Bad Brass

[jimkim]

I was given 200 44 spl cases. All of the Remington brass is discolored. They either have odd spots or streaks. The previous owner has a movie-cowboy pistol belt. I'm worried the tannic acid in the leather has destroyed this brass. I can't tell by looking at it if it's damaged or just discoloured. Is there anyway to tell if it is worth cleaning?

[jeepguy242]

clean it by itself, see if it polishes out, keep the media seporated just in case, you dont want to contaminate other cases if they are bad,

i would, and i would inspect them real good to look for signs of pitting, and cracking. i probly would load them up light to try them also, but thats just me...

[jimkim]

I think I'm gonna toss 'em. I looked through about fifty of them and found these. Sorry it's so blurry. Every one of these is cracked.

[rintinglen]

The tannic acid discoloration is of little significance, however, the cracks indicate either excessive work hardening or improper annealing during drawing. since the .44 Special brass is readily available, there is no good reason to screw around with it, trying to anneal it to get a few more loads out of it. You are wise, I think, to just pitch it.

[leftiye]

Someone has been hotrodding those. Either that or they have a gazillion loadings under their belts. Work hardened. If you do use them, anneal them about halfway up first.

[jimkim]

He can't shoot hot loads. He either uses factory ammo, or I load for him. He had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and can't take the recoil. These were Remington 44 spl 246gr LRN factory loads. All of his 44 magnum brass does look WAY better, so I think we'll be fine. I've always loaded 44 mag to 44 spl ballistics for him. I thought about annealing them, but I'm afraid I'd have to anneal them all the way to the rim, and I wouldn't feel at all safe shooting them.


http://i454.photobucket.com/albums/qq267/jimkim_bucket/078.jpg

How can I shrink these pictures?

[runfiverun]

i'd just trade em at the scrap yard.

[Frank]

New brass. You can reload it 40 times.
http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/17841

[jimkim]

Thanks frank. I'm fine. I have enough real(44 Magnum) brass to last a while. I'd rather use a cartridge that fills a cylinder anyway.

[fatelk]

That's good of you to help the guy out. JRA stinks. Looks like he had it bad and for a long time. My son has JRA, but the new medications work wonders and he does pretty good.

[jimkim]

Charles is in his late fifties now. When he was coming along they just threw stuff at him. Between the large dosages of aspirin, venom, and steroids he's lucky to be here. He tells me about his time at Warm Springs and it sounds like something from Dr Mengele's laboratory.

[jeepguy242]

I think I'm gonna toss 'em. I looked through about fifty of them and found these. Sorry it's so blurry. Every one of these is cracked.


yep, if it looks that bad, i would pitch them! not worth blowing up a perfectly fine gun (or worse) i can tell you that loosing a finger (or part of one) sucks.. i lost a 1/4 inch of my trigger finger in a fight with a table saw (guess who won!)

its great of you to help out a friend with a disability, and i also like to see someone overcoming their disability and enjoying something that they love, and not lettign it stand in their way!

hats off to both of you! stay safe and keep shooting!!!

[NickSS]

Of all the brass and ammo manufacturers I have had problems with remington brass the most. I am not saying this about ammo I have fired a lot but about new brass or once fired ammo. I bought some brand new 22 hornet brass one time and had half of it split down the body on the first shot and half of the rest split on the second shot and these were loaded to Lyman starting loads. I have also experienced a split shell head on the first firing of Remington 30-06 core lock ammo. In addition, I experience many more failure to fire with Remington 22 RF ammo that with any other brand and I have only bought 2000 large rifle primers of remington make in my life and both times I had failures to fire. In fact on the second thousand I opened the boxes and found out of the 800 I had not loaded yet three with no priming compound and one with no holes in the anvil of the primer. As a result of this I do not buy Remington ammo products.

[Alan]

I got a batch of Remington .45 Colt ammo from the early 70's, that 10% split on firing. The rest I reloaded w/ #452424, and half split on the first reload. (IIRC, it was 7.3 gr of WW231) Nearly 10 boxes of the stuff. I junked it all after I emptied it. I have NOT had that problem w/ newer stuff.

[lead-1]

I loaded some .44 mags about twelve years back with all Remington once fired brass, I fired it from new so I know it was once fired. This spring a friend stopped by to ask about reloading and I got out a box of the .44's to show him and noticed some had splits in the walls. When he left I did an inspection and out of 250 rounds 19 were split down the side or at the mouth.
I know darned well that when I loaded these on a single stage press and checked each of them as I finished them for crimp they were not split. I took a box out to shoot and lost another 11 rounds from one box, needless to say I am not happy with Remingtons handgun brass.