Do you track & keep your pistol cases in batches?

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I was wondering what shooters do here in regards to reloading and tracking brass. Do you tend to keep your brass in batches, and then when some start showing signs of wear, throw the lot out, or do you just mix everything together, and throw out individual cases when they begin to age?

(And if the former - how do you go about keeping your brass in batches. Do you mark them, or just always keep them separate and do more tumbles for different batches, etc)?

I was thinking of keeping them in batches of 100's, but then realised that these would get mixed up when shooting WA1500 after picking them up after the event. Keeping them in batches of 200's - there would be 50 not shot. I can see with spares not shot, etc that it all started to get complicated and was wondering if it was worth while, or if there's a method to make it easier?

[GyroF-16]

Well, I'm pretty new to reloading (less than a year), but here's what I do:
After a shooting session (typically 150 rds), I pick up that brass and put it in a ziplock bag. Then with a Sharpie, I'll write "3x fired" or whatever's appropriate on the bag. When I have enough 3x or whatever brass, (like 400-500) I'll clean it all in one batch. Then I goes into a gallon ziplock labled "3x fired, cleaned". Then when I reload it, I'll put a "4" on the ammo box, so I'll know what to write on the next ziplock when I pick up the brass. I have a couple of thousand of brass, so I don't have any with more than 4-5 firings yet. I figure when I get to 10 firings, I'll dispose of it (this is .40 S&W).
I also sort brass by manufacturer (all Speer together, Federal, Winchester, etc) and reload and shoot them as a batch. I can't really articulate a good reason for this, other than a bit of OCD on my part, I guess. I have found that primer seating in "lower quality" ammo brass (like S&B), is significantly more difficult, so I've been avoiding it.

Hope that helps.
I'll be interested to hear if others have different methods that I can adopt.

Gyro

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Thanks for the idea Gyro..

I mostly load 9mm and 38 specials... not sure if it's worth tracking them or not, but the idea of combining them into x shots fired so they can get mixed up provided they're with others of the same 'age' sounds sensible and achievable. (Except I may need to buy more brass )

[MGW]

I'm not shooting high enough pressures to worry about it (9mm or .45). I get a lot of once fired brass from various sources. I keep it separate from my range brass and use it for matches. After the match I mix it in with my range brass. Enough range brass gets lost or left at places that I can't pick up brass that it doesn't get reloaded tons of times.

They only cases I've ever had issues with is nickel plated so I just don't reload nickel plated anymore.

Edit to add if your talking rifle brass then that's something outside my experience.

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[ranger]

I have been reloading for decades. Now I reload about 90% 9mm, 5% 45, and 5% 40. I just pick up brass at the range, tumble, and load. I throw away any 9mm brass that looks like it may have been loaded to "9mm Major" plus any "glocked" 40 brass (early G22s tended to not support case and led to bulges). Biggest issue with 45 bras is the "new" small primer brass - I separate those in a separate container until I get enough to change the primer system from large to small.

When I shot USPSA OPEN with 38 Super and 9x21 Major I watched brass closer.

[Welder]

I don't separate brass by how many times fired, because most of my brass comes from IDPA matches and was already reloaded ?x by somebody else. Kinda gets passed around if you know what I mean.

What I do do, and I doubt anyone else does it, is to deprime each case by hand with a Lee Hand Press while watching TV or whatever. Any loose primer pockets (almost always FC) go to a stash for use at lost-brass matches, and any really loose primer pockets go to a brass scrap bucket. At the same time I sort out WCC, CBC, and S&B brass which goes into its own stash which I might reload if the end of days comes and I start feeling like dealing with tight / crimped primer pockets.

Also I sort out any brass by Freedom Munitions (FM and....IMT????) which has that infernal internal step, and it goes straight into the brass recycle bucket.

So what I end up with is PMC, FC, Winchester, R-P, Speer, etc brass that doesn't have headaches associated with using it. I care much less about how many times fired.

[BehindBlueI's]

I reload a multitude of various pistol calibers. If the brass cracks, crumples, or is visibly damaged I chuck it in the trash. If it looks ok, it goes into a bin labeled (caliber - dirty) and is then tumbled when there's enough to bother with. It then goes in a bin labeled (caliber - clean) and that's that.

[dbateman]

For pistol ammo I buy brass in a fairly large lot and just load it all. Then I shoot it all and load the whole lot again.
I don't really track the number of firings, I did at one point but these days I'm not to concerned about the number of firings on my cases.

I know it's time for new brass when I see a few cases start to split, sometimes I just throw my old brass out, other times I load it and use it for some type of shooting where I won't be picking up my brass.

[Clusterfrack]

Nope. For 9mm it's just not necessary. I find a split case now and then, but no big deal.

[andre3k]

Once you start dealing in bulk amounts of brass, its pretty time consuming to keep up with how many times its been fired. I keep try to keep a five gallon bucket filled with prepped brass for all the pistol calibers I load for. Bad brass is caught during QC after I'm done loading or whenever I happen see a bad case.