I'm soon to begin as I've collected most of the requirements. I was reading about the 30 Super Carry in American Rifleman and it dawned on me that I have Federal brass in my bucket of once fired 9. I hear Federal rifle brass is soft and not the best for reloading. What about their pistol brass? And not to single out Federal, are other manufacturers in question? My plan was to inspect cases before loading and load all the same regardless of headstamp. Should I pay attention to headstamp, or just discard bad cases and keep on rolling?

This is what I do, when I load my personal 40 cal. I just don't load the max charge.

The only 9mm I've found that isn't suitable for repeated loadings is stepped brass. You can end up with a case separation, not in a dangerous way, but one that leaves a ring of brass in the chamber and renders the gun inoperable. Everything else gets reloaded until the case cracks. I normally lose brass before that point and replenish it with random range pickups.

I throw everything in the tumbler after sorting out the steel and FM headstamp brass( Freedom Munitions stepped brass ). Once cleaned I inspect for cracks and Berdan primers, and occasionally find some crimped primers that I throw aside until I get a bunch to process. It all goes into the bin on the Dillon after that.

As other have said, I lose enough and add enough range pickup that it all evens out.

Glad I asked, I was unaware of stepped brass prior to today and will be on the lookout. Thanks all.

Nothing wrong with Federal brass.

Stepped brass is a slight misnomer. The Brass is a 2 piece design with an insert that is supposed to strengthen the case head. I believe its steel. You could probably run the loads hot ( once ) and not get case head ruptures with unsupported chambers. ( Not Glock bashing here but if the shoe fits... ) Added benefit is that it would prevent bullet setback that could significantly increase pressures and lead to case ruptures. The downside is the case volume is less than a "standard Case" and therefore the pressure will increase for the same powder charge used in other cases. You would have to load them separately.

I think the steel insert is hard with little spring back. I think when the cases get sized you iron out the sides and a thin ring at the top of the insert forms of thin brass. As in the picture above, it will separate eventually.

Amusingly, after a range session I found I had swept up 49 pieces. Had to double inspect all the brass a second time. Still only had 49 and they were immediately thrown in the trash.

I have attached a better picture. These were SS pin cleaned so I could get a good picture.

Just look for cracked cases. I don’t know how many thousands of 9mms I’ve loaded and shot, but I can’trecall any one head stamp causing problems.

For max loads/carry ammo I try to find some once fired stuff.