What...in the Hell is this?

[Jesse Jaymes]

 

[brisket]

Details?
Virgin brass?
Factory ammo?
Sizing die if reloaded?
Is there a thin spot on the interior wall that you can feel with a bent paperclip?

 

[FLAK]

That's unique, and I aint talking powder.

 

[Jesse Jaymes]

The obvious....which took me a minute....is.....there is NO BELT!

This was supposed to be 1X fired factory brass. I loaded and fired a 212 ELD-X over 75.5 H1000. Not been an issue in my other batch of Hornady brass. I didn't notice anything until I tumbled that batcha and went to trim

No issues with any other brass from same lot or shooting session. I am GUESSING there was no belt from the factory?

 

[Jesse Jaymes]

That's unique, and I aint talking powder.

That's semi witty to a Reloading nerd....

 

[Jesse Jaymes]

Redding full length neck sizer. I'd have to pull my bushing to recall what dia it