How do you keep track

[Pwc]

I have never seen this question addressed.  After you trim your brass, how do you keep track of those that are trimmed?

I am speaking primarily about bottlenick rifle cases.

Say in a lot of 50 there are 10 that need to be trimmed.  The other 40 are somewhere between min and max.  After you trim the 10, how do you mark them to keep track of the number of times they have been trimmed?  If you don't mark them, the next time you shoot that lot, there are 8 that need to be trimmed; maybe they are first time trim, maybe second time trim how do you know?

For myself, at each trim I use a small triangular swiss file to file a small "nick" in the case head rim for each time the case has been trimmed. During case prep I check the heads and after 5 "nicks" if it needs trim the case goes to the recycle can and the lot size decreases.

Five is an arbitrary number I established for myself and it works for me.

I am interested in anyone elses method.

[ArizonaGunOwners.com]

[anm2_man]

I've never thought about marking cases for which that have been trimmed vs Not.  I used to measure them after they were shot, but that became an impossible task.   In my case making sure all brass was NOT oversized which could cause issues later, I run them all thru my Dillon trimmer.  If they got trimmed, then the oversized problem is fixed, if they don't get trimmed, its no problem.  I do know the issues of case separations due to over stretching the brass.  That is why I limit the number of re-loads.   

However I do mark every round on the case head with nail polish.  1 mark is loaded once, 2 marks is loaded twice, etc.   I have found that the nail polish is quite durable during shooting and being run thru the corn cob/walnut cleaning process. 

[car-ram-rod]

For me primer pockets wear out before any case head separation

[PPD7800]

What Ram said.

As I shoot all the brass goes into its respective container marked X times fired until I shoot every piece of brass.
Then I start the reload process, de-cap and resize, then I start to measure the brass (about 10% of the lot) and if it is in spec, to the tumbler it goes, if one is out of spec all gets a run through the trimmer.

[Pwc]

This is beginning to look like a case of "I can't see the forest because of the trees".  As I said I have been doing this from the beginning of learning to reload.  Seems like as I gained experience and reviewed my process many times, I did not make the connection stated by anm2_man; run the lot thru the trimmer, and check for separation.  Keep track of the # of times the LOT has been trimmed and reloaded.

Thanks all  for your input

[straightshooter1]

I keep a 8x11 sheet of paper that has a set of check boxes (9 sets to a page) for each operation starting with the date each time the lot is processed.  The first set on the page includes operations that are typically only done once to the brass (e g. Neck turned Y/N, then thickness it's turned to; Uniform primer pocket Y/N; Uniform flash hole, etc).  Then check boxes for things like Annealed Y/N, Neck Trimmed Y/N (and record the trim length) Chamfer Y/N, Debur Y/N, FL Sized Y/N, Neck Sized Only Y/N, Tumbled Y/N, Primer Pocket Cleaned (Y/N), No. of Firings and a little place for notes regarding the brass.  And I really don't pay much attention to actual number of times they are trimmed, though all that kind of data is recorded right there on the sheet if you really want to check it out.

As I look at a sheet for a lot of my Federal .308 brass, I'm on the 8th firing and the primer pockets have been holding up (though they're not what anyone might consider "tight").    I've heard many accounts where people have said they can not get more than 3 or 4 firings and maybe 5 at best because federal brass is softer that most others.  So, I thought I'd see how far I could go before the primer pockets gave up.  I swag the pockets after every firing to see if there are any I may have to throw out, and so far 2 out of 150 have had to be thrown out. The paper record with the lot and its notes helps a lot in seeing what been done and what might be going on with the brass.

[armoredman]

I must be a slob - I have never tracked trimmed brass. I have been loading some of my 7.62x39mm brass so many times you have difficulty reading the head stamp through the ejector marks. On the other hand, 90% of my loads in that flavor are cast lead loads, not really going to beat the brass up that much.
In .223/5.56mm I usually lose it before I break it, but when I do the inspection before deprime/resize, I am pretty merciless about tossing stuff I even think is suspect, including running a bent wire down inside to see if it catches in a groove from stretching. Again, I don't load insane hot stuff, everything is pretty standard pressure/velocity.
I never even thought of keeping a log like that, but i had to teach myself how to reload, nobody anywhere around me knew anything about it.

[Pwc]

I taught myself how to reload 34 years ago too.  Glendale College actually had a copy of Sharpe's Handloading book, a large maroon colerd hardbound, and I checked it out many times until it was stolen.  Read everything I could, got the ABC's of Reloading and my Pacific press (1943) came with a Lyman #45 manual.  Incipent case head separation and resulting blow back worried me.  So I checked each case.

As time went on and I gained in experience, always reading / researching reloading, I just kept my original process.  I use a Lee hand trimmer (easy enough to do, but I have never automated that with a drill), and it trims to  2.484".  I do neck size for bolt and FL for the gas guns.  I've had some neck splits before I began to anneal, and some brass thinning caught at case prep inspection.  Not all bress 'grows' uniformly so I believe I will now trim by lot to make sure each case is the same size for uniformity and accuracy.  But, I think I will still use my marking process for those in the lot that do require trimming/watching against their inside case inspection.

I don't shoot thousands of rounds as many on this and other forums do, and not max loads either.  In their replies they say that the primer pockets fail before separation.  I shoot old mil surplus bolt and gas guns and have never had a primer pocket problem.  I wonder if that is indicative that most people now are shooting the AR style in different calibers? 

[car-ram-rod]

No that just means you may be oversizing if the neck fails Before the others

[anm2_man]

From what I can see.   We myself included , answer posts with out enough info.   Everybody that reloads, does it for a reason (Not counting saving $).

The OP stated that he wanted to know how everybody else  keeps track of "TRIMMED" cartridges.  He Said he used a file to nick the the case head to identify them.  I could never do that since 80% of the brass already got a nick in it from various different gun extractors.  Since he never stated that he was trying to keep this statistic for a bolt gun I along with most other responses (except for Josh) asked why.  I went further and stated I didn't care how many times I trimmed brass, but I cared about how many times it was reloaded.   Why, because  I care about case separations, because the more times I reload a piece a brass the better the chances it will happen. 

It was not what he wanted to hear.   Now if he stated that this was for a BOLT gun, I would of responded with "neck size only, then check the cartridge OAL, and trim if necessary and don't worry about how many times they have been trimmed".

Since I don't reload for a bolt gun (My reloading centers 100% on semi-auto and full-auto), of which require different reloading process needs.  For that I apologize for miss leading you Pwc.

However if you want to keep track of how many times a given cartridge has been reloaded/or trimmed, the nail polish method works good and makes no difference on what type of gun your shooting the reloaded ammo out of.   Beyond that its also CHEAP (every dollar store has it for $1.00), however you may get some of those WTF looks at the register !

Everybody have a great weekend its close.

[car-ram-rod]

https://mkmachining.com/product/standard-rifle-brass-marker/

[steve2md]

I only track how many times I load ammo for bolt guns. When I trim for those, I do it as a batch, in 20 round batches. Same with reloading them. I only full length size those when extraction or loading becomes stiff.

All other ammo gets trimmed to uniform length at every loading. Pistol ammo is reloaded until it splits at the mouth, but is usually lost and replaced before that. AR ammo is loaded until primer pockets get loose or they get a ding I don't want to deal with in them.

[ArizonaGunOwners.com]