AR Sponsor
Posted: 6/17/2008 5:41:02 PM EDT
last weekend was shooting some black hills reloads in my ar. I had a failure to feed. I cleared it next round chambered fine. I shot a couple more rounds and then looked on the ground and saw this.  Said oh crap. The bullet that fed in and jammed I believe was caught in the case separation. But it must of cleared fine because the two pieces were on the ground after I cleared the gun. Took the bullet to my smith today and he agreed with me that there were no signs of excessive pressure. So he said bad brass don't loose sleep over it. So I go to the range today and shoot a couple rounds of privi and checked over my brass and found a dimple where it seems in exact same location as the case I split last week. here are some more pictures of the dents. and one of the primer showing no signs of pressure.    Anybody got a clue to what is going on? |
|
The last case shown looks more like an ejection dent. The second case shown looks like more of a erosion spot (surplus ammo), then a case chamber marking. First case is just a split case, and unless you have have problems with this with different types of ammo's, I don't see the problem (virgin ammo fired through a very over sized chambered M-249, and when sized back down for the first reloading, the side walls where too thin to begin with, and the simple reason that the case split alone. |
| If you're into reloading, and are accustom to close inspection of cases you will be hard pressed to find a single case without some dent or dimple. So, the second case appears to be quite normal; the first case appears to be a case that had reached its reload limit, the brass was overworked and therefore separated at the weakest point. Or, the round was significantly overcharged and could not contain the increased case and chamber pressure consistent with an overcharged case. |
You will sometimes notice a brighter area ( ring ) around the case where its thinning out due to being shot and reloaded too many times. Sometimes not. I always knew my cases were at the end of their useful life when this happened. Case head seperations can result from other issues such as overpowered loads, but looking at your primer, I'd say thats not the case ( no pun intended ). My guess would be it's time to retire some brass for scrap value. As a side note, exactly where the case seperates is due to a few factors such as chamber dimensions ( errosion and wear, not just initial reaming ) wall thickness of brass, and re-sizing die dimensions ( though the last one is unusual ). |
AR Sponsor
Win a FREE Membership!
Sign up for the ARFCOM weekly newsletter and be entered to win a free ARFCOM membership. One new winner* is announced every week!
You will receive an email every Friday morning featuring the latest chatter from the hottest topics, breaking news surrounding legislation, as well as exclusive deals only available to ARFCOM email subscribers.