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I'm often the last one to the party. So I had to discover on my own that 10mm Auto brass made by PPU (Privi Partisan) can be trouble. Fortunately, I didn't have much of it, a handful of odds. I've since discovered this is a known problem. That is, the brass won't size down enough to take a new bullet and hold it. Some PPU 10mm may be okay. But try a few out first. You don't want to mess around with a bunch that turn out to be bad.

One guy did an experiment with annealing and could get them to size down. Which demonstrated what some people had thought and that was that the brass is on the hard side and once fired, it won't hold a new size when run through the sizing die. It's kinda difficult to anneal pistol brass, I'm not gonna do it. Besides, the heat applied during annealing gets awfully close to the head of the case.

Others have had problems with case head defects on 10mm PPU.

I've used several different PPU rifle cases without problems.
 
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Appreciate the heads up. I've never heard this before, but then again, I've never tried to reload PPU 10mm brass.
 
That is interesting, because I have never had a problem with PPU .357and .44 magnums. If the 10mm is a problem, I wonder about their .40 S&W. PPU has been around for a lot longer than any US manufacturer and I wonder if it was a bad batch of brass or unique to 10mm?
 
Ppu is the least expensive 10mm factory loaded ammo available, that I know of.

It's barely hotter than 40sw.

And yes, the brass is thin and weak.

I bought a case of their stuff back when I was shooting 10. Burnt through it with relative ease.

Went to reload it with hotter stuff.

Let's say I pulled a lot of bullets.
 
Doing a quick internet search, it seems to be that PPU makes good brass EXCEPT for 10mm. Most reloaders have had no issues with their other pistol and rifle brass and some rave about them. Many people are seeing cracks upon first firing of the 10mm. You would think that PPU would be aware of the problem by now and fixed it or stop making 10mm.
 
If the 10mm is a problem, I wonder about their .40 S&W. PPU has been around for a lot longer than any US manufacturer and I wonder if it was a bad batch of brass or unique to 10mm?

On one long online thread about this subject, a couple of guys did chime in and said they'd had issues with .40 S&W. But mostly it was about 10mm. Other pistol cartridges, no bad words in particular that I recall. One guy said he'd had issues with primer pocket stretch with .223 PPU cases. Which I've never experienced using same. But who knows what his load was.

Alternate manufacture recommendations for 10mm?

I've reloaded just about any brand that's come my way. First I must say that I don't load the 10mm near the upper end. Which helps to make cartridge brass last longer. PPU is the only one I've had trouble with to the point of scrapping them. The Federals I've loaded haven't had the tightest grip on the bullet but they were acceptable. I have no complaints about any others.

For years, 10mm Auto tended to be an expensive cartridge when bought off the shelf. Since the resurgence of 10mm, several foreign ammo makers have come out with less expensive ammo. S&B is one, they have pretty good brass at least in my experience. PPU is another, you've read about that above.

To put it more in context, the same thing has happened with .38 Super ammo. I also shoot .38 Super, have reloaded I don't know how many different brands of cases. Some of them foreign brands that have come on the market in competition with US brands. There is some variation in cases from one brand to the next. And whether the manufacturing yardstick is SAAMI or CIP, there is a bit of tolerance in manufacturing. Just like there is with some Remington handgun ammo. Reloaders use dies that are a compromise fit, meant to be able to be compatible with a majority of components. They won't always work with the odd this or that product. I've got three different sets of .38 Super dies of different brands and I've used them all for one brand or another of cases. So you can see that there is even a bit of variation in these.
 
Have never had issues with reloading PPU in .357, 9mm and .40, but have not tried 10mm since I only had a box or two (on a whim) and haven't tried to reload any of it. It shot fine, but seemed fairly weak for 10mm. Thank you for the heads up on this as I'd not heard about it.

I've loaded 10mm in pretty much every other manufacturer, albeit not at the rated powder maximums. S&B is cheap, but works for reloading, and it's probably what I've reloaded most. I've also gotten a decent amount of once-fired brass (of various calibers) from NE-Reloading. It's definitely mixed manufacturer, so not for everyone, but they ship cheap and get it out the door pretty quick.
 
I've had a few cases forming splits in the sidewalls of PPU brass after a one or two higher end 10mm loads. (180gr @1250-1300fps).

Never had an issue with it not having enough neck tension. That sounds like a new issue? How old were these posts about the PPU brass hardness? I was loading PPU 10mm brass from PPU lots purchased in 2017.
 

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