45 Auto Rim

[MikeS]

Hi All.

I have a Smith & Wesson 22-4 (new 2007 'vintage' model of 1950) chambered in 45ACP. I have 100 Auto Rim cases that I loaded with the 452423 boolits and 4.2gr of 700X. When shooting ACP cases with full moon clips I've never had any problems, but when I shot the auto rim cases out of 100 I had 7 of them split from the neck 3/4 of the way down the case. This was with Starline brass on their FIRST firing! Does anyone have any ideas on why this happened?

[theperfessor]

Mike, I use Starline .45 AR brass in my 625, no problems so far. Don't know what pressure your load generates, but if it's OK w/ACP then it would seem like it would be fine in AR. Maybe some bad brass? Might want to contact Starline, in my limited contact with them they seemed to be very helpful.

[curator]

Mike,

Contact Starline. I don't know if there is much they can or will do for you but a 7% failure rate on the first firing should be brought to their attention. If you can give them a "batch number" that might really help. I often buy Starline brass and expect one or two splits out of a hundred on fireforming first loads. You might just have a statistical anomaly.

[TheBigBang]

Yeah, you may well have a bad lot of brass there, if so, Starline SHOULD make it right. I use Starline myself, but have not used it in .45 AR. One thing - you might check your die adjustment, I'm assuming you're using the very same dies you used to load the ACP cases with the same bullet/powder. Did you just use them "as set", so to speak, for the AR loads? Starline tends to be on the thicker side of the various brands anyway & you *MIGHT* be belling/taper crimping it a bit more than is good for it. Probably not, but worth a quick check.

[Shiloh]

Hi All.

I have a Smith & Wesson 22-4 (new 2007 'vintage' model of 1950) chambered in 45ACP. I have 100 Auto Rim cases that I loaded with the 452423 boolits and 4.2gr of 700X. When shooting ACP cases with full moon clips I've never had any problems, but when I shot the auto rim cases out of 100 I had 7 of them split from the neck 3/4 of the way down the case. This was with Starline brass on their FIRST firing! Does anyone have any ideas on why this happened?

I wouldn't hazard a guess.
Never had an issue with starline brass. never an issue with the moon clips either.
I can't think of a scenario that would cause that. Same load for auto-rim as the ACP correct??

Shiloh

[runfiverun]

they show the same.
i use the same loads in mine so far.
will try some heavier booits in the ar cases sometime in the future.
the only thing i can think of is the chambers are allowing the case to "blow out'/expand enough to split.
i'd measure stuff.
it could be a thin area in the brass that's being exploited.

[williamwaco]

I vote for bad brass.

Even if your cylinders were severely oversize they should not have split.

I have six Remington .44 mag cases that were fired in a Ruger .45 Colt They are severely bulged but none of them split.

Oh by the way, they were loaded around 1972. and fired in 2012.




.

[Ben]

Yep, that is some bad brass.

Call them.

[wv109323]

How long have you had the brass loaded?
Virgin brass can stress crack when fired if the virgin brass has set multiple years.
Brass than has not been annealed( by firing) will crack due to the stress of loading a bullet in it and letting it set.
I have had it happen on .222 Remington and .38 Super.

[Freischütz]

I too vote for bad brass. I've shot about 10K rounds through my 22-4 and never noticed any difference in case life between ACP and AR cases. Roll crimping reduces case life, but not to one firing.

[MikeS]

To answer a few questions, I loaded them a few months ago, and bought them from Midway, so have no clue what the batch number is. I'm in the process of reloading the remaining cases now. I've loaded 50 of them with 454424's and 5.1gr of Bullseye, and the remaining cases I'm loading with Accurate Mold's 45-300B and 7.5gr of 2400 (in the past I've loaded these boolits in 45ACP cases with 7.4gr of blue dot which seemed to be well within pressure limits, so I think 7.5 of 2400 should be as well). If it was just a matter of a few bad cases, then I shouldn't have any further problems. If some more of these cases split, then I'll contact Starline.

[runfiverun]

i'd be a bit leery of the 454 load.
i'd be a bit more inclined to use 5grs of unique and not bullseye.

[beagle]

I had a similar problem with the AR about 10 years ago. These were new WW cases from Midway. The loads I was using were not hot but I sure had a lot of case splits.

Just a thought. RCBS at one time made .45 AR dies as I had achance at a set and passed on them. Now, I know a .45 is a.45 but I wonder if ther's a subtle difference between dies for sizing the AR case versus the ACP even though they can be fired in a revolver with suspposedly the same chambering.

