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Posted: 6/27/2005 5:06:34 AM EDT
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Never had this happen before. Spent a while at the range yesterday with my ARs and was having a good time shooting. I was shooting my Colt 6920 at 50 yards with Blackhills 55grain soft point ammo (blue box) and making nice little groups. On the last round of one of the magazines I was shooting nothing ejected. The bolt locked back like it was supposed to, but when I looked sitting on top of the magazine follower was the rear half of a case. The front half was lying halfway in and out of the ejection port. This Black Hills ammo uses Federal brass and it has a NATO headstamp on it. I've fired a lot of this ammo but had never seen a case completely cut in half before. The round fired from it went where it was supposed to and technically the rifle was not jammed in anyway because when I pulled out the magazine the case pieces fell out as well. This Black Hills stuff is accurate as hell and I love shooting it. Has anyone else had this happen to them before? I checked the rest of the ammo I had brought with me and there are some dings on some of the cases but nothing serious. I've seen much worse on XM193 and shot it without a problem. I kept on shooting (with the same ammo) about 100 more rounds and didn't have any problems. maybe it was just that one. |
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Like I said I've used this ammo a lot without issue; especially at ranges were FMJ ammo is not allowed. It is also accurate so I like it for that reason as well. What casues the shell case to break in two? This cartridge fired like all the other ones so I didn't know there was a problem until I looked at the rifle. |
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wgjhsafT, Like AROKIE said, it is rare with our ammo, but it certainly can happen. It is not a result of overpressure, but of brass fatigue in that piece of once fired brass (We use once fired US military brass in manufacturing remanufactured ammunition) possibly from initial firing in an oversize chamber, being resized and then fired again. It can happen even if your rifle is perfectly to headspace spec, but we see it most often whan the second firing is in a loose chamber. We keep resizing to a minimum whan loading, that is, we keep ammo headspace on the top side of the spec. This helps, but as you saw, does not guarentee that you will not ever have a brass separation. We get a couple reports a year out of the millions we sell. For that reason I recommend new ammo only for defensive use. Use the remanufactured ammo for recreation and training. It is rare, but can happen. Please call or IM you address for some relacement ammo to compensate you for the difficulty. I do not think there is any reason to expect any other separations in the ammo you currently have from that lot, but if you want to I'd be happy to exchange your remaining ammo. Jeff Hoffman, Black Hills Ammo |
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Col Sanders, I have never seen an instance where it damaged a weapon. The rear part of the case is appparently sufficient to keep the seal for gasses and prevent gas release from goimg down the mag to damage it. Often both pieces of the case are ejected. If they are not, the next round tries to feed, jamming into the front half of the broken case, then both the full loaded round and the front of the broken case eject together easily when the shooter retracts the charging handle to clear the jam. The front of the broken case can also be easily extracted by inbserting a rod with a 22 bore brush from the breech to catch the front part of the broken case, then pull rearward to free it from the chamber. Jeff (This answer applies to this particular problem. Case separations in a handgun or other calibers can have different results, and MAY cause damage. I have never seen firearm damage from this type of 223 separation however.) |
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Jeff, First off thanks for your offer. I'll give you a call. I like you ammunition quite a bit and have never before had a problem. With regards to my situation there was no damage (visble, or functioning) to my rifle. It was the last round in the magazine and therefore the bolt was locked back and the broken shell pieces were just lying there on top of the magazine follower. I continued firing the rifle using the same ammunition and magazine without a hitch. I fired maybe 100 rounds after this occurred with the same level of accuracy that it had had before. |
| I have heard of 3 case seperations instances on this forum in the last 2 weeks with Blach Hills "blue box". I had one a couple weeks ago. Mine was with 55 gr. FMJ bought from Cabela's. If the lot numbers would help, I still have the box and would be glad to e-mail the info to you. You can see my original post here: http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=16&t=239860 |
Ever see the PCA "brass"? It is only about 3/8" long, the rest is the polymer case. It is the brass that seals and it is the section of the case right above the web that does the bulk of the seal. If you carefully examine a fired case and compare against an unfired case, you will clearly see this "expansion ring". While what the BH Rep said, most of the time it is from excessive headspace. The real bad case head separations are those that are right at the web. This happens from thinning which only happens when the case has been (improperly) reloaded (too) many times. Each time the shoulder is pushed back and then the case is fired in a longer chamber, the case is stretched. Since the body immediately behind the shoulder "grabs" the chamber walls, the case head is now free to push back until it contacts the bolt face. The case is usually forced forward from the primer ignition. I wouldn't worry about a 2nd reload case head seperation. And for the tip of the week. If you have a broken shell extractor stowed in your buttstock, pat yourself on the back for being a good Boy Scout (Always Prepared). But the most of you do not. No problem if you have a chamber brush. Yes, just jab it in there with the T-handled rod and pull the offending shell front out of the chamber. Works every time if a new brush is used. And sometimes a brand new bore brush works too. Had them all the time in my .22 Hornet as I would reload until case failure. I was once a poor varmit/squirrel hunter and at $25 a box, Hornet ammo was like gold. But WW-680 was $9 a pound and bullets were $6 a hundred with primers running about $1.50. That was about $5 a box...much better... |
Jeff, That is awesome, stand up accountability. I am impressed. yes, 5.56 brass fired in a SAWs gets quite an elastic workout. A second firing in a loosely (military) headspaced rifle is often enough to crack the case or lead to total case head separation. Damn, again, way to go Jeff. |
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I don't have enough nice things to say about Jeff. We spoke on the phone yesterday afternoon for a few minutes. He is a professional and stands behind every one of his products. He is also an avid shooter. I can't say how impressed I am that the OWNER of Black Hills took time out of his busy day to talk with me, some guy who shoots Black Hills ammo, to discuss what I would call a one time occurrence with his product. He wanted to replace my ammunition for the "difficulty" that had occurred. While I would hardly call what happened a difficulty it showed me how dedicated Jeff and Black Hills are to their product and to their customer service. Jeff, you now have a customer for life. You manufacture some fine ammunition and I will for sure be using it in the future. Please keep up the good work. |
No kidding. THAT'S CUSTOMER SERVICE FOLKS! I don't muck BH ammo as I reload almost all I shoot but I sure wouldn't have any issues shooting it. Case failures like this happen. I had one occur in a garand I have. Once fired case (by me) and reloaded using a lot of care and double checking. I posted on the boards about this to try and find a cause. Best guess was that it was a bad case and seperated. Never had a problem before or after this occurred, even with rounds from the same lot. I'm still reloading cases from that lot of brass. Of course, If I have another problem, all those cases WILL be recycled. |
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Jeff, E-mail to [email protected] came back as "undeliverable". If you are still interested in my lot #, shoot me an e-mail or IM with a good address. Thanks again, Tim |
try black-hills.com |
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