RIFLE BRASS HARDNESS

PRACTICAL HANDLOADING

- Rick Jamison

A brass cartridge case holds and contains a primer, propellant and projectile in a durable near-waterproof, compact package. It aligns the bullet with the bore, provides a seal for high pressure gases when fired, acts as a heat sink to reduce the amount of heat transferred to the barrel steel, and then recovers after firing to permit easy extraction. The brass case is not only the basis for a round of factory ammunition; a fired one provides the ability to reconstruct another shot. A new component case lets the handloader assemble his own recipe from scratch without the expense, chamber throat erosion or time required to find, purchase and shoot a factory round. A brass case can be resized, reformed, blown out, work-hardened, annealed, shortened, reamed, trimmed, turned, chamfered, weighed, measured, sorted and polished.

With all the attention on new bullets and powders, the focus has gotten away from what is arguably the most critical component of a handload. The brass case offers so many opportunities for improving performance, it deserves attention.