Are these cases reloadable?

[RobertH]

ok, so im trying to sell some of my brass casings for reloads. are these casings which are 7.62x39mm still reloadable? they are brass, Winchester cases, but they have these dents on the cases. are they still good or scrap? my Yugo AK made these dents after they bullets were fired.

these same dents are on all cases which are fired from my AK no matter if the bullet is steel or brass cased:




here is another pic, same cases:

[Dan W]

I am new to reloading bottle necked rifle cases but i would not try to use the top set.  The bottom ones might do in a pinch. Depends on how they look after sizing and gauging

[RobertH]

o i forgot to mention those are all the same casings.  ooops, my bad.

i heard people say they shallow dents are ok cuz it happens when the shell ejects from the AK.

[Randy]

Those look somewhat shaky run than through the resizing die and see how they come out.

Man glad my AR does not do that.

Good brass brand though.

[RobertH]

ya i sold like 1500 rounds (of various sizes) and had him look them over and they said they were ok.  he was not worried about reloading them.

[Mikee Loxxer]

As long as the cases have a single flash hole (boxer primed) they can be reloaded. The question is should they be? I have been told that if while dragging your thumb along the case your thumbnail gets caught in the dent then you should not use them. From what I can tell from these images I would err on the side of caution and not use them. Fabricate an ejection port buffer for your AK to prevent cases from being dented in the future.

Personally I have successfully reloaded 7.62X 39 cases that look like this. The resizing die will not remove these dents. Keep in mind that these dents can change the internal case volume which will affect pressures. Once you fire the reloads the dents will have been fire formed out. I suspect though that brass will be thinner in the area where the dent was/is. If you do decide to reload using them keep the powder charge on the mild side.

[00BUCK]

I know this is an old post but figured I'd share what I know.

First, those are very reloadable. The next time you fire them the dents will pop out and reform the casing inside the chamber. I would not be concerned as those dents are fairly minor.

Second, if you don't fix your rifle they will get dented again. The AR I built was doing this. I have a BMC MPI M16 BCG. The ejector spring (not the extractor spring) was way too stiff. I ordered a 3 pack of ejector springs from Brownell's  and trimmed one using this info http://www.gswagner.com/arejector/arejector.html
I did the first one exactly as the website said to do. I was getting 1 or 2 casings stuck in the ejector port out of every 30 round mag but the case denting was gone. I shortened another spring, this time not as much. My original cut took about 4 loops of the spring off. On this spring I removed just 2 loops. The result is about 800 rounds fired with no hang-ups in the ejection port and no more denting.