Any Problems With a Particular Brand of Brass? Results Added

[dougader]

A bunch of my 30-06 brass that was cleaned with Brasso, loaded and put away now comes up with split necks, too. Same with some .223 brass.

I'm I'm the middle of testing some of those cases after pulling the bullets, dumping the powder and gently removing the primers. I then clean the brass again, this time with citric acid. Then I anneal the brass, load to a mid-pressure level and test fife at the range. So far, none of these re-treated and annealed cases have split at the neck like the others.

Next test is to load up to my regular hunting loads and test fire those.

 

[Chuck 100 yd]

I suppose annealing may saved them but for just 50 cases, I trashed them and started over with new brass.
I sold that rifle to my friend Tom in Montana. His wife kills her buck ,using the wood pile on the back porch as a rest ,with it every year.

Now,Tom doesn't like to hunt his own property and heads farther east for the bigger bucks.

 

[Bucks Owin]

Case manufactures often get inferior brass from their suppliers. A lot has to do with the source and chemical make-up of each batch. I have seen problems reported with many different brands. It is usually impossible to tell the brass is bad until you see the failures.

THAT IS ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! :roll:

If you are going to post wild conjecture please say so up front. Otherwise someone might take you seriously!



"It is usually impossible to tell the brass is bad until you see the failures"....

As if ammo makers invite the kind of lawsuits that would ensue by using any old brass and waiting to see if it fails under tens of thousands of PSI in the hands of consumers...Good grief!?!

Cartridge brass is made of copper and zinc. You can rest assured that the manufacturers know EXACTLY the amount of each before they commit to running a batch of hundreds of thousands of cases!!! :shock:

 

[Jimbo357mag]

Bucks if you think all brass is created equal you are dreaming. Every manufacturer gets a bad batch once in a while. Generally brass with more zinc is more brittle. There are also trace elements like lead and iron in there. Mistakes during processing and exposure to chemicals in the air can also effect brittleness. You should get a life and stop following me around looking for mistakes.

https://www.petersoncartridge.com/drawing-brass

http://www.farmerscopper.com/cartridge-brass-260-c260-c26000.html

 

[SweetWilliam]

Jimbo those are a couple good links

 

[wolfsong]

EGO, you're paranoid.

 

[Jimbo357mag]

EGO, you're paranoid.

...and Wolfsong, you have a "Napoleon complex". :wink:

 

[Chuck 100 yd]

Reading that farmers copper.com link, it tells of Some of the chemicals that can affect cartridge brass. Neither the metal or rhe cartridge case manufacturer has any control of what happens to it's product after it leaves there establishment. A load of brass could be contaminated during shipment or storage and later found to be defective. One of the reasons for Lot Numbers and record keeping.

 

[SweetWilliam]

But back to the original photo, Who thinks the brass split because of contamination and who thinks it split because it was old and reloaded many times?

 

[Bucks Owin]

Bucks if you think all brass is created equal you are dreaming.

That's not even a good try at deflection EGO... :roll:

Where did I say all brass is created equal? HUH?

Your remark was " It's usually impossible to tell if brass is bad until you see the failures

Defend that absurd statement EGO...


For your education, it IS possible to tell the percentages of copper/zinc even in the finished case! :shock:


http://www.accurateshooter.com/technical-articles/x-ray-spectrometry-of-cartridge-brass/

 

[Bucks Owin]

Bucks.... You should get a life and stop following me around looking for mistakes.

EGO...Quit playing Walter Mitty, reloading guru. :shock:

 

[mr surveyor]

But back to the original photo, Who thinks the brass split because of contamination and who thinks it split because it was old and reloaded many times?

Although I'm not an expert, I'll play. I'll pick the latter.


jd

 

[Jimbo357mag]

But back to the original photo, Who thinks the brass split because of contamination and who thinks it split because it was old and reloaded many times?

I think because it was only Winchester cases from around the same time period that show this splitting tendency that there was something wrong with the Winchester brass or the processing around that time period that made them brittle. Notice these didn't split on the first loading from the manufacturer but later on after some many reloadings. It also could have been exposure to chemicals but the chances of that many different lots getting exposure makes me believe in the former.

Many manufactures have had problems at one time or another with brass being too soft (Hornady .454/.480 cases) or too hard/brittle (Federal .327 mag cases) or just defective (Winchester primers blowing out on the edges) and all of these have been reported here.

Bucks go jump in the lake. Might cool you off.
I would be willing to bet that if those split cases were examined with the spectrograph we could see what the problem was. Notice from your own link that the brass the manufactures use is considerably different. Just look at the differences in the same alloy (C2600 cartridge brass) for instance. The formula results are all over the place making my point exactly. There is also lead (Pb) in brass that must be controlled and that isn't even reported.

