File a small flat on each side of a case head, and do the same to a known-good commercial case, and crush the two together against each other in a vise. Observe which case crushes more. If the commercial case mashes the military case flat before caving in itself, then you have your answer.
Gear
Hmmmm. I wonder how far down the annealing job (if that is what it is) went.
I would scrap it or send it to one of the guys who swage. If I had sold that to you I would refund your payment. When in doubt...throw it out.
Is that 5.56 or 7.62 brass?
It's 7.62 brass.
Interesting.... So over annealing can make the neck too soft and separate?
Over annealing burns out the zinc, leaving the neck plain old copper......Originally Posted by Sky_DiveR
Dan
If you plan to scrap the brass I would like to take a couple off your hands to experiment with some things. PM me if interested.
My vote is that this brass is too soft.
I recently experienced this with some Frontier .308 Winchester cases. When sizing them they felt "crunchy" and the neck was left in the die. After getting the expand decap rod out of the die a light tap delivered the neck into my hand. The neck piece was very soft. I had purchased a box or two of Frontier headstamped ammunition in the late 70s right after they stopped using military brass to load their ammunition. I fired the ammunition with no issues and bagged the brass. I discovered the once fired brass a couple of weeks ago and thought I'd reload it.
I'm guessing that the neck /shoulder anneal was incorrect from the beginning (too soft). It didn't cause a problem upon initial firing but was too soft to prevent the neck from being pulled off during sizing. Since I know the history of this brass ( no fire, no attempt to anneal, no mercuric primers).
My experience with corrosive primers leads me to believe they do not affect brass, mercuric primers can make the cases so brittle you can break them with finger pressure, especially smokeless powder rounds like some .30/40 Krag cases from my grand fathers estate. Old black powder cases don't seem to get so brittle from mercuric primers, maybe because the mercury is affected by black powder?
My vote is for the house fire(or garage ect..) it doesn't take much to clean up the outside to look "normal" and in a fire that heat does bad things to metals. I saw a set of Craftsman wrenches that were in a shed fire, the guy cleaned them up, and although dull finish now, looked good. Trying to turn a bolt and he could bend the wrenches in a U.
sent via hammer and chisel
need oversized powder funnels , PTX's or expanders ? just ask, I make 'em for most brands plus my own styles.
The remaining brass that did'nt break off, If I can bend the necks without breaking could they be used?
Maybe, maybe not. So far, you've had a staggering failure rate, percentage-wise. That's enough right there to spook me big time.
My personal philosophy on such matters regarding reloading components is that components are cheap, guns are expensive, and repairing damage to an area of my body because of cheap defective (or even suspected) defective components because they helped blow up an expensive gun is the most costly and painful of all.
I'd take and sell it to the salvage metal guy. HE don't care if it's soft, hard, brittle or whatever--he just cares that it's brass and he can get a price for it when he sells it to a foundry.
Without figuring out the problem not a chance I would fire them
I would crush them all and Scrap them!
My theory (I have seen it before) is that somebody cleaned it with Brasso which contains Ammonia. You get a very nice looking case but over time it gets more and more brittle. The Ammonia eats away at the Zinc/Copper in the brass and changes its properties.
One guy here on castboolits was advertising "Cleaned, once fired brass For Sale" and he said right in his ad that it was cleaned in Brasso! Great for candlesticks, dangerous for rifle or pistol brass. (I PM'd him a warning!)
Can't prove it, but that is my theory! I buy once-fired brass, but only if it is "as fired" not cleaned or polished. That is why.
I wouldn't fire them not worth the risk
The first thing I thought when I saw this post was a story I heard from a retired Gysgt buddy of mine...
A naked Marine is left in a room with room with three 16lb bowling balls.
Three hours later the old gunny returns to find...
One naked Marine, two bowling balls, and one of them broken.
All that Marine had to say was "I dunno Gunny they were like that when I got here!"
Freedom in America was not won with a "registered" firearm, nor was it a gift of the ruling class.
I bet these 7.62 brass were fired in a machine gun with a very loose chamber, allowing the case necks to expand more than normal. And then when sizing them back down in a die, the residual stresses in the oversize necks held them fast to the inside of the sizing die, allowing it to tear off the neck portion right at the crease that had been pushed back excessively, creating a fault in the brass at the junction of the neck and shoulder. Or maybe even the neck portion was pushed down into the case kinking it at the shoulder/neck junction slightly, weakening it and tearing it off when pulling it back out.
This is from a pistol shooter of straight cases: Man you folks have seen a lot and THANK YOU for sharing it here. I really appreciate the ammonia clue. I collect a lot of range brass and have been passing along the necked stuff to rifle shooters I know. I will warn them to check this stough carefully. Any way to detect machine gun (or fully automatic) fired rounds before they fail??
Thanks again for the education.
_________________________
DRNurse1
Education is one thing you can give away freely while suffering no personal loss and likely increasing one's own knowledge.
Properly vetted source information prevents GIGO, the scourge of the internet.
With nearly 1/3 blowing up I would suggest the scrap barrel. Since you don't know the exact history of these cases you will never know for sure what happened to them. I read all the responses to this thread, and most seem plausable. However you will never know for sure what ruined these cases.
If they are depsoited in the scrap barrel, and since there is no way of knowing for sure,,, then you can move on and leave this issue behind.
It is doubtful that you will ever run into this problem again, and if you do, then you'll know to scrap that batch too.
Sometimes knowing why something is bad is not important, just knowing that it IS bad is enough.
We spend our whole lives searching for the truth. Many never find it! But they still lived, so all was not lost.
Randy
"It's not how well you do what you know how to do,,,It's how well you do what you DON'T know how to do!"
www.buchananprecisionmachine.com
Another question for the experienced folks here: I use Lemishine and Dawn to clean my brass. No apparent ammonia issue and seems to work rapidly and effectively. I cleaned about 5000 cases of various calibers this weekend and encountered a new observation.
My concern is finding some of the nickel cases partially stripped of the nickel (maybe 5/500 = 1% is no big deal if it is not damaging the other cases) and some of the brass cases ending up with a reddish cast (again, very few cases /1000 but concerned about effect on all the cases).
Background: outdoor range pickup, rinsed and dried then stored until sufficient quantity to clean as above. I soaked in the Lemishne/ Dawn detergent mix for about 15 minutes with some agitation, then rinsed (diluted cleaning solution seven times, an old chemistry thing).
Any thoughts, I will try to attach photos later.
Left=Red Brass not cleaned
Center= Cleaned
Right= Nickel stripped cases (2 in front) and brass case discolored (rear)
Last edited by DRNurse1; 05-13-2013 at 08:31 AM. Reason: add photo
_________________________
DRNurse1
Education is one thing you can give away freely while suffering no personal loss and likely increasing one's own knowledge.
Properly vetted source information prevents GIGO, the scourge of the internet.
Posting Permissions
| BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
| BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
| BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
| C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
| HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
| PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
| LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
| GC | Gas Check |
Reply With Quote
W.R.Buchanan