Crack in the brass neck

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xingyc

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I've been using Hornady brass for my 270WIN, after 2 or more reloads, some(1-3%) brass develope a small crack in the neck(starts from the sholder, ends halfway up the neck). The crack is only on the outside of the case. Is this a common issue?
What's the standard diameter for the neck before and after resizing.
 
I don't keep any damaged brass around. But if you google "rifle case crack" there are photos will similar damage.
I'm thinking it might be the lee resizing die is undersized, so the neck gets over worked, and fail. The neck outter diameter should have a standard size.
 
I picked up some 1f factory Hornady 270 at the range one day and it looked like it was about to separate after 1 firing. Brought them home to weigh (and trash them) and they were lighter then 308Win cases by a decent margin. Not much brass used in some of these.
 
You could measure a loaded round and a fired case to see how much the difference in neck diameter is to see if it’s growing too in the chamber to start with.
 
I have come to the resolution that all WSM brass will be annealed from the bag or first firing from factory. I recently had a complete box of Winchester 300wsm brass crack on the second firing ( a real bummer). Only thing I can tell is it wasn't annealed properly from the factory. Because these are very high pressure rounds I will anneal on each firing from now on. If you have hard seating then this is one clue to your issue. Bullet seating should be smooth as butter. The ones I have annealed have no problem in my rifle and are at 5 firings still going strong. My 2c.
 
fox_111 said:
2 or more reloads, I'd say the brass is work-hardened and cracked. Annealing will prevent or retard that.
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I wouldn't think they would need it after 2 firings, I have plenty of 308 brass that has 5 or 6 and has never been annealed.
Might just have been a bad batch of brass.
OP how hot are your loads? Maybe you're loading a little hot which is hard on the brass.
 
270 WIN
case: hornady
powder: H4831, 57.5 Grains
primer: CCI LR
Bullet: Hornady SST 150 Grains
no sign of excessive pressure on primer.

But I'm going to reduce the power to 56 grains. 57.5 lacks the accuracy at 600m.
 
You are probably oversizing the brass. Do you have a comparator set to measure how far back you are bumping the shoulder when sizing? Could be a multitude of conditions causing this, but if you are only getting cracking on or after the 3rd firing, not the 1st, it is probably your sizing die is bumping the shoulder back to far overworking the brass. Proper annealing will help, but if you are only bumping the shoulder .002" when sizing, you shouldn't have to worry about that before primer pockets start to loosen up and brass is toast anyway. Also, I think the shape of the 270 case has something to do with premature case stretching, but that's just off the top of my head. I would read into that.
 
xingyc said:
I've been using Hornady brass for my 270WIN, after 2 or more reloads, some(1-3%) brass develope a small crack in the neck(starts from the shoulder, ends halfway up the neck). The crack is only on the outside of the case. Is this a common issue?
What's the standard diameter for the neck before and after resizing.
Click to expand...


Without photos of the case it is almost impossible to determine the problem. For all we know these cases could have manufacturing defects during forming.

I have had brand new Winchester cases with cracks and wrinkles in the shoulder and neck.

I have had reloaded Remington .270 cases for years without any cracked necks with standard non-bushing full length dies.

So my guess is defective cases that should not have passed quality control, either during forming or annealing.

It always helps to examine problem cases with a good magnifying glass looking for anwsers. I wear clip on magnifiers on my glasses and check the cases before and after sizing.
 
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Neck and shoulder cracks are from work hardened brass. Brass cases are annealed several times during the manufacturing process as the drawing process hardens them. That’s all well and good, and is used to advantage for making the case-heads harder. Its all a bit of balancing act. In the case of some like Lapua the final stage is a last selective annealing of the neck and shoulder and they leave the discolouration on because they are proud of it. Others, perhaps less proud polish it off, or their last annealing may have been at an earlier process.

If a neck or shoulder splits after a couple shots and sizings its probably because it was crap in the first place. That might be because the necks were left too hard; but could also be because it was allowed to get too hard at some stage and the damage was already done. Annealing can restore properties, but it doesnt repair the damage if it is already there. Ive had factory loads split, and cases thst have gone 20 or 30 without a problem. I had an old box of Remingtons that had split necks on some the unfired cartridges, and god knows how many brand new cases Ive chucked.

If you are getting a few split necks you might be able to save the rest by annealing. Throwing the whole works away is also a valid technique. You probably will have better luck with the next batch.
 
Hornady is not the only brass manufacturer that has annealing issues. I have seen a number of cases split necks on the first firing. Hornady seems to have a rep for this. While they provide brass cases in some hard to obtain calibres its no deal if the cases are scrap after 1 or 2 firings. Any Hornady brass I use I anneal it BEFORE I load it the first time and then every 5 firings after. No issues if I do that.
 
When I first got into reloading, I would only get a few cycles from a case before cracking. Then I began minimal resizing. This doubled the number of cycles and also halted case head separation. Then I went on to anneal each case every second load. Accuracy increased, brass life seems infinite.
 
elkhuntr said:
I have come to the resolution that all WSM brass will be annealed from the bag or first firing from factory. I recently had a complete box of Winchester 300wsm brass crack on the second firing ( a real bummer). Only thing I can tell is it wasn't annealed properly from the factory. Because these are very high pressure rounds I will anneal on each firing from now on. If you have hard seating then this is one clue to your issue. Bullet seating should be smooth as butter. The ones I have annealed have no problem in my rifle and are at 5 firings still going strong. My 2c.
Click to expand...

That has been my experience with Winchester wsm brass as well
 
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