thats odd 22-250

R

ramhunter

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
552   0   1
Location
ON THE INTERNET where I live is private until we
i was just going to load up some 22-250 rounds. so i grab a box of 50 once fired. as i start looking at them i notice that almost every one has a split neck.

this is winchester brass that i loaded once. 55 gr bullet,210 primer,38.5 gr of 414. now i have been loading most of my own ammo for almost 30 years and have never seen this before. of course you throw some away after its been fired a bunch of times. [depending] but it's not often you have to toss any on the first round, let alone almost 50.

my guess is a bad batch of brass.

anyone else have this happen?

the rifle is a tikka l55 and i have fired probably -400 rounds thru it, it was not used much when i got it, and the other 150 or so pcs of brass that i have are in great shape. some fired 3 times.

ramhunter
 
ramhunter had some in 220 Swift bought it at P&D loaded it once and 19 had cracked necks. Haven't got around to annealing and reloading again but that was my next attempt. Sure glad it wasn't something really expensive.
Ken.
 
ok i did a recount
they all looked bad but when i got out the steel wool and gave them a scrub i had 35 that went in the garbage. i'll load up the others again and see what happens. i shot 15 or so federal factory rounds yesterday and no problems. as for annealing well probably not worth it just to save 15 pcs. i think i'll try some remington next.
ramhunter
 
It could have been old cartridges/brass that has age hardened. Before using the leftover good ones, you should anneal the case necks, otherwise they'll split after the second firing probably :p
 
70/30 (cartridge) brass does not age harden. Cold work is the only method for hardening this alloy.

In the late 19th century, the British Army in India had problems with thousands of cartridges cracking at the necks while in storage. It only happened during monsoon season, so the problem was termed "season cracking". With the passage of time and lots of research, corrosion scientists have a new name for it: Stress-Corrosion Cracking. It is used to describe cracking of stressed metals in mildly corrosive environments that should ordinarily have little to no effect on the metal. It happens with very specific environments, such as caustic and high-strength steel.

In the case of brass, it is susceptible to SCC in the presence of ammonia, which is why they had problems in India. Horse urine from the stables was mixing with rainwater and flowing into the ammo stores. It only takes a few hours of exposure to ammonia to cause tensioned brass to crack. My guess is your batch of brass was exposed to cat urine, window cleaner, or some other source of ammonia that led to stress-corrosion cracking of the brass. I would take any cases that have not cracked and rinse them in cold water before you do anything else. If they have not yet cracked, they should be fine if all the ammonia is removed before they are stressed.
 
I had a bunch of old Remington Factory loads that my father-in-law had stockpiled for years. (From '78 to 2000 to be precise)When I bought out his collection and ammo hoard most of the 30-06 ammo split at the neck on the first firing. Whether it was age or just bad brass in the first place I don't know, but junk is junk.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom