I have jars and bags full of CBC, S&B, PMC, GFL, FED, WIN, REM, LAX, Blazer, Hornady and so on. All the other headstamps gets thrown in the mixed brass jar. Every time I sort brass, I find new headstamps I never heard of. I don't load them.
Red Army is one that gets pitched, only because it's Russian. I won't support their cause through sales or any other way. It does look like quality brass though; I have to admit.
GFL is good brass except for the flash hole being off center.
Aquila sucks, primer pockets are all over the place for tightness and crimps. They resize hard. When I shoot my last Aquila loads, they're going in the scrap bucket.
I load S&B brass, because it's a big seller around here so the brass I pick up is mostly once fired and I get a lot of it. It's a stiffer brass and has tight primer pockets.
I will only load one headstamp at a time anymore.
Loading mixed 9mm brass drove me nuts with each case feeling different going through my presses. Guess I'm to OCD about those things.
I was always stopping to see why this case resized so hard, (Oh, it's an S&B), why did that primer feel different from the rest, (S&B or Aguila) and the different lengths made it hard to set my crimp die the way I wanted it.
At least loading sorted brass, I know what to expect from each brand and the lengths are closer, so my crimps are more consistent.
We don't have any gun games around here, so I don't worry about picking up brass that was loaded for Major. The closest one is between 2-3 hr away.
Brass I pick up is all shot by the locals and it's pretty safe it's factory loaded brass because there's not a lot of reloaders around here.
My loaded rounds all pass my gage after their loaded, I found my gage's biggest enemy was my crimp die. I replaced the RCBS crimp die with a Lyman Professional micrometer crimp die I bought for half price and it's been great. My RCBS crimp die was always making very small brass dust on my shell plate.
My RCBS sizing die does a good job of taking care of the bulges for me because I never find them while gaging my finished rounds. I've found and tested guppy bellied brass and RCBS resizing die always get the belly ironed out. They are hard to use in a progressive though because they have such a small flare on them, I have to guide a lot of cases into it while loading.
I guess that's the tradeoff between it and a Dillon die with a large flare, that's easier to use, but doesn't get the bulge all out.
