218 Bee Brass - Dents in shoulders

[Leslie Sapp]

I picked up about 125 218 bee brass as part of an estate lot recently. I thought I might offer it for sale on the forum, but when I cleaned it and looked it over, it all has dents on the shoulders. About 75 of them have the same two (ejection?) marks you see on the right hand case, but there are 50 that have regularly spaced vertical dents all around the shoulder as you can see in the left hand example.

Personally, I would load and shoot them in an instant, but I'm uncomfortable offering them for sale without a few second opinions as to what might have caused this and how you would feel about buying brass in this condition.

It has occurred to me that I have a second option, that of keeping them and buying myself a .218 Bee.:-)

[country gent]

Mighht be lube dings from sizing with cases lubed to heavily. Pressure should push them out and form them. The bee case is like the hornet case with the gradual tapers its a weaker case. A great little round though.

[Leslie Sapp]

I don't think either of these are lube dings, they are identical on each case. The cases on the left were all primed. I've seen new unfired brass with wrinkles around the shoulders , having never been fireformed, but nothing this pronounced.

[Bent Ramrod]

The one on the left looks like full length sizing with too much case lube to me. The one on the right looks like a case that was squeezed into a chamber that had a granule of powder in it from a previous firing, and then fired.

Fire forming should pooch both types right back out. Theoretically, the lube dents can form stress risers that will eventually crack the shoulder at those points, but in my experience the necks will crack long before the shoulders.

If you have a .25-20 WCF rifle, the .218 Bee shells can be fireformed to make .25-20 shells. I notice that .25-20s made from .218 Bees seem to last for more reloadings than the regular shells. You need to anneal the necks before fireforming, of course.

[FLHTC]

lube dents

[Camba]

I have the exact problem with my 218 Bee cases. I have cleaned my sizing die so I don't get any indents and I still get them. The cases split along the indents when fired from my Taurus revolver. I had been firing those cases probably 15 to 20 times and my friend told me that I need to anneal the cases (I have not yet). With the scarce of 218 Bee cases, I will just keep them like that and shoot low velocity loads to use them a few times more.
Camba

[TCFAN]

Leslie Sapp.......... If you decide to sell those Bee cases I would be interested in buying them. Shoot me a PM if you do..............Terry

[Leslie Sapp]

The one on the left looks like full length sizing with too much case lube to me. The one on the right looks like a case that was squeezed into a chamber that had a granule of powder in it from a previous firing, and then fired.

What I don't understand, if these are lube dents, why are there 75 cases with the exact same marks in exactly the same pattern, and the another 50 cases, each also with an identical pattern of dents?