Remington .38 Sp brass, quality problems?

[tbx-4]

So I was shooting this Remington .38 Sp, 130 gr, FMJ ammo today. When done I inspected the cases and found one case split. Didn't even notice when I was shooting. Also noticed all the cases have gas burns on the side.
And this Remington ammo is fairly new but it has corrosion spots all over it.

I've recently shot PMC .38 Sp through the same gun with no problem, no split cases and no gas burns.

Anyone else experience this?

PMC on left, Remington on the right.

[CASTER OF LEAD]

So I was shooting this Remington .38 Sp, 130 gr, FMJ ammo today. When done I inspected the cases and found one case split. Didn't even notice when I was shooting. Also noticed all the cases have gas burns on the side.
And this Remington ammo is fairly new but it has corrosion spots all over it.

I've recently shot PMC .38 Sp through the same gun with no problem, no split cases and no gas burns.

Anyone else experience this?

PMC on left, Remington on the right.

Do the primers show pressure signs on the Remington brass? I had a similar issue with some .45 ACP factory ammo once. (Won't mention the manufacturer's name but it wasn't Remington). The primers were soft and the loads were heavier than they should have been. The necks were black just like your picture, and the felt recoil was significantly harder than any ammo i ever shot from the weapon before. I emailed the manufacturer with pictures of the lot number . Less than 24 hours They answered me. They paid the shipping for me to send it back and replaced the whole purchase. Apparently a bad lot got out the door. The split case indicates to me that this might indeed be a similar occurrence. JMHO. - Caster

[35remington]

The scorched sides indicate low pressure or low pressure and hard cases. Combine that with a split and I suspect these cases may have sat around awhile before they were shot and were on the brittle side or had poor anneal. The corrosion spots tend toward brittleness.

Either way, low pressure and brittle (hard) nets what you see. Especially the brittle part. Corrosion always deteriorates and weakens brass and makes it susceptible to cracking.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Do you still have the factory box the ammo came in? A photo of the box and the lot number (probably on the end flap) might help in making a determination as to age.

[tbx-4]

Low pressure and brittle cases, makes sense. The corrosion was there when I first opened the box earlier this year.

Yes, I have the box. It was the first box of 50 from a bulk pack of 250. I’ll try to get a photo today. Maybe 5 years old?

The PMC brass is way older and has been reloaded at least once. Both the Remington and PMC are stored in the same location too.

[35remington]

The corrosion is determinative.

Corroded brass is not prone to work well. You found that out.

[salvadore]

Was the split case a squib?

[tbx-4]

No. All shots printed on target at 50 yards.

[Drm50]

Dirty case is low pressure. I don't buy much store bought ammo but it seems to me that Rem has
changed its brass along the way. I think the copper content on it has been cut back. It shows up more on bottle neck cartridges. I have noticed some Win ammo is in yellow looking cases too, like
white box 44mg. I have a dozen boxes of 1x brass of these. Ammo seems to be good or maybe it's
cheapest Wally World carries.

[Murphy]

About 18 months ago I have a relative who's a local deputy. He is the best shot the department has and they decided to send him to get CLEET (Council on Law Enforcement, Education & Training) to become the departments instructor. They purchased him 2,500 rounds of ammunition to prepare and qualify with. He had the option of shooting an auto, but wanted to do it with a revolver. He didn't have a revolver at the time and I loaned him my S&W 66-1.

The ammunition was 130 grain RNL. It was nasty to say the least. He wanted to get in all the practice he could, so I ran off 600-700 rounds of my reloads using a LEE 158 TC bullet over 3.5 grains of Bullseye. I'd never tried the load, but he said it would shoot circles around the factory stuff he was issued. The fired reloads looked much cleaner than the factory ones. As for the brass, I didn't encounter any splits. I do hope it's good brass as I wound up with no less than 17 to 18 hundred once fired cases. They all cleaned up quiet nicely. I will probably stick to the above load depending on how well they shoot in my 38/357's.

Just my 2¢ worth,

Murphy

[tbx-4]

Here are some photos of the box and lot # on inside flap.





I opened another box from the same case and found these.

[tbx-4]

And it shoots dirty too, lots of soot in the barrel.

The PMC was reloaded with 3.7 gr 700X and 125 gr cast. I did try some BE this year for the first time too, loaded 3.4 grns and 158 gr cast RN. Had no problem. This was all in PMC or CBC brass.

[Gtek]

Where Remington is now who knows, but I think I would contact them just for the information run. Nothing, new boxes of poo, maybe some good ammo with good brass. Only one way to find out, pictures are really good by the way!

[tazman]

Makes me sad to hear about faulty Remington brass. It is my favorite brand to reload. Easy to size and a bit thinner in wall thickness than most others. It works a treat for me when loading wadcutters.
Never had a Remington case be hard to insert into the chamber.

[35remington]

Remington has good reason to claim this is more of a storage problem than a brass problem. Don’t expect them to throw themselves under the bus given the information presented here.