Internal corrosion on reloads?

[badgeredd]

I came across something that is new to me and wondered if anyone knows why it occurred.
I shot up some loads to get the brass around to load cast boolits for my 375 Winchester (built on a 98 Mauser). Well a large postion of the ones I shot, nearly 50% ruptured in various places. Some slit at the neck, and several split in the body of the case. Maybe 30 rounds were fired befor I decided that this wasn't just a fluke. I know the pressures aren't excessive. Well I pulled the bullets from the remaing 50 cartridges and every one was corroded on the inside of the case. The outside was bright and shiny! One case neck split while pulling the bullets and most of the bullets had granules of powder stuck (like it was glued there) to the bases. All of the bullets bases are GREEN! The powder was kinda stuck together and I had to probe the stuff to get it out of most of the cases. All of the cases had granules sticking to the case that had to be scraped out. This was all NEW brass when it was loaded and it has been loaded for about 10 years.
ANYBODY have a clue what was going on in there?

Oh BTW, the powder was Reloader 7 if that makes a difference.

[mike in co]

sounds like moisture in the case( green copper bullets).

who loaded them , what brass prep was done originally ?

mike in co

[azrednek]

badgeredd, I had the same exact problem with with some 7.7 Jap brass I formed from 1960's Canadian 30/06 blanks. The green stuff (some greenish blue) almost appeared to be growing. The outside of the brass was nice and clean, the inside looked like a corroded car battery terminal.

What ever caused the problem it wasn't the brass as I used the same batch of brass to form other calibers such as 7.65 and 8MM and didn't have any problems. It was only the one batch I formed into 7.7, stored in a coffee can with a plastic lid. A friend suggested that storing the ammo in a dis-similar metal may have caused the corrosion problem. My friend a retired engineer from Honeywell and Sperry Rand, allot smarter than me may have been on to something but I question this if you you look at military ammo stored many years in steel stripper clips or the US GI so-called ham cans. I have since quit storing loaded ammo in metal coffee cans and never had the same problem that I'm aware of since.

EDIT: Mine sat stored and undisturbed for apx 5 years, loaded with either IMR 4350 or 3031.

[Linstrum]

Besides being loaded damp or gotten wet, ammo that has been stored hot, like in a garage, will do that, as well as from powder that has not had the manufacturing chemicals poperly neutralized. Powder should be stored below 80°F for good long life, and the colder the longer it will last. I have ammo from Finland that was loaded in 1939 and stored cold that is still good.

During the last ditch effort days of Nazi Germany, the Axis powder manufacturing companies saved time manufacturing rifle powder by cutting short the neautralizing process that takes about a month of washing with pure water to get all the nitric acid residue out and the ammunition loaded with that powder had a shelf life of about six months.

rl359

[Alchemist]

....but I question this if you you look at military ammo stored many years in steel stripper clips or the US GI so-called ham cans.

I bought some Korean surplus 30 cal on M1 clips...some of it was corroded on the outside. I de-clipped it all, and shook each round; the ones that didn't sound right were pulled down, and every one of them was funky on the inside. On a side note, some of the ammo was loaded w/ ball powder, and some with what appears to be 4895. I doubt powder type had much to do with the corrosion.

Alchemist

[MT Gianni]

badgeredd, I had the same exact problem with with some 7.7 Jap brass I formed from 1960's Canadian 30/06 blanks. The green stuff (some greenish blue) almost appeared to be growing. The outside of the brass was nice and clean, the inside looked like a corroded car battery terminal.

What ever caused the problem it wasn't the brass as I used the same batch of brass to form other calibers such as 7.65 and 8MM and didn't have any problems. It was only the one batch I formed into 7.7, stored in a coffee can with a plastic lid. A friend suggested that storing the ammo in a dis-similar metal may have caused the corrosion problem. My friend a retired engineer from Honeywell and Sperry Rand, allot smarter than me may have been on to something but I question this if you you look at military ammo stored many years in steel stripper clips or the US GI so-called ham cans. I have since quit storing loaded ammo in metal coffee cans and never had the same problem that I'm aware of since.

EDIT: Mine sat stored and undisturbed for apx 5 years, loaded with either IMR 4350 or 3031.


My experience with steel corrosion and copper or magnesium is corrosion is "usually" at the point of contact. That would indicate exterior corrosion not interior. Gianni

[NoDakJak]

It sounds as if the powder was deterioating. Did it have a rusty look or smell funny? I had that happen with some 6.5X54 ammo that someone had loaded into once fired Midway brass and I purchased to salvage. It ruined every case.
In 1963 or 64 I bought a box of new, commercial 6.5X55 ammo that had the headstamp TOYO. The first several rounds misfired. When I pulled a couple bullets I couldn't get the powder out. I finally sectioned a case and found that the powder had fused into a molten mass. It looked like black plastic with half melted sticks of powder imbedded within the hard black mass. I think that I still have one around in my collection. Neil

[azrednek]

Powder should be stored below 80°F for good long life, and the colder the longer it will last.
rl359

A good 2-3 years the ammo was stored in an outside storage room here in Phoenix, the air conditioning capital of the world. I'm still perplexed though because the other ammo I loaded and stored during the same time frame loaded with the same components except different caliber bullets did not corrode. It was just the single batch of the 7.7, the 7.65 and 8MM didn't have any corrosion problems. The 7.65 was stored in a Christmas fruitcake pan and the 8MM stored in a US GI ammo can.

