45 ACP brass

[Blanco]

I recently acquired a substantial collection of 45 ACP brass.
I happened into this windfall a bit by accident. A fellow employee who I have been hunting with, purchased a used Dillon press from a gentleman who was no longer reloading. The story is, when my friend went to pick up the Dillon and was loading it up, the gentleman brought out several large boxes. He said" might as well take this too, I won't be needing it".
Each of the boxes contained on average 50lb's of 45 ACP brass. My friend knows that I shoot 45 and sent me an e-mail, he said that he only planned to reload 9mm and .40 S&W and was looking to trade off the 45 brass.
So I swapped him a 1# of Unique for 150 lb of brass. Great deal.... right?
Well there is always a good / bad / ugly in every deal.
Here is what my super sleuth detective powers have calculated.
The original owner was a competitive shooter. Most likely very avid shooter at one time. It appears he shot (most likely ) a Government model with an extra heavy firing pin spring. Most of the primers look like they were hit with small punch and almost pierced.
I would say the majority of the brass has been reloaded at least once, some of it multiple times. I have found several pieces that had stress cracks.
I have found some headstamps I have never seen before. One in particular is marked CZZ which seem to have a slightly small primer pocket? I do not think it is a crimp, but my Loadmaster crushes the primers on that brass on about 5 out of 10 ? my guess is it may be an oddball metric sized primer pocket ? I looked through some before de-priming them and on most the primer is bulged out ?
Now comes my most prolific issue.
The original owner must have also used a competition spring set. A good number of brass have a small ding in the face of the rim.
Nothing to really get excited about.
I use a Dillon drop in (headspace / chamber) gauge. The majority of what I have loaded up so far drops in and falls right back out, as it should. On about 1 in 10 the ding on the rim is just enough to prevent the rim from falling all the way into the gauge. On most very slight finger pressure will cause it to drop in. On a few the ding is big enough it won't fall in without removing a bit of brass burr.
My question for the seasoned reloaders is....
Since we are headspacing on the mouth of the case a small ding on the rim should not impede feeding, chambering or ejecting ?
I have not shot much of this ammunition as of yet but my Glock eats it without complaint.
Should this issue worry me ?
Is there a tool for trimming the OD of the rim on 45 ACP?

[hermans]

Blanco, you should not bee too worried about the state of you new found cases. I have some that you cannot even see the head stamp any more, maybe I have reloaded tham 40 times and more. Just load and shoot them. The 45 ACP is a very forgiving caliber when it comes to reloads. Just get your COAL so that it drops in nicely in the empty barrel and the rim flush with the hood of the barrel, and you should be good to go.

[Blanco]

Yeah I know 45 is pretty forgiving. I am just a bit obsessive compulsive with my reloading. I expect my rounds to look and work better than factory ammo.
I think my Glock will eat just about anything I put in it?
I have shot maybe 5~6 k rounds through it and have never had an issue with it. It is as, if not more accurate than my friends Gold Cup.

[skeet1]

Blanco,
As long as your .45 likes the brass why should you care? Shoot it and enjoy.

Ken

[Zymurgy50]

I have some CZZ brass that I acquired years ago, as I remember it was crimped military. At least it primed much easier after I swaged the pockets out. Still shooting it after many reloads.

I will spot you one pound of Unique for only one box,,,,, just sayin'

[wv109323]

Are you sure the headstamp is not TZZ instead of CZZ. TZZ is Israeli and is known to be a little harder than other brass. There was a military and a match grade. The military stuff probably has a crimp. Brass from a 1911 gets beat up by the extractor and the ejector on the rims. Springfield and Caspian use a smaller diameter firing pin than does Colt. The smaller pin weighs less and there is less inertia to pass the "drop test". The smaller pin also has a couple of other advantages. It indents the primer further and therefore should mean more reliable ignition.
If the brass was from a Bullseye shooter then it was never loaded very hot and should have a lot of life left in it. The Lee bulge buster should remove any burrs from the rim of the case.

[Wayne Smith]

Any recent reloading die should remove burrs from the exterior of the case. If you are loading lead a Lyman M die should remove any from the interior. I too have 45ACP cases where the head stamp is unreadable. As long as the base fits in my shell holder I'll reload it. If primers are hard to insert get the Lyman primer set, one for cleaning and one for cutting the interior the right size. I use mine in a drill motor, only takes a second to do a case and only needs to be done once.

[David2011]

The primers are probably not an oddball size. More likely it's that the pockets are crimped. You can shoot and reload .45ACP until it splits, if it ever does. Nothing bad will happen when it splits. I've had lots of .40 but only a few .45s split. The headstamp will be long ago obliterated when that happens.

David

[W.R.Buchanan]

Yes I'll add my .02 here. Your Windfall of cases should last you for the rest of your life. I had a similar windfall of .30-06 cases and the one 5 gallon bucket I was given contained 1400 once fired Federal cases used to function test rebuilt Garands. I have .30-06 cases for life and then some.

On the cases with the crimped in primers a quick touch with a countersink will fix them or you could use a primer pocket swager to fix them. I just got a Lee decapping punch and base from Midway for .30 cal and one for .223's. The .30 cal. base is the same size as a .308 or .30-06 and would work nicely for decapping your .45 acp cases that were really stubborn. I think they were $5 or $8 right now. One was on sale, don't remember which.

I would sort them as I was sizing/decapping them, that way they are segregated and then you'd deal with the tight primer pockets which ever way you chose.

Of all the pistol rounds available the .45 ACP is probably the most forgiving to reload. You should be pretty happy about this little gift.

Randy

[Combat Diver]

I also shoot lots of TZZ Israeli brass out of my 1911 and reload it in my Dillion 550B. Back in the mid 80s bought couple thousand rounds to the TZZ new in .50 cal cans (1000rds per can) Still have about 250 rds of it left and don't think I ever took the decrimper tool to a case.

CD

[ROGER4314]

Been loading .45acp since the late 60's and never had a problem chambering my reloads until recently. Like you, I use a cartridge gauge to check my reloads and the finished rounds began to hang up just before the rim seated in the gauge.

I use "zero bell" crimp. Simply put, I seat the bullet and only squeeze the case mouth enough to remove the "bell." I've always able to do that with the standard RCBS seating die. I got tired of fussing with it, so I bought Lee Taper Crimp dies for .45, 9x19 and .40 caliber for $12 each at Midway.

On the 4th hole in the Dillon RL550B, I install the taper crimp die and use the RCBS die only to seat the bullet in position 3. I rotate to position 4 and apply the taper crimp die on the cartridge. The finished rounds slip into my gauge like a comfortable old shoe, now!

I don't know why after decades of use, the rounds started coming out tight in the gauge. I CAN say that the Lee $12 taper crimp die solved the problem completely!

Flash