Check your brass warning!!!

[marek313]

I know its been said before but keep your eyes open when you reload guys!

I've been shooting and reloading a lot of 9mm lately. I had these two trying to sneak in but likely I caught them before it was too late. Left one is GFL and right one is RP. Right one as you can see is split all the way down. I dont even know how you would do that unless it was fired in 40 cal or something like that. Both were getting sized and thats where they didnt feel right so I looked them over and pulled those out.

Also for the first time at a local steel plate tournament we had a member that got a squib which was first one for me short of reading about them on the internet. Guy was reloading his 9s and for some reason he lubes his 9mm brass so looks like it was too much lube that got powder wet so only primer went off. Lucky for him we realized something wasnt right as there was couple of us watching only primer go off and we stopped him before he fired the next round. I told him there is no need to lube straight wall cases so hopefully he stops that.

227022

[Dusty Bannister]

Looks like a fatigue crack to me. Not swollen as if fired in an oversized chamber.
Dusty

[kir_kenix]

Not too uncommon for me to find 9mm cracked to just above the rim...especially if it has been reloaded a couple times and finds its way into a generous chamber...*caugh* HK *caugh*. One of the many possible issues with using range brass.

I picked up an ice cream bucket of range brass this weekend...probably 5% of the 9mm will end up in the recycle barrel due to bulges or split necks. There's an instructor out there who shoots ALOT of 9mm through a sub-gun and that brass really takes a beating.

[Dieselhorses]

The longevity of certain brass is amazing. I picked up several hundred 38 and 357 from a fellow about a year ago. Asked how many times he's reloaded them. He could only tell me how many "years" it was which was from the 90's! Anyway, I've reloaded same brass 4 or 5 times and still going strong! Grant it I inspected thoroughly every single case and did find a few that gave up the ghost. These were Federal and R-P.

[marek313]

Looks like a fatigue crack to me. Not swollen as if fired in an oversized chamber.
Dusty

They might have been but I didnt catch those until I ran those through sizing die so any swelling was gone already by the time I took these pics.
Sub machine guns chew up brass. Some guns are just rough on brass. My friends C308 beat the hell out of brass as it was trying to shoot it into low orbit.

[Mr_Sheesh]

I've found that I need "some" lube on straight sided brass if using steel dies, but I've swapped most all of those to carbide dies so I don't need lube. Less work and better dies = better results :) My progressive pistol press used to insist on some lube, then I put the rounds in a big towel (about 200 at a time IIRC?) and cleaned it off so they weren't left lubed for firing. Worked pretty well.

[Victor N TN]

I'm sure someone has said this before me. But when I clean my brass and getting them out of the media, I hold a few cases in my hand and shake them to get any stuck media out. I started noticing a difference in the sound. When they are all good brass, they have a ring sound. Like a bell. If they are cracked you'll hear a dry thud / chunk kind of sound. You'll know the different sound if you ever hear if once. Good luck.

[lightman]

I'm agree with Dusty on this. We can only guess but this is very likely. I once picked up several hundred 9mm that were all split. Come to find out they were fired in a Uzi with a sloppy chamber. They showed no signs of being swelled. Everyones QC seemed to have slipped during the shortages of 07 and 08 and many have never come back.

Reloading and firing a case with a split is not good but its usually not a disaster. Don't get me wrong, its not something to make a habit of but its not a disaster.

[The Dar]

Maybe it's just me, but brass doesn't seem to last as well as it used to. I had been out of reloading and shooting for about 15 years. Got back into it about two years ago. Back in the day I shot competitions with range brass. I've never loaded hot ammo. The brass back then seemed to last forever. I've had today's brass split after 3 to 4 loads. Not really a problem, there's tons of brass at the range I shoot at. I still load handguns with range brass but I toss it after 4 loads. I agree with the OP, inspect your brass carefully. If you have any reason to suspect a piece of brass, crush the mouth with pliers and toss it into the recycle bucket.