[pjh421]

There was a long thread on this a couple months ago. Ten bucks says your powder was at some point stored (loaded or otherwise) in a hot place which started the degradation.

Paul

[azrednek]

It sounds as if the powder was deterioating. Did it have a rusty look or smell funny?

I remember a strong metallic type smell in the can but didn't get my nose to close to the green corrosion because I was afraid it might have been mold. Years ago inhalation of some mold sent me to the ER and I was bed ridden for about 5 days. I don't recall a rusty type appearance. A good portion of the powder was clumped together with the greenish corrosion.

[Firebird]

The green (with maybe a blue tinge to it) color could be either copper chloride or copper carbonate. I don't know where the chloride would come from inside a cartridge, but smokeless powder often contains some calcium carbonate to help neutralize the residual nitric acid. If it was a humid day (I know, not many of them in Phoenix) when you loaded these cartridges there could have been enough moisture in the cases to allow the chemical reaction between the case walls and the calcium carbonate in the powder when the cartridges got hot enough in that outside shed. I don't think it was the nitric acid in the powder simply because both copper nitrate and copper nitrite are blue, not green.

[badgeredd]

sounds like moisture in the case( green copper bullets).

who loaded them , what brass prep was done originally ?

mike in co

I loaded the ammo. The cases were new, never fired, and sized only before loading. Actually still have the last of the powder on the bench and it looks and smells fine. The one thing that was mentioned that made me think a bit was the moister content of the powder. It has always been stored in the coolness of the basement BUT the house I lived in when the shells were loaded had a damp basement at times. I never gave it much thought because the cans of powder were in an old refer that had silica in it. I may have left the lid loose and had the powder on the bench for a few days before I loaded this lot. I supposed the canister could have drawn in some moister. Besides that I am totally at a loss as to what could have transpired. I know I have had other ammo that was stored a lot longer with no problems. Just seemed a bit odd to me anyway.

[JIMinPHX]

I’ve known a few people that have used rather aggressive chemicals in their tumbling media to brighten up the brass quickly. If you don’t then tumble that stuff a second time with clean media, the remnants of the chemical stuff would become corrosive after a while.

If you were using new brass, then that was not what happened to you.

[runfiverun]

you don't use brasso in your media do you?

[badgeredd]

you don't use brasso in your media do you?

I have in the past but I didn't tumble this brass. Like I said, it was just sized and loaded. At that time, I wiped each loaded cartridge with a clean rag after I was done with the batch.

[Ricochet]

Deteriorating smokeless powder releases nitrogen dioxide, and if moist it can produce nitric acid. The fumes will attack brass and copper alloys. It'll attack steel, too. Old milsurp ammo not rarely has deteriorated cases on this account. Won't show on the outside till it eats through.

[badgeredd]

Deteriorating smokeless powder releases nitrogen dioxide, and if moist it can produce nitric acid. The fumes will attack brass and copper alloys. It'll attack steel, too. Old milsurp ammo not rarely has deteriorated cases on this account. Won't show on the outside till it eats through.

Thanks Ricochet. Now that I have read all the fellows comments, I believe that there is a definite possibility that the powder may have had a higher moisture content and that is what caused the problem. THANKS to everyone.

[Junior1942]

>I never gave it much thought because the cans of powder were in an old refer that had silica in it.

Store your powder, primers, loaded rounds, etc., in an old "refer" that is (a) frost free and (b) operating. It will all stay in a low humidity and cold environment and never go bad. Keep things like bricks of primers and primed cases in Zip bags. When you pull something out of the freezer or fridge section, quickly wrap it in a towel for insulation and let it slowly come to room temperature. Do NOT open anything until it is at room temperature.

[azrednek]

I’ve known a few people that have used rather aggressive chemicals in their tumbling media to brighten up the brass quickly. If you don’t then tumble that stuff a second time with clean media, the remnants of the chemical stuff would become corrosive after a while. If you were using new brass, then that was not what happened to you.

The brass was 1960's 30/06 Canadian military blanks. The brass was new, meaning that it had never been discharged but over 20 years old. I dumped the powder out and gave it to a friend that did pyrotechnics for TV and movies. One thing I failed to mention and it never occurred to me until now. The 7.7 ammo in question survived a house fire but so did the other ammo that didn't corrode. During the fire only live two rounds discharged and none of the powder or primers went off.





you don't use brasso in your media do you?

I was using Brasso back in those days before reading in a gun rag not to do it. Chances are good, can't say for certain the loaded ammo was tumbled in Brasso after the fire to remove the smoke damage, it wasn't tumbled prior to loading.

[Ricochet]

Heat accelerates smokeless powder decomposition. If you've got other ammo around that's been stored in hot places or got warm in that fire, shoot it up ASAP.

[azrednek]

badgeredd, my apologies for hi-jacking your thread. Thx to all that responded. All the ammo that was in the fire has been shot or discarded. I didn't attempt to salvage any of the ammo that was stored in the old styrofoam containers. Just speculating that possibly the 7.7 Jap reloads may have got hotter than the rest that did not corrode. Guess my mind was running flat and it never occurred to me until today about the housefire. It was one of life's events I wish I could forget entirely.

[Ricochet]

I'll bet!