Just IMHO, but -----------------------------------
For just general banging, I don't worry about mixed brass for the handguns.
And for reduced "banger" loads on the rifles, no big thing, but if you are dealing with loads of normal hunting pressures, you had better pay attention to keeping the brass sorted by brand AND LOT #!!!!!
For example, I was once working up loads for a son's 30/06, using his supply of Remington brass.
Well, in the series of tests I wanted to run, I was short on cases.
So I went to the brass box, rumaged through until I found a bunch of Rem. 06 brass and then just to make things as equal as possible sorted them out to the same head stamp style as the brass my son had.
Now, if you have loaded for awhile, you should have noted that head stamp styles do change at times.
I trimmed the "odd" cases to proper trim length and added them to the cases to be used for the test series.
I did keep track of which cases were which for some reason, and those cases were in the two groups loaded at the higher pressure levels.
When those groups were fired, it was clear something was wrong. The odd cases showed pressure and threw those shots out of the groups.
One case which I still have years later, using it as a show and tell example, has a primer which looks like it was rivited into the primer pocket, the case head shows where the brass flowed into the ejector hole and the case streached - in one shot - beyond the " to be trimmed length" Remember, the case was trimmed to proper trim length before loading this test load.
Plus, the case shows the the typical ring of an about to "head seperate" case.
There were no fliers and/or pressure signs with any of the shots - at those higher pressures, shot with the cases from the original batch of cases! Only with the 2 or 3 "odd" cases in each of those last two, 5 shot groups
The point is, like brand and head type styles are not enough in some cases.
Clearly this odd group of Remington cases were MUCH thicker walled then the rest of our cases and thereby created VERY HIGH pressures.
If I would have weighed the cases, I could have used that as an indication, but that was years before my digital scale.
So again the Point is, For typical hunting loads, keep the brass separated by brand, times fired AND lot numbers.
If you buy brass, buy in quanities making sure as far as possibly that the lot numbers are the same.
The more the better, and if using brass from boxes of 20, be aware of the possible manufacturing differences from lot to lot.
Keep em coming!
CDOC
