That's the kicker Wapiti. You can BUY .223 brass and reload many, many times. I honestly haven't counted but I know I'm beyond 5 reloads on most brass. Whereas you can typically pick up all the steel you can carry for free and reload typically a max of 4 times (sometimes 3). They size the same and crimp the same but the biggest difference I've found is every time I reload brass I have to trim but I've never trimmed a steel case even on the 4th reload so there is a time savings on the steel. But you do need to keep them dry or you'll end up with a box of rust. At this stage of the game for me the steel outnumbers the brass in .223 probably 5 to 1 at my bench simply because I can jump on the quad, run back to the range and come home with about 2000+ rnds which will net me about 1000rnds reloadable after sorting out damaged and berdan primed ones. All for about .75 in gas. Plus what is not reloadable heads to the dump rather than creating the trash dump in the forest.