Value of old 45-120 brass?

[fogman]

I was going thru my piles of stuff in my reloading room and came across 12 pieces of old 45-120 brass. They appear to be balloon head cases, stamped Eley London. Does anyone collect these and if so do they have any value? If not, would they be save to reload and shoot?

[oldreliable45120]

I wouldnt shoot ballon head cases, there just no way of telling how old or how well they were taken care of. Dont have a clue what they would go for but new cases are about are about $2 a piece. I would just hold on to them as colectors iotems.

[elk hunter]

Fogman;

Are you sure that the cases are 45-120? Eley was certainly in business when that cartridge was in use. Could they be 450 bpe cases? If you are interested in selling them PM me.

[Multigunner]

I was going thru my piles of stuff in my reloading room and came across 12 pieces of old 45-120 brass. They appear to be balloon head cases, stamped Eley London. Does anyone collect these and if so do they have any value? If not, would they be save to reload and shoot?

Only problem I could see with such cases would be if they'd at some point been loaded with a smokeless powder and a mercuric primer.
Black powder fouling insulated the case walls against surface contamination by the Mercury compounds, when smokeless was used with mercuric primers mercury contamination made cases brittle.

I don't see age itself being a problem for brass objects, but before the 1920's the process of Stress Corosion cracking was not well understood so splitting of cases after only a few loadings was still a problem. Straightwall cases were less affected than bottleneck cases. Annealing or stress relief generally dealt with the potential for SCC problems.

Balloon head cases would allow one to better duplicate the original loads and performance, but probably aren't a good idea for a smokeless equivalent load.

[fogman]

Thanks for the info. If I were to reload them it would be stricly black powder. Any idea their value? I'm thinking about trading/selling them to fund supplies needed to reload for my .45-120 Sharps Long Range.

[JSnover]

www.cartridgecollectors.org

Poke around, might get a general idea.