 

[Bucks Owin]

Absolute nonsense..

from THE ENEMY OF GUN OWNERS!

:roll:

 

[sliclee]

Take a look at the primer dent. Notice the large rounded indent and deep inside is a tiny round mark. Magnify it 4 times.
Most cases thru overuse split in the case mouth not in body like yours. Must be a lot of hot rounds your using a HEAVY bullet.
During the last 15-20 years many US brass makers were using european brass makers to fill contracts as brass and labor is cheaper out of USA.
Heavy bullets wear out revolvers quickly, not so single action guns.
You don't need polish to shine brass, just use fine grain walnut to clean, before or after depriming then drain walnut and use fine corn cob to polish only, not for cleaning.
When you look inside cleaning bowl and walnut is 50 % black throw away cheapo it won't work any more.

 

[6gun]

I think this dead horse has been beat to many times now. :roll:

 

[superblackhawkhunter]

I Agree That Some Of The Brass Polishes From The Store are Not For Rifle or Pistol Brass !!!! Had This Exact Same Problem With Winchester 44 Mag Brass !!!! My Wife was Being a Good Helper, So She Used Brasso on My Cases, They Split the very First Reload !!! I Fire Split 38 Specials with No Problems !!!

 

[opos]

I avoid R/P brass...not an issue with the 44 but had an issue with 357 mag...Rem brass is thinner that most others and if you have a die set that is at the "top end" of the spec and your brass it thin...you get bullets that have not enough neck tension....been there done that...R/P is the only one and many folks have mentioned the wall thin ness of their brass.

 

[SonofBassMan]

I scrounge around for cheap brass using range brass and once fired and this made me happy until I acquired a 6.5X47 Lapua and had to pay more than $1.00 each.
I carefully inspect each piece of my cheap brass then anneal each piece. Being once fired gives me the option of adjusting my loads for head space.
As you all probably know cartridge brass hardness is a function of work hardening. Brass cannot be tempered by quenching like steel. Brass cartridge heads, base, rim, primer pocket are left intentionally hard by work hardening; the neck and mouth are annealed at a later time to soften the brass allowing it to be shoved around in the loading process. I avoid 65 thousand psi loads almost always.

Generally - I think any faults are usually those introduced by the manufacturing process. My observations are best for uniformity, durability for Rifle brass Lapua, RWS (.223's), Winchester, Remington, PPU (Serbian - tie with Winchester and Remington).
My observations with Remington .45 Auto brass is that it is paper thin.

Despite its low cost I have been pleased with PPU brass - it is relatively cheap, precise, and has the right degree of hardness from head to neck mouth. I use a fair amount of it to make 6mm AI's from 7X57 (lots of estimated 61-63 thousand psi loadings). I just bought a bunch of PPU .22-.250's and am using the same loads as Winchester .22-.250 brass. I am still undecided about PMC brass and have now acquired almost 1/2 gallon of .308 PMC range and store bought once fired brass.

I never have used Brasso or any polish containing ammonia on ammo. It would appear that the amount of absorption would be factor to allow a chemical reaction at any depth but I am not about to wreak a bunch of $1.00 plus 6.5X47 cases to find out. I would need to take a look at the activity properties of copper and zinc to guess at this.

Could it be that after many cycles of compression from loading dies followed by expansion from firing work harden the brass making it more brittle and subject to splitting? ( I think - yes) Do moderate variations (less than 7-8 percent) from the usual 70 and 30 percent mixes of copper and zinc alloy mix make substantial differences in the degree of work hardening given the same degree of brass forming (I think - no). Does an increase of zinc in the mix make for harder, less ductile brass (I think - yes) Would "brown box" Lapua cases split before "blue box" cases and would they respond differently to annealing (Probably yes, despite Lapua's reputation and I don't remember seeing any "brown box" Lapua's lately)

Any metallurgists out there that could help us out? My cousin is a MIT trained metallurgist and possibly she could answer these questions provided she recovers from some anger issues with me.

 

[SonofBassMan]

Without going into excessive details (geekism?) zinc, Zn is more chemically active than copper, Cu so that means brass containing more zinc would react to ammonia NH3 more than copper and this reaction would form zinc hydroxide Zn(OH)2. I am reminded that this is no more than high school chemistry. I would then guess that slathering on copious amounts of Brasso would do a faster number on those cases containing higher amounts of Zinc. I still don't know how the Brasso would work deeply under the surface of the brass.