Soft boolits and crimp

[44man]

I just used my de-capping tool on a pile of 45-70 brass my friend shot from his Marlin. All were bought loads for cowboy action stuff. One brand labeled A-Merc used soft boolits.
I would like to show how crimp effects soft lead. My tool is a very loose fit in fired brass but there was enough crimp left with these loads that brass stuck on the rod. I had to use pliers to remove every case and you can see the rub mark on the rod. It is worse then it looks in the picture due to my camera.
I can only imagine the final diameter of the boolits after being forced through a crimp that did not open fully.
The diameter of my rod at that point is .448". Since the boolit moves out before the brass is forced against the chamber wall, what happened to the boolit?
It gives you some idea why I do not like soft lead in revolvers or any cartridge that needs neck tension or a crimp.

[45 2.1]

I just used my de-capping tool on a pile of 45-70 brass my friend shot from his Marlin. All were bought loads for cowboy action stuff. One brand labeled A-Merc used soft boolits.
I would like to show how crimp effects soft lead. My tool is a very loose fit in fired brass but there was enough crimp left with these loads that brass stuck on the rod. I had to use pliers to remove every case and you can see the rub mark on the rod. It is worse then it looks in the picture due to my camera.
I can only imagine the final diameter of the boolits after being forced through a crimp that did not open fully.
The diameter of my rod at that point is .448". Since the boolit moves out before the brass is forced against the chamber wall, what happened to the boolit?
It gives you some idea why I do not like soft lead in revolvers or any cartridge that needs neck tension or a crimp.

I have seen Amerc brass in a couple of pistol calibers..........it's junk brass........almost to soft for the intended use and certainly very poor for the second try. Not everyone shoots balls to the wall loads in his guns, there are other ways.

[44man]

But if brass was very soft, should it not have opened the crimp very easily? Also soft brass would not "spring back" as easily as hard and should be larger at the ID of the neck.
Since these were super light, cowboy loads with very low pressure, I would expect less expansion into the chamber but also less spring back so that should even out.
No matter, the boolit was too soft to open the crimp. The boolit was sized going through it. Softer brass would have actually helped in this case.

[44man]

OH, OH, the brass is way too hard and brittle. I sized a few today and the brass splits. I scrapped all of the A-Merc junk. No wonder the crimp did not open. Combined with soft lead boolits it amounts to crap.
There were some new cases that the primer did not fire so I pulled the boolits. I could not size them! Halfway into the die is where I quit and pulled them back out.
None of the Starline brass he had was damaged but I found some cases were very hard to size and others slipped into the die. These were loads from Lancer and Ultramax. One of them has fast powder at high pressure. All light cowboy loads.
No way I would ever buy any of these after market loads.

[44man]

I went to the American Ammunition site and lo and behold, clicking on the complaint E mail site or any other has a zero result. No way I can complain.

[jhrosier]

I was chatting with a fellow at the range who was shooting new Amerc 45 Colt ammo in a Ruger revolver.
I noticed that a fair number of the cases split on the first firing.
The only thing worth saving was the empty boxes.

Jack

[leftiye]

Sounds like incorrectly made brass. There should be an annealing operation after each stage of drawing, except the last one. The last operation should be such that a moderate hardness is left (a milder working of the brass). And then maybe a neck only anneal.

[HangFireW8]

Sounds like incorrectly made brass. There should be an annealing operation after each stage of drawing, except the last one. The last operation should be such that a moderate hardness is left (a milder working of the brass). And then maybe a neck only anneal.

A-Merc brags that it is the only company that makes its own brass, most buy it from Olin Corporation (that's Winchester Ammo to you guys).

They should get with the program and start buying the Good Stuff.

I, too, find AMERC too springy for use. If you can get it to hold a crimp, then you can't get rid of the crimp. I just throw it away. PMC is iffy stuff. I'll try it but I'm always prepared to throw it away if it starts giving me problems.

-HF