My mind is officially blown. I went to the outdoor range today and picked up all of the 9mm brass that I shot as well as a bunch of 9mm shells left by a previous shooter. I noticed that a lot of the shells left by others was silver (it looked like typical nickel-coated brass.)
When I got home I grabbed a magnet to double check the silver shells and sure enough they stuck ... they must have been steel after all. But then the unexpected happened: I put that magnet down into the bucket of range pickup to quickly pull all of the steel out. Out came A LOT of shells; silver and brass colored.
At first I thought that maybe the primers in the brass shells were the culprit. I decapped some of the brass shells and they still stuck to the magnet.
Not all of the brass cases were magnetic - it looks like only those with a "CC" head stamp are magnetic.
I went ahead and threw out all of the magnetic shells but my mind is blown. Have any of the other reloaders seen this? What is going on? Why would a manufacturer coat steel in brass??
When I got home I grabbed a magnet to double check the silver shells and sure enough they stuck ... they must have been steel after all. But then the unexpected happened: I put that magnet down into the bucket of range pickup to quickly pull all of the steel out. Out came A LOT of shells; silver and brass colored.
At first I thought that maybe the primers in the brass shells were the culprit. I decapped some of the brass shells and they still stuck to the magnet.
Not all of the brass cases were magnetic - it looks like only those with a "CC" head stamp are magnetic.
I went ahead and threw out all of the magnetic shells but my mind is blown. Have any of the other reloaders seen this? What is going on? Why would a manufacturer coat steel in brass??