once fired doesn't matter much at all. They can be reloaded so many times with only resizing and the very very rare cracks are easy to spot.

I agree. However, I don't agree that misrepresenting random range brass as once fired is honest in the least.

 

[Member 5605]

once, thrice, 10x fired... as long as these straight wall cases haven't been 'remanufactured' from something with Glock Smile they are good to go with a fully supporting barrel.

I have a ton of .40 brass.

 

[WillametteWill]

I think much of the "once fired" brass is sourced from ranges that do not allow reload so whatever is on the ground should be once fired. Do some reloads slip in there? Likely but not a hill to die on for me. But I also scrounge range brass from everywhere and load it up after inspection. Admittedly had a few with stretched primer pockets catch me off guard last month but that is the risk. Hope those work out well for you.

 

[Helocat]

"Once fired" is a marketing thing. The brass resellers all say the same thing, heck they throw in "indoor ranges" in there too but wash and clean the brass so who cares if it's inside or outside it was shot.

Note: The grab rush of used brass is slowing and the resale price of once-fired should start to slow, as brass becomes more available than primers. The brass resellers will start to have their stocks build up, prices will fall. Not quite there yet but it's coming. Sad when we are running stockmarket type analysis on reloading supplies.

 

[Grizzly_A]

Sad when we are running stockmarket type analysis on reloading supplies.

 

[CLT65]

I agree, once-fired is not so big of a deal for me, so long as I inspect the brass. I've inspected a lot of pistol brass lately. My son has been collecting and processing brass, and selling it. I've helped a lot with inspecting it, actually inspected most of it because I'm really trying to teach him the importance of attention to details. Anything questionable gets scrapped.

I even bought a Lee "Bulge Buster" die, but quickly came to the conclusion that anything bulged enough to be affected by the die would go in my scrap bucket anyhow. I'm pretty particular.

BTW, he has processed .40 brass for not much more than they're asking, and probably cheaper shipping, if you're interested. I could probably get him to sort some by brand for not much more.

 

[HaveGun]

Have reloaded 40S&W since 2000, 1,000s of rounds. Never paid much attention to headstamp.

Yeah, I'm one of those weirdos that really enjoys seeing what kind of bench accuracy I can get out of defensive pistols. Plus, I competed in GSSF indoor matches for a few years and looked for every advantage I could get, so I always sorted my headstamps and all runs of match loads had the same headstamps and run through a single-stage press for the highest possible consistency.

It's worked out well for me as I have gotten several 1" groups at 25 yards out of a couple of my Glock pistols.