Piece of case mouth missing

[Humbo]

Hi,
I have some fired Winchester 454 Casull brass which clearly was from factory ammunition. It was crimped really hard, and it looks like the crimp chewed into the brass. Some of the cases lose a piece of the case moth after being fired again, could this cause any damage to my gun?

92694

[357Ruger]

What gun were you shooting it out of? Only time I ever saw a case ripped like that by firing was in a custom Contender barrel. My belief on that gun was the chamber was slightly short and a heavy crimp would cause the case mouth to stretch forward enough to be pinched by the bullet in the forcing cone and it tore the brass case. Touching up the chamber with a proper reamer solved the problem.

If this is a revolver does it happen in every cylinder or only certain ones?

If it happens randomly then it could be slightly brittle brass and the heavy crimp and extreme pressures of the 454 is causing it to tear away before releasing the bullet.

Brass is softer than barrel steel so it shouldn't hurt your gun but having been there myself I can definitely understand the need to find what is causing it. I would want it corrected if the problem is with the gun or the ammo replaced if the problem lies there. That brass is too expensive to be destroyed upon firing.

[C. Latch]

I wouldn't shoot that brass again, based on the ring I can see running all the way around the case mouth. Cartridge brass isn't hard enough to hurt anything - sometimes it is used as jacket material - but I still wouldn't use it.

If I had a handful of that brass, I'd throw it away, if I had a bunch I guess I'd try to trim to .45 Colt length and plink with it.

[Humbo]

Thanks for the replies guys. I believe the factory crimp weakened the brass, you can even see on the inside of the case where the crimp was. I have around 150 pieces looking like this, many of them are not quite as severe. The brass is shot from a Freedom Arms, and I think it's random where it occurs. Brass is fired 2-3 times. Trimming the brass down to 45 Colt length is not a bad idea instead of discarding the whole batch though.

[mikeym1a]

If it were me, I would trim the cases, clean them up, anneal the case mouth, and go from there. No reason to throw the brass away. You may have to reduce the loads a bit, but, do you shoot full house all the time? Most of us don't. Trim, clean, anneal, load, shoot. But that's just me. mikey