[Cherokee]

I toss 9mm brass after 8 firings, the last of which is a reduced load. I'm still loading 45 ACP brass I acquired back in the 70's but I am getting some splits now. I have 45 Colt brass that I have loaded 25 times, all mild loads. Lots of old 38 and 357 brass seems to last a long time. Always look out for splits and burn-thru's.

[marek313]

I'm sure someone has said this before me. But when I clean my brass and getting them out of the media, I hold a few cases in my hand and shake them to get any stuck media out. I started noticing a difference in the sound. When they are all good brass, they have a ring sound. Like a bell. If they are cracked you'll hear a dry thud / chunk kind of sound. You'll know the different sound if you ever hear if once. Good luck.

I agree I can hear that specific ring from split brass too. Def has a different tone to it.

[RedHawk357Mag]

Speaking of straight wall brass only, I notice that I get different resistance from suspect brass during resizing and definitely during expanding before I get splits. If my expander gets little resistance I either mark that piece on the headstamp or discard. When seating a bullet and it goes deeper than the rest by finger pressure, it's outta there.

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[robg]

I load my 357 mag brass till the necks split ,usually when expanding the necks before I prime them.some has been reloaded ten times .

[Landshark9025]

If you wet tumble your brass, it's not uncommon to need lube. Even for the 9mm. I've experienced this with Armorall "Wash and Shine". It does a good job, but you can totally feel how the brass has more drag just with your fingers. I just give it a couple of squirts of "One Shot" and it helps a lot.

As for the split case issue, I've had a few of these sneak through as well. Usually you can feel it on the resize, but not always. If they get through there, and I don't see it as they are coming around, I always find them when doing the plunk test. They won't pass that for sure. That's just one more reason to do that on EVERY round. I do it while watching TV as it doesn't make a lot of noise and I don't need to look. I get in the recliner and have an ammo can set crossways on my lap with a towel in it to cut down on the noise, a tupperware container full of rounds to be checked. Out of the tupperware, into the barrel and out into the ammo can. You can do the whole thing by feel. If somebody is sticking up above the barrel hood, it goes off to the side to check during commercials.

[RED BEAR]

when shooting a few weeks ago i was picking up my brass and asked the guy on the range at the same time what caliber he was shooting didn't want to take his . he told me i was welcome to them with kind of a chuckle or so it seemed. after inspecting his they were 9mm and everyone was split all the way down the case. when i mentioned that he was splitting every case i was told in no uncertain terms he knew and it was ok. i just kept my mouth shut ad moved down range.

[mdi]

FWIW, for my reloading the single most important aspect is inspection. When I pick up range brass I give it a quick look-see. When I get it home and am putting it in the tumbler, I watch closely (this is where I catch a lot of dings, damaged brass.). After the brass is clean it gets a good inspection, including headstamp. This is when the brass gets sorted or "questionable" manufacturer's brass is found and discarded. I give each round a quick look over after each step (including looking in every case to make sure there's powder there), and as I'm boxing my handloads, I normally have a rag in one hand and wipe inspect each round. May sound like a lot of time/work, but I have never gotten a split case go beyond cleaning, never tried to reload a 380 when doing 9mm (or 357 case while doing 38 Special), and the last squib I had was in 1970.

[fatelk]

I'm sure someone has said this before me. But when I clean my brass and getting them out of the media, I hold a few cases in my hand and shake them to get any stuck media out. I started noticing a difference in the sound. When they are all good brass, they have a ring sound. Like a bell. If they are cracked you'll hear a dry thud / chunk kind of sound. You'll know the different sound if you ever hear if once. Good luck.

I've picked up a fair amount of range brass, and have gotten pretty efficient at sorting it whether I'm loading it myself or passing it on to someone else. I scrap a good percentage too, from cracks, bulges, even dents or dings that would probably load fine. 9mm is so common and plentiful that it's just not worth messing with brass that's remotely questionable.

I've gotten to where I can always hear the cracked case. You just know when there's one among the handful in your hands. It may take a minute to find it, but it's there.

A couple times I've found pieces of 9mm brass with a different kind of crack; a horizontal crack/split through the web right above the extraction groove. Those look scary.

