funny 9MM case

[fivegunner]

I heard something abought a 9mm case with ledge in in the case but never seen one till now anybody know why they were made this way ?. seems like a waste of brass.

[high standard 40]

I can think of two possible reasons, just a guess though. First, a bullet can't be shoved deeper into the case, causing higher pressure. Or, it's to reduce internal capacity to maintain load density with a certain powder.

[dragon813gt]

It’s to prevent bullet setback.

[high standard 40]

It’s to prevent bullet setback.

That's what I was thinking. Probably designed for full auto usage, perhaps subsonic.

[gnostic]

I partially sized one of those cases a year or two ago by mistake. I could tell something wasn't right and stopped, by the amount of effort it took to resize... From the looks of the primmer it was too hot, notice the firing pin didn't completely retract before it started to eject...

[BigAlofPa.]

I have loaded them. I didn't have any issues. Im not one to load hot either. I still have some that are in service.

[Rgmcfarland]

I got a bunch of this in a bulk MHS brass purchase, head stamped “ammoland”. Seem to run the gun like any other, have reloaded multiple times now, I’m past the hmm stage now and just process normally.

[muta4warrior]

I had some of these I tried to load up as subsonic and had a bunch of case separations at the shelf. Pulled the rest of the loaded rounds and tossed all the remaining brass in the scrap bucket.

[Mytmousemalibu]

Those cases, Maxxtech, Ammoload, FM, etc, any step formed brass goes in the scrap brass bucket. It has a nasty habit of cracking at the internal step leaving a ring of brass stuck in the chamber. Well known in the competitive shooter world. It is also more susceptible to overloading with the reduced volume. Junk!

[mattw]

Right there with ya, throw all of them away. The reduced capacity is not worth the increased and possibly dangerous pressures to me. My biggest concern would be the variance in thickness of the internal liner, variable pressures... Could take a perfectly safe load in a small light weight and thin barreled gun and make it dangerous in a heartbeat. Nope, not gonna mix them in and not gonna make a load just for them, to much good 9mm brass out there to screw with them.

I just encountered a tiny number of 380 acp brass in a 1k lot I picked up, and yes they were 380's also.

[Murphy]

A few years back I purchased 3K of bulk 9mm brass. I decided to sort them out by head stamp. Once sorted, I was looking at the one can I had marked 'Various' and noticed the ring inside of the case. As luck would have it, a thread had popped up here on Castboolits about that very thing a day or so afterward.

All of the above points made are good ones. My biggest concern when I discovered mine was a pressure increase due to the case capacity being reduced. I don't shoot that much 9mm to be honest. The truth be told, the only 9mm's I've ever loaded for is the wife's XD-9 and my sisters Glock. I only loaded those to mid-range velocity for range practice. It does cause one to think and make sure to look for that ring if they're working towards factory velocity.

Murphy

[BigAlofPa.]

Next time i load them. I'll mark them with a marker. And chrono them. And compare to regular casing loads.

[kevin c]

The internal step in the Maxxtech case is much thicker than the one found in the FM (Freedom Munitions), IMT (International Munitions and Technology) and Ammoland headstamps, all the latter, per the cartridge collectors forum, being made by the same folks.

I use the latter in practice ammo without concern, since I personally ran a test of 500 FM stepped cases using my match load: 3.2 gr VV N320 over a cast and HiTek coated slug sized .357", shot through Glock factory barrels and achieving average velocities of 900 fps. I went to the effort of marking and segregating the cases so I could keep track of the times reloaded. I stopped at the twentieth reloading of the cases recovered (about 80%) when all I'd gotten was the occasional split case mouth. BTW, maybe my load or testing analysis was insensitive to this, but I didn't appreciate any change in average velocity compared to other cases (yes, I do segregate cases by headstamp, at least for ammo that counts). Of course, I won't vouch for what happens with anyone else's loads in their own guns, so YMMV.

I just scrap the Maxxtech cases, though, since, 1) unlike the other stepped cases, I rarely encounter them, so that, 2) I don't have enough to test, and, 3) even if I did, I suspect that the much reduced case volume will change the internal ballistics to the point that rounds loaded in this case will cause outliers when shot with other cases, and I dislike really inconsistent ammo, and 4) it's not worth the effort and time to segregate enough cases to work up another load.

[Mytmousemalibu]

Perhaps this might be enlightening or at least food for thought. I load all my 9mm on a single Dillon 650. In a typical shooting season, thats between 20,000-25,000rds per year, 99.9% for USPSA. I use mixed headstamp brass, most of it range picked at one point or another and I find just about every headstamp made. I don't sort any of it generally, it gets deprimed, washed, and ready to dump in the case feeder. I find so little problems im okay with finding them on the press or the case gauge later and culling out the occasional lemon. I run an RCBS lockout die on all 650 toolheads. It very simply works off case volume, if the powder fill is too little or empty to overloaded, it will lock up the press. Its not piticularlly sensitive. It takes a fair change in case fill to trip the die. It works quite well for most powders of reasonable charge weight.

Every single time stepped brass makes it to that die it locks up the press sensing overfill because of the reduced volume. Very similar to .380 brass getting through. I don't care to load 380 case volumes to 9mm tables and with 9mm bullet weights. Furthermore I dont care for split brass and rings jammed in my guns

Food for thought!

[gwpercle]

If you want to reload them I would use an old school steel reloading die . These are tapered and will allow for easier resizing ... A Lee Carbide die would be the worst to use ... no taper and Lee's usually size them down too much .
Gary