Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I have always tried to seperate my brass as there can be diferences in thickness in the brass.

Rad

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I have always seperated my rifle brass. I have never compared one brand to another the way you are. Mostly Rem. anyhow.
I only seperate my pistol brass by whether it is nickel or brass. Same load goes in both.

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"The great object is, that every man be armed."
- Patrick Henry

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the people's liberty teeth ...... firearms everywhere restrains evil interference. When firearms go, all goes..."
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Well, I am not going to be stupid enough to say it doesn't matter...but it all depends. If you are shooting a fine minute-of-angle target rifle, you will see an impact difference. Maybe a minute away. The largest difference will be between military and commercial cases, with less impact difference between different types of commercial cases. If you are shooting a standard rifle, whether it be a Garand, or Mauser, you may not even notice the difference.
I have found that impact difference is greater when different brand bullets are used though they are the same weight. So, if I plan to use the fodder in a target rifle, I try to match the cases and ammo, and try not to mix the same load made at different times. If I am shooting the old standard military rifle, I have not noticed a loss of accuracy due to the mixing of cases.

With rifle brass, I separate by brand. With target rifles, I try to keep segregated by number of times fired. With milsurps, I'm not too religious about X fired, but they tend to stay that way by themselves, as I fire in
batches.

Pete is right about plinker handgun loads; brass separation isn't all that important. Most reloading "experts" have noticed that in general, variations in components in handgun loads are less noticeable as to performance than rifle loads. I don't have any real target handguns per se, but some calibers are target-potential, like .44 Special, and certain loads of .38 Special, .357 mag & .44 mag. Even with these cartridges of greater accuracy potential, I never see much difference if I have two different makes of brass in the same box that I am shooting.

I have to add that with small, high-energy cartridges like 9mm P, case thickness can bring up issues with pressure. Since so many 9mm P loads use most are all available case capacity, thick brass reduces the capacity. WW and PMC tend to be on the thick side, and RP tends to be on the thin side, as examples. There is cautionary information out there that with 9mm P, reloaders need to be aware of the importance of charge vs. bullet seating depth with 9mm P. Having said that, I have never noticed any difference in accuracy from this issue. Then again, most 9mm P pistols tend to be sprayers, and this coupled with the nature of pistol shooting for most people, overwhelms the "mixed component" issue.

What I find interesting in the experiments that started this thread is that a different brand of rifle brass would print at 7 o-clock versus on vertical alignment with the other two brands. I have never made a comparison test like this; I would expect vertical variations in point of impact but off to the side makes one wonder.

I've run across left to right variations quite often. Again usually due to differences in bullet make. These show up at distances as short as 50 yds.
Probably barrel harmonics. If you look at the targets below that were posted in U.S.Military,"Krag to the range", you can see a left-right variation with a 7 grain bullet difference. Once I sighted in with the 180's, I kept that sight fix and fired the 173 grainers.

Yes, the 7 O'clock position isn't that far off center, but still not aligned vertically. Too bad we have "enquiring minds" and want to know why.

There really are issues with barrel harmonics. For a couple of years not long before their cessation of production in the US, USRA-made Winchester Model 70's came with a device fitted to the muzzle of the barrel that enabled the shooter to adjust for barrel resonance. Somebody told me that Browning has also made rifles with this feature. The buying public must not have cottoned to this idea; Winchester dropped it after a year or two. I suppose the average buyer of a Win. Model 70 buys it for hunting, shoots it six or eight shots per year, and he's not concerned too much about 1/2 minute deviations in POI so long as he can kill a deer.

I suppose target shooters wouldn't have much use for this feature either, since most of them determine the best load for their rifle and stick to it.