[Lloyd Smale]

what I do is tumble them put them in the media separator and when spinning it sometimes will hear a tinny sound and find them. I also put them back in the tumbler with no media for about a minute listening and usually a cracked one will sound different. But its not fool proof. I just got in the habit of looking at the case before it goes on the press. It only takes a second. Before I did that I found one that occasional snuck by the first two tests.
I'm sure someone has said this before me. But when I clean my brass and getting them out of the media, I hold a few cases in my hand and shake them to get any stuck media out. I started noticing a difference in the sound. When they are all good brass, they have a ring sound. Like a bell. If they are cracked you'll hear a dry thud / chunk kind of sound. You'll know the different sound if you ever hear if once. Good luck.

[Jeffjmr]

I must admit while loading 9mm a few 380s have found their way through my progressive press, into the mag and into the chamber, only failing to fire from the too-light firing pin strike. Carefully checking the headstamps since then, and reconsidering picking up my 380 brass for reloading.
��

[Mr_Sheesh]

I've reloaded both 380 and 9mm, you just have to do a very thorough pass through the brass to separate them. I do it right after I have deprimed them, check case over and verify case type.

[dragon813gt]

when shooting a few weeks ago i was picking up my brass and asked the guy on the range at the same time what caliber he was shooting didn't want to take his . he told me i was welcome to them with kind of a chuckle or so it seemed. after inspecting his they were 9mm and everyone was split all the way down the case. when i mentioned that he was splitting every case i was told in no uncertain terms he knew and it was ok. i just kept my mouth shut ad moved down range.

Probably shooting 9mm major loads. The guys that compete know how many loadings they can get before the case splits. If he wasn’t shooting an open gun I would have moved away from him to be on the safe side.

As far as lubing straight wall cases goes. If you don’t have carbide dies you need to lube them. And while you don’t need to w/ carbide dies, it reduces resistance a lot. I don’t bother when loading on a LCT. But when I’m using a 550 I lube the cases. Things work a lot better this way.

[tazman]

I reload on a Lee Classic Cast turret, which means I do one case at a time. When I resize a case, it is easy to tell if one is cracked or a 380. The pressure on the handle is almost nonexistent with a cracked case as opposed to a normal one. Same for the 380 case.
I can see where there would be a problem on a progressive as far as being able to tell prom the feel. You are doing many jobs on the case at once so the difference would not be as apparent.

[dwtim]

Each case gets rolled under the light so I can look for imperfections. When I am expanding the neck, "brittle" brass shows its weakness and gets tossed. Nickel cases go brittle sooner in my experience. Even though I track reloads, I've never had to count because neck splits and sizing/expanding force tells me the story before I waste time and primers on dangerous old cases.

[David2011]

The sound is a dead giveaway for cracked pistol brass. I can hear a cracked case while tumbling in the media separator and it's even easier to find by dropping a few at a time on a wooden table top. I shoot .40 in USPSA and shoot 'em until they split. Nothing bad happens when they split at pistol pressures and they usually split in the below the case mouth but I seldom see a .40 case split at the mouth. OTOH, .357 seems to always split at the mouth.

[Hueyville]

Have 45 acp brass that load 200 grain cast SWC's to major power factor and 38 special cases load 140 grain wad cutters with easily 50 or more load cycles on them. Will usually have to retire a case or two every large batch that run. Never run 45 unless loading 5,000 to 10,000 cases to replenish the range ammo. My match brass for using in a crowd is matched low load count good stuff. Still not uncommon for me to find WW2, Korea and Vietnam Era head stamps in my mixed range brass.

On the flip side my high pressure rifle brass is all either retired after 5th load cycle if didn't fail Q.C. before. If has been loaded five times and wife passes it a last time it's loaded, boxed and put in long term storage "zombie" lockers for when the Mad Max days occur and need that one last round or use at ranges have to abandon your brass and can't police up your life blood. I can see some club member on brass policing duty picking up my cases to put in the "once fired" barrels for selling or club use. Wife worked a decade in dental lab and has been a Registered Dental Hygienist for 25 years and all the high pressure rifle cases, especially magnum and wildcats, she uses dental picks to feel for first signs of stress cracks at junction of case head and walls so don't have case head separations. If has any she is unsure on pass/fail then the "maybe" bucket all get examined with a bore scope. Brass can be run for decades in some applications and three pops then call it done in others. Don't play games with 7mm Practical or 338 Lapua.

