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Posted: 6/29/2012 12:44:50 PM EDT
| I opened up a box of 20 rounds of .223 I loaded up back in 04. Of the 20, 10 of them had split necks. They were not big splits, but you could see them, and feel them with your fingernail. I fired the other ten but left these alone. The brass is 4x fired. Should I be ok to fire these? |
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Break them down , save the bullets for plinking/blasting rounds.
I will admit to fireing pistol rounds like my mild 38 sp plinkers with the ocaisional split that I missed but to my way of thinking rifle rounds are too high preasure to be messing with any defects I don't consider slight dents in bulk ball ammo to be a defect but with a split neck I would really wonder about the general strength of the case. What brand of brass? I have no problem finding once fired lake city brass at my range so I don't mess with anything suspect |
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Quoted: I opened up a box of 20 rounds of .223 I loaded up back in 04. Of the 20, 10 of them had split necks. They were not big splits, but you could see them, and feel them with your fingernail. I fired the other ten but left these alone. The brass is 4x fired. Should I be ok to fire these? Truthfully, I doubt it would damage your rifle if it's a moderate load, but consider how much your rifle cost vs. a few brass cases. I toss out any cases with these type of defects... I'd rather be out a few pennies on brass that wore out too quickly than take a chance damaging my guns or worse... myself. JMHO. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
I opened up a box of 20 rounds of .223 I loaded up back in 04. Of the 20, 10 of them had split necks. They were not big splits, but you could see them, and feel them with your fingernail. I fired the other ten but left these alone. The brass is 4x fired. Should I be ok to fire these? Truthfully, I doubt it would damage your rifle if it's a moderate load, but consider how much your rifle cost vs. a few brass cases. I toss out any cases with these type of defects... I'd rather be out a few pennies on brass that wore out too quickly than take a chance damaging my guns or worse... myself. JMHO. my bigger concern would be if the brass has failed in that area where else has it failed where i can't see it. pull it and don't shoot it. |
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Those cases had most likely become very hard in the necks from firing 4 times, then sizing one more time. The seated bullets cause a constant preload in the neck that can lead to a condition called "stress corrosion cracking".
The usual contributors to corrosion aggravate this condition, but the real killer of brass is exposure to ammonia, either during cleaning while preparing the cases to reload, or even through sustained exposure in the environment where the ammunition is stored. The greater the preload, or the neck tension in our case, the more rapid and extensive the failure. Usually brass that is kept stored in good conditions requires decades to fail due to this phenomenon. What usually happens, however, is case failure in a brittle mode; the brass is bad, but there are no outward indications. This is a real phenomenon that requires attention during design of high performance structures. If you own a garage with a preloaded coil balance spring for the door, chances are it has failed for this reason. I keep a little oil on mine to prevent rusting and preload it no more than necessary now after two that failed over a fairly short interval; the one installed now has probably been operating 15 years. |
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If bullet tension was still good on them I'd fire 'em. Again, the key word is "if". What's the difference of firing a round that has a split in the neck before firing vs one that splits during firing? 2 nanoseconds of burn time or something that flame can cut through the split in the neck? Even if it does, big deal, look at the flame that's coming out ahead of the mouth of the case. If there's little or no bullet tension then dismantle the rounds to recover the components |
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2 words...gas cutting.
Every round with a split neck will have flame shooting through that split right into the chamber adjacent to it, like a welders' torch. Each time, it etches a slight burn mark on the chamber. If you want to expose your gun to something like that 10 times go right ahead. I would pull 'em. |
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Quoted: 2 words...gas cutting. Every round with a split neck will have flame shooting through that split right into the chamber adjacent to it, like a welders' torch. Each time, it etches a slight burn mark on the chamber. If you want to expose your gun to something like that 10 times go right ahead. I would pull 'em. That's what I was thinking. Why would you even consider handloading components with critical defects??
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Quoted: 2 words...gas cutting. Every round with a split neck will have flame shooting through that split right into the chamber adjacent to it, like a welders' torch. Each time, it etches a slight burn mark on the chamber. If you want to expose your gun to something like that 10 times go right ahead. I would pull 'em. and the chamber in front of the case mouth of a round without a neck split doesn't gas cut the chamber in front of the case mouth? Gas cutting happens with every round that's fired in every firearm |
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Quoted: Quoted: 2 words...gas cutting. Every round with a split neck will have flame shooting through that split right into the chamber adjacent to it, like a welders' torch. Each time, it etches a slight burn mark on the chamber. If you want to expose your gun to something like that 10 times go right ahead. I would pull 'em. and the chamber in front of the case mouth of a round without a neck split doesn't gas cut the chamber in front of the case mouth? Gas cutting happens with every round that's fired in every firearm I don't think so. The case is obturated by then and the tiny "crack" is present only for the split instant as the heel of the bullet clears the case mouth. Plus, if your argument is true, then EVERYONE's chamber would have features similar to the badly pitted bolt face you see when primers leak badly. The split neck exposes the chamber to a jet for a much much longer period of time as the bullet advances––similar to the badly leaking primer pocket. Plus when you start with a split neck, the scenario of the entire case unzipping becomes a potential. |
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Quoted: I don't think so. The case is obturated by then and the tiny "crack" is present only for the split instant as the heel of the bullet clears the case mouth. Plus, if your argument is true, then EVERYONE's chamber would have features similar to the badly pitted bolt face you see when primers leak badly. This is called throat erosion. My argument is that gas cutting via a split neck is miniscule compared to the damage caused by throat erosion, which is unpreventable |
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Quoted:
2 words...gas cutting. Every round with a split neck will have flame shooting through that split right into the chamber adjacent to it, like a welders' torch. Each time, it etches a slight burn mark on the chamber. If you want to expose your gun to something like that 10 times go right ahead. I would pull 'em. I was worried about the gas cutting, having found ammo loaded from the mid 90's, with about 25% splits. I went through the stash and picked out all the split necks, went to the range with an worn out barrel. Something I wasn't worried about ruining. First, I checked the chamber and bore with my bore scope to see if the were any irregularities, None. Then I fired approx 300 rds of neck split brass, then checked the chamber and bore again. Guess what,, no, Nada, difference in either bore or chamber. If the bullet stays in the case, single feed them. You'll be alright. 'Borg |
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