Shame on me......

Eagleye

Eagleye

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Well, sometimes we just forget and take things for granted.....and get bitten.
I own a Husqvarna in 8mm Mauser....It's a great rifle, and shoots well.

I acquired 40 empty 8x57JS cases headstamped "Dominion". This is good brass, BTW.
I decided to load some up to try out 100V as a powder behind the 196. Norma Dual-Core bullet.

I threw my calipers on 2 or 3 cases, and they were all below the max length of 2.240"
So I sized 20 cases, and loaded in ½ grain increments up to 52 grains.
Got to the range, fired 5 rounds at the lowest load, all went well, and they were in about 1-1/2"

Moved up to the next weight, fired one shot, tried to chamber a second round....NO GO!! I could
not turn the bolt handle down. It was like the bolt was stopped solid against something.
Long story short, I had 6 total rounds that I could not close the bolt on. Rest fired and shot great.

Thinking I had a sizing issue, I pulled the bullets, dumped the powder, and resized the cases...NO
Chance they would let me close that bolt. Then the light came on....the cases were too long.

Sure enough, caliper says between 2.56" and 2.60"!!! Trim to length, now they chamber easily.
In checking the lot or 40 cases, 12 were overlength, and not just a little bit, .015" or more.
The rest were all within specs....go figure.

Thinking that possibly they were seriously stretched, I checked for the deadly "head separation ring"
inside the case, but it was not present. Bit curious why so much extra length, but a good reminder to
take absolutely nothing for granted. D.
 
That's happened to us all at one time or another. I have 20 rounds I need to redo for that exact reason.
 
Hasn't happened to me yet. I measure every piece of new brass out of the box. Measure every one after sizing and one more measure of every one after trimming.
 
I have had the same sort of issue with several boxes of unfired, by coincidence , Dominion headstamped 32 Remington brass I picked up awhile ago, nearly all the cases well over the maximum case length. I use the same brass to make up 30 Remington rounds and caught the difference in length before getting too far into the process but it was a bit of a wake up call for me to shake a bit of complacency when it comes to checking case length on my handloads.
 
years ago, had the same happen with some new 3006 brass
got to the pit, and could only get 4 rounds to chamber in my 7600.. rest did the same and made a solid klunk

Ive alway checked fired brass as 06 is bad for stretch, but now do the new aswell. Sigh
 
I treat new brass like old brass.
Runn'im thru the routine.
S'pecially hunting rounds.

And don't forget to chamber each and every one.
The one you don't will cost you a fur............sooner or later.
 
I guess the Husqvarna Mauser action I have is not so generous in chamber length as the milsurps are.
I have trimmed all my 8x57 brass back to 2.230" now, and will keep an eye on it to monitor
case stretch. BTW, 52 grains of 100V behind the 196 dual core Norma bullet shoots groups under
MOA. I will chronograph the load to see what the speed is next. D.
 
You are lucky they were so long that they would not chamber.

A long case that is chambered hard can hold the bullet and boost pressures off the chart.

This week I took some once fired IVI military 303 brass and sized it. Since it was just once-fired I was not concerned about length and did not check it.

Out of curiosity, I measured a few. Some are already over-length. Not a lot, but enough that I should have trimmed them all and then champfer the case mouths.
 
Eagleye, The "Dominion" brass you mention, was it the old stuff or some of the new stuff being brought in by CanAm???

I have a cache of the old Dominion brand cases and some of them have over 70 reloads on them. Fantastic brass.

I've come across similar issues with both the old Dominion as well as other manufacturers.

I'm willing to assume that they stretched cases were from a different lot and a different amount of tin or something else in their metallurgy.

I have especially found this to be one of the issues with IVI and WW cases.


TURF THE LIBERALS IN 2019
 
bearhunter said:
Eagleye, The "Dominion" brass you mention, was it the old stuff or some of the new stuff being brought in by CanAm???

I have a cache of the old Dominion brand cases and some of them have over 70 reloads on them. Fantastic brass.

I've come across similar issues with both the old Dominion as well as other manufacturers.

I'm willing to assume that they stretched cases were from a different lot and a different amount of tin or something else in their metallurgy.

I have especially found this to be one of the issues with IVI and WW cases.


TURF THE LIBERALS IN 2019
Click to expand...

BH; This is the "old" Dominion brass from C.I.L. I have found that in 8x57, this brass has the
greatest internal capacity of any available. Allows for slightly better ballistics, within reason,
of course. Dave.
 
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