Might be something to check out as RCBS sure wouldn't have made AR dies for no reason. Maybe we've been oversizing./beagle

[MikeS]

I wonder if the reason they made separate AR dies was to have a roll crimper in the seating die rather than a die that taper crimps? I have 2 different sets of 45ACP dies, a Lyman set, and a Lee set which says it's for 45ACP & AR. The Lyman set only taper crimps, but the Lee set will do a nice roll crimp. I always crimp as a separate operation, and have a separate taper crimp die (I forget, but I think it's a Hornady die). When I load the AR I use a mixture of dies, I use the Lyman sizing die, then expand the neck with a Lyman powder thru expanding die (I forget the offical name, it comes as a set with the die body, and expanders for many pistol calibers, and a powder measure can screw into the top of it), then I seat the boolits with an RCBS 45 Colt seating die (it has a flat seater for SWC boolits), then I roll crimp using the Lee seating die with the seater totally removed from the die. This setup seems to work ok for me. If I get more split cases the next time I shoot them, I'll try resizing them with a 45 Colt resizing die, rather than the 45ACP resizing die, I measured them once, and the RCBS 45 Colt sizer is a few thousands larger (I don't recall the exact difference) than the Lyman 45ACP die.

[TheBigBang]

MikeS,

The "official" name of that Lyman die is "Multi-Expand Powder Charge Die". It's a very nice, useful piece of equipment, opens the case up nicely for a good way down instead of just "belling" the mouth a bit. I wonder, did you notice any marked increase in "resistance" from the press handle when expanding or crimping the AR cases vs. the ACP cases you were using previously?

[MtGun44]

Brass is too hard, faulty manufacturing process. Starline is high quality company, probably
would like to examine a sample and I'd GUESS that maybe they'd replace them.

Bill

[MikeS]

One thing I did notice is that I think the AR brass isn't as thick as ACP brass. When loading .452 sized boolits normally there's a slight bulge in the cases where the boolit is. When I was loading the AR cases, sized in the same sizing die I always use there wasn't a bulge, but I didn't really notice that fact until I loaded some ACP cases with the exact same load I was loading in the AR cases. I wonder if the AR cases are made thinner because they're not expecting them to be loaded with as heavy a loading as their ACP brass is. As I understand it, the Starline 45ACP brass is the same as their +P brass, just without the +P on the headstamp, maybe that's not the same with their AR brass?

[TheBigBang]

It surprises me that that brass would be thinner than ACP brass. As I said, I've never used their .45 AR brass. I believe though, they bill it as being made to the same standard as their .45 Colt, which they say is made to withstand pressures of .44 Mag level & I have no reason to doubt that it is. Their .45 Colt brass seems quite strong. Maybe they were trying to allow for people using larger diameter (say .454 or so) cast bullets intended for the .45 Colt in the AR cases, knowing that they would be used in a revolver, which would accommodate a greater variety of bullets than an auto? It may be that you've just gotten a bad batch, maybe it wasn't intended to be that thin. I hope their not cutting their quality, thinning down the brass to save on material cost.

[MikeS]

Well, my curiousity got the best of me. I'm in the process of cleaning up some range brass, so I took 2 identical 45 cases (Federal small primer 45ACP) and sized one with my Lyman sizing die, and one with my RCBS 45 Colt sizing die. the id of the case sized in the 45ACP die (Lyman) measured .445 and the one sized in the 45 Colt case measured .448. I then took another case, and sized it in the 45Colt die, then finished reloading it, and it fit in my Lyman 45ACP case gauge with no problems, it dropped right in (no pressure needed to get it to bottom out in the gauge). Furthermore the finished cartridge doesn't have the usual bulge around the boolit base, but rather was nice and straight from top to bottom! I guess I won't be using my 45ACP sizing dies much anymore!

[TheBigBang]

Well, my curiousity got the best of me. I'm in the process of cleaning up some range brass, so I took 2 identical 45 cases (Federal small primer 45ACP) and sized one with my Lyman sizing die, and one with my RCBS 45 Colt sizing die. the id of the case sized in the 45ACP die (Lyman) measured .445 and the one sized in the 45 Colt case measured .448. I then took another case, and sized it in the 45Colt die, then finished reloading it, and it fit in my Lyman 45ACP case gauge with no problems, it dropped right in (no pressure needed to get it to bottom out in the gauge). Furthermore the finished cartridge doesn't have the usual bulge around the boolit base, but rather was nice and straight from top to bottom! I guess I won't be using my 45ACP sizing dies much anymore!

Speaking with German/Austrian "professor" accent:

Hmmm, ya, zat is vewwey intewesting...