[Jayhawkhuntclub]

I pick up 380 and 9mm together regularly. The 380 have a very different feel when depriming. If you're awake at all, you'll notice. No need to sort otherwise.
As for pistol brass...use it til you lose it (or the primers get loose or cracks develop).

[fatelk]

Here's one to watch out for; wonder what happened here?

227391

[Dieselhorses]

WT...?
Here's one to watch out for; wonder what happened here?

227391

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[Mr_Sheesh]

fatek - Dang! Uh I think I'd retire that round as that primer appears to be "somewhat flattened" LOL! (And the case a smidge bulged, looks like?) Guessing a double charge...

[fatelk]

I found it on the ground at the range; glad I didn't pull the trigger on that one.

It's extremely bulged. To be honest, I wonder if it wasn't fired in a 9mm. That's just a theory and I could well be wrong, but the bulge looks more like the bulge of something fired in an oversized chamber, instead of bulging back into the feed ramp area. From the primer dent it looks like a Glock. My theory is that a Glock extractor will hold the rim enough to fire, but headspace would of course be terrible and the primer would back out badly on ignition. The pressure would then force the case back and seriously flatten the primer that was mostly out of the case. That's just my wild speculation, either that or a gross overcharge/doublecharge. I'm not going to shoot any .380s in a Glock 9mm to experiment.

Either way, it went straight into the scrap bucket. One time I found a pile of 9mm brass, and several were missing primers. That whole pile went into the scrap bucket. Someone likes to load them hot.

[Mr_Sheesh]

True, a number of people think that's OK. I sure don't! Just because you're an idiot, like they are, doesn't mean that metal never corrodes or fatigues or fails if you abuse it enough. -shudder-

[Walks]

The way folks treat their brass since the coming of Progressive Reloading presses has drastically altered reloading. I can't even use the term HandLoading.


Ammo is shot up as fast possible, and loaded just as fast. In the three most common auto-loading pistol cartridges, case inspection is cursory at best. They are dumped in a bucket or an ammo can. Brought home, dumped in a sorter, then cleaned in some fashion.
Straight into the progressive, and BANG, BANG, BANG, reloaded.
Then dumped back loose into the ammo can, and BANG, BANG, BANG, shot empty at the range. One thousand, two thousand, three thousand at a time.
Some people don't even bother to reload unless they have 5,000 to 10,000 empty cases. The only time a case is thrown away is if it splits all the way down while in the press.
I used to load with & for a friend that would burn up 500 rds of 5.56 ammo in an hour. I would take 500 once-fired G. I. cases, tumble them, then inspect each case before I lubed them, SB sized & decap them. Then they were trimmed to minimum length, chamfered & deburred. Then ream & clean the primer pockets. I would then put them through a Sonic Cleaner.
I'd hand prime each one. Then they went through the progressive for powder, bullet and TAPER CRIMP. Each one was then checked for overall length and dropped into a loaded cartridge gauge.
I was fortunate that he only took out 500rds at a time so I was able to keep track of how many times they were reloaded & fired. Told him 3 loadings were the limit. Then they would have to be annealed, and did he want to buy a case annealing machine.

Well unfortunately he passed away before we got to that point.

But in the 20plus years I shot COWBOY ACTION, I saw many a split case and many a Revolver tie up because of a incorrectly seated primer. And Rifle & Shotgun jams because the Ammo wouldn't fit the chamber. The vast majority of Cowboy Shooter's aren't much better.

And until case/cartridge checkers came into existence it was a lot worse.

People have absolutely no respect/careers for their brass.

I was taught literally at my FATHER'S Knee that the CARTRIDGE case is the most important component of a HANDLOAD.

UNFORTUNATELY most people today are reloaders.

A WORLD of difference between them and a HANDLOADER.

[winelover]

Watch out for some Magtech brass............has a partition halfway down the inside.

Winelover