Winchester brass - one off?

[John Spartan]

Reloaded some new Winchester brass for the ol' 45-70 Govt. recently and on checking the finished rounds found one that had intermittent hairline cracks just below the point where the bottom of the 400 grain bullet would be. Load density is 99-100%. Moderate crimp was done to ensure bullet stays put in my leverguns.

I'm thinking that this particular piece of brass didn't get properly annealed at the factory.

Any other theories as to why this happened?

 

[Levi Garrett]

Do the bullets bulge the case very much? any pics?

 

[John Spartan]

Nope, hardly any bulge at all. None of the other cases loaded up shows this. I've tried applying gentle pressure to breaking the case at the largest crack and found this expanded the crack to cover about 2/3rds of the circumference of the case - a little more pressure, I'm sure I could break the brass cleanly in two at this point. The crack is very straight, not jagged, almost as if somebody scribed it into the brass at that point.

No pics - camera on the fritz.

 

[Rotaxpower]

I have the same problem with my 204 Ruger brass, I have no idea why it does it.The loads I shoot arent hot.

 

[Levi Garrett]

Thats a strange one for sure John, can you pull the bullet and check to see if the inside of the case had a tear/groove of some sort of break in there?

 

[John Spartan]

I'll try that and see what turns up.

 

[gunasauras]

Interesting one John....looking forward to hearing your response....

 

[John Spartan]

Took me a while to get a bullet puller that would work with the 45-70, but pulled the bullet and found the following:

Inside about the same distance from the case mouth as the outside cracks was a slightly discolored area that also had intermittent cracks around the inner circumference of the brass.

This is unusual in that this was new, unfired Winchester brass case lubed with Imperial Resizing die wax (sparingly) and resized using RCBS 45-70 dies. The bullet was crimped in position with Lee's Factory Crimp die.

Not sure how this developed, but am thinking that when this brass was formed at one of Winchester's plants, a mechanical hiccup occurred or, more likely, the brass source used for this particular piece of brass must have had an imperfection.

Lessons learned - inspect any new brass, whether unfired or once fired thoroughly inside and out. Continue to ruthlessly cull any suspect brass or cartridge(s) as it's not worth risking a case separation and possible injury/death to oneself.

Will continue using Winchester brass for the time being, but now plan to try Starline brass when the opportunity presents itself.

 

[gunasauras]

That's wild. As you stated, it is important to inspect all brass before reloading....even brand new stuff...thanks for the updtae...

 

[John Spartan]

Also looking at using a solution that would get the powder residue off the insides of fired cases - would help make inspection easier. It's an additional PITA, but safety comes first.

 

[gpracer]

I have the same problem with my 204 Ruger brass, I have no idea why it does it.The loads I shoot arent hot.

Funny, i recently purchased 1100 rounds of win .204 from midway, seeing the same problem, about 1-2 bad pieces of brass per 100?

 

[John Spartan]

It would be interesting to see which manufacturer lot numbers these were. In my case - didn't record the lot number, but will be from now on. Wouldn't hurt to send a letter to Winchester detailing what happened and taking digital pictures with it to document the failures - keeping the bad brass on hand in case Winchester wants to see the physical evidence.