Tavor X95 - Small Dents in the Brass Casings Shot Through It

thegazelle

thegazelle

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Hi there,

I just came back from the range and am drying off all the brass (the ones that went into the snow) I collected that I shot today through my X95 this afternoon.

I typically examine the brass once I shoot the rounds when I get home before putting them away. Today is the first time I have noticed something up with the brass. I am not sure if this is an issue with the X95 or what, but I have shot various .223/5.56 rifles before and the brass comes out without any type of imperfections other than being dirty.

Today I used:

Federal AE AR223 .223 55gr
Winchester White Box 5.56 M193 55gr
PPU .223 55gr

All were fed through my X95 which I recently cleaned. I did use a new type of magazine, a Mission First Tactical LAR15 (which unfortunately unlike the C Products Defense LAR15s, these did not drop free, but I digress). I also shot the X95 for the first time in the cold (don't think that would make a difference as it is supposed to be a robust gun).

I know before, whenever I shot the X95, and picked up my rounds and took them home, I didn't see these dents. Today, all the rounds above had small slight dents in the casing and all in the same place. I am just wondering if anyone would know why this all of the sudden started happening and if there is any way for me to prevent / mitigate it in the future. Are these casings reloadable given the small dent?

Any insight would be welcome. I just took a photo which is attached below.

Thanks in advance for any feedback or suggestions.

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I don’t own a X95 but from previous bullpups I’ve owned, it’s from hitting the shell deflector. Some brass is softer than others so it’s more apparent and I would assume this is what your experiencing.
 
Different ammunition will eject differently. It happens so fast it's hard to notice much difference. That stuff in particular strike the deflector right in what is probably the easiest part of the case to dent. It's just a cosmetic issue, it's perfectly safe to reload if that is your thing.
 
My SAN did similar damage to the brass. Just the way it was designed.

It's strange that you didn't see this happening before. Are there different gas settings? The only other thing you mentioned that you did different was shooting in the cold, but I'm not sure why that would cause the cases to wind up dinged like that.
 
Locos said:
It's strange that you didn't see this happening before. Are there different gas settings? The only other thing you mentioned that you did different was shooting in the cold, but I'm not sure why that would cause the cases to wind up dinged like that.
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I didn't see this happening before because it didn't happen before. I just checked 15-20 bags of brass that I shot through my X95, WK, and Renegade and have put away. No dents...that brass was PMC Bronze, Federal AE, PMC XTac, S&B, and PPU (SP), as well as older WWB .223. No dents anywhere. As mentioned, I typically check the brass before I bag it at home - this didn't happen until today.

That said there were no issues with shooting - feeding was fine, ejecting was fine and accuracy was within my normal performance. That's why for me it's a headscratcher - this didn't happen before with the X95 or any of my other .223/5.56 rifles.

Nothing was altered in the gun except it was cleaned.
 
My first thought was the shell deflector as well. I also noticed the necks of each case have a C shaped mark. Is this usual on your previous range trips? Can you post a pic of the head stamps? Those cases all look annealed so I’m wondering if this only happened with one specific brand of ammo - I know you said you shot 3 different brands today but were they all dented like this?
 
Runningfool said:
My first thought was the shell deflector as well. I also noticed the necks of each case have a C shaped mark. Is this usual on your previous range trips? Can you post a pic of the head stamps? Those cases all look annealed so I’m wondering if this only happened with one specific brand of ammo - I know you said you shot 3 different brands today but were they all dented like this?
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It is very interesting that you noticed this mark on the neck. I didn't notice this today as I was focused on the cartridge body, but good catch. The rest of the old brass I already resealed so I don't want to fetch the box in the closet and reopen everything, but with the three brands I used today, I noticed ALL of them have a little mark/scrape/curved dent on the neck that you noticed and it happens that where that dent is, that side is slightly flatter. And it seems like where the body dent is, just up a bit on the neck it seems like the smaller curved scratch/dent is in the same position, just higher up. See photos I just took of a few samples .

I have the PPU .223 and Winchester 5.56 headstamps in the photos below.

Some of the Federal AE AR223 rounds are currently taking a vinegar bath (long story - I wrote about this in the Ammo subforum regarding really tarnished rounds - this was the last box of them). I dipped into the vinegar to take out a casing of the Federal AR AR223 and took a photo as well.

So the rounds' ages are as follows:

Federal AE AR223 .223 55gr - 2012 manufacture date (shot 20 today)
PPU .223 55gr - 2016 manufacture date (shot 40 today)
Winchester M193 white box 5.56 - 2021 manufacture date (shot 20 today)

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The above are samples of the PPU .223 and the Winchester M193 5.56

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Above are headstamps for the PPU and Winchester rounds

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These ones floating in the vinegar are the Federal AE AR223 (they are sitting in the vinegar as they were heavily tarnished - I have a thread in the Ammo subforum about this a couple of months or so ago). If you are interested in reading and seeing what these looked like and why I have them in a vinegar bath, the link to the thread is here:

https://www.canadiangunnutz.com/for...Ammo-Kept-Dry-But-Was-In-Outside-Storage-Shed

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Headstamp of ne of the Federal AE AR223. These were dented as well as the PPU and Winchester ones. Same spot.
 

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thegazelle said:
I didn't see this happening before because it didn't happen before. ...

Nothing was altered in the gun except it was cleaned.
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If the only variable that changed was the cleaning, then it was probably the cleaning - You may have had a buildup of crud somewhere in the system before that was slowing down the bolt movement. This could have been on the bolt / carrier etc. or possibly a partial blockage of the gas port itself. Or both.

There are less-common potential causes, but much less common. These photos make it look like typical "vigorous" ejection caused by more gas than is necessary. As said above, this is good for reliability, less good for case life. Pretty common.
 
thegazelle said:
It is very interesting that you noticed this mark on the neck. ....
Click to expand...

The ding on the neck is unusual to my experience. But if you had zero failures to eject then it's probably also happening somewhere outside the receiver.

Personally, I'd slow cycle the action with empty cases to see if there's anything weird going on - Making sure that ejection is happening where it should be.

Any brass marks on the receiver? Photos would help. Look closely at the front edge of the ejection port to be sure the brass isn't catching there on the way out - Not likely, but I'd want to rule it out.
 
alpining said:
The ding on the neck is unusual to my experience. But if you had zero failures to eject then it's probably also happening somewhere outside the receiver.

Personally, I'd slow cycle the action with empty cases to see if there's anything weird going on - Making sure that ejection is happening where it should be.

Any brass marks on the receiver? Photos would help. Look closely at the front edge of the ejection port to be sure the brass isn't catching there on the way out - Not likely, but I'd want to rule it out.
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Yeah, I checked the ejection port thoroughly last night as well when people were mentioning the ejection/deflector being the issue. I didn't notice any marks. Kids are here today so I can't really take it out of my safe. But I checked last night and I didn't see any marks anywhere.

Yes, there was some crud build up at the end of the piston, last I cleaned it thoroughly...which makes me wonder about something...I have a model with a slightly longer bolt guide rod (April 2020 models up) which IWI redesigned in order to support 300 BLK...that required some additional force to remove (I didn't take the bolt assembly apart previously when cleaning). Gun was put back together fine, function tested fine and obviously shoots fine, feeds fine and ejects fine. Could be anything within that cleaning regimen that affected this. I may take apart again and reassemble, and go back to PMC ammo next time to just keep the variables consistent with previous experience and then report back. Also good idea with slow cycling the action with empty cases (especially the previous ones that didn't have the dings).

Thanks everyone for the feedback.
 
Like others have said it's not something that occurs with every ammunition but will with most. I have personally had experience with probably close to a dozen Tar 21/X95 type platforms all of which exhibited the same symptoms. It has been well documented that these platforms are overgassed to ensure reliability and as a result case typically gets a dent in the lower portion as it strikes the shell deflectors 90ﾟcorner on the way out of the ejection port before continuing to spin around and flatten the neck on the backside of shell deflector.

Needless to say the Tavor platform isn't meant for picky reloaders.
 
At 1:30 you can see in slow motion where the case makes contact with the deflector and again at 3:05, where you can actually see the dent in the case. I’m still curious about that C-shaped mark on the neck.

 
onetwentyish said:
... overgassed to ensure reliability and as a result case typically gets a dent in the lower portion as it strikes the shell deflectors 90ﾟcorner on the way out of the ejection port before continuing to spin around and flatten the neck on the backside of shell deflector.

....
Click to expand...

That would probably explain the neck dings. I'd still look real close at the front of the ejection port to be sure (magnifying glass, good light).

Bummer if you're trying to keep your brass pristine, but these rifles are simply never going to be gentle on the cases. They should mostly resize just fine, but you'll probably get some that won't. And the work hardening will definitely shorten case life.

Is there an adjustable gas system option? Try leaving the action dirty? Or if you want to get fancy, play with reloading variables until you dial down the pressure at the gas port.
 
Runningfool said:
At 1:30 you can see in slow motion where the case makes contact with the deflector and again at 3:05, where you can actually see the dent in the case. I’m still curious about that C-shaped mark on the neck.

Click to expand...

Ah thanks. That explains it. Very good closeups of everything. Weird that that NEVER happened on the other cases I had before though (unless PMC cases and S&B and such are stronger metal). Could just have been the rounds I used yesterday.

Wondering if I can just remove that brass deflector. At my lane on my range, NO ONE is ever within 20 feet of me (I go when it's not busy) so curious if I remove the deflector what would happen. Worse case it can be scratched up like my WK, which is pretty much just cosmetic anyway.

Thanks for the input. As for gas regulation, even if it was an option, I'd prefer to just keep things as is since the gun is working properly and I'd rather have that over than pristine brass.
 
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