cause of 45acp splitting along its length

[laurencen]

morning, been reloading 45acp for a year or so, starting to see a quantity of brass after shooting split lengthways, nothing evident during the loading process and shot fine, the brass has been reloaded a half dozen times my guess is worn out but anyone got any other ideas? both guns chambers are good and failure is 1 in 30

 

[coldestcanuck]

I've got a lot of 45 brass that I've loaded more than 10 times with no problems. I'm careful to use the minimum flare at the casemouth to reduce the stress on the brass. I did have a similar problem with a large batch of 9mm that a buddy inherited. With those, the failure rate was close to 100%. After pulling the projectiles, we experimented with the brass and found that it was quite "brittle". We discarded the whole works. As to the cause, we thought perhaps it was the result of an uninformed attempt at annealing or, possibly the brass had been cleaned with a strong ammonia solution which, I am told will affect the malleability.

 

[laurencen]

that's interesting, I have to keep a closer tab on the split ones, I purchased a 2000 batch off this forum and they are mixed, I do not keep track of how many times they are loaded, flair is minimum for the cast lead and do not use a sonic cleaner

from now on I will keep the split ones maybe they are a specific manufacturer, thanks

 

[sunray]

What load? What brand of brass? Case life is entirely dependent on the load used, but some brass in known to be softer than others. Usually appears as enlarged primer pockets though.
Ammonia eats brass. It is not required for cleaning brass anyway.

 

[cr5]

I find Norinco brass does that a lot which is why I don't reload it anymore.
I throw away all Norinco brass and also any brass that cracks or doesn't look good in any way, 45 brass is so cheap I don't worry about it.

 

[Smcx]

I've had a few new norc .45 brass split. All the ones that didn't spit when new have been reloaded at least 5 times and have not split yet. I'm guessing brass hardness?

 

[tjhaile]

Any straight-walled case will eventually crack at the case mouth if reloaded and fired enough times. The cause is work hardening of the brass from repeated firing and resizing. One split case in 30 after six reloads is probably not that big of a deal; most of the rest will probably be good for many more firings. Reuse the cases if they're still good; toss 'em if they're cracked, and everything will be fine.

 

[ATOM]

Any straight-walled case will eventually crack at the case mouth if reloaded and fired enough times. The cause is work hardening of the brass from repeated firing and resizing. One split case in 30 after six reloads is probably not that big of a deal; most of the rest will probably be good for many more firings. Reuse the cases if they're still good; toss 'em if they're cracked, and everything will be fine.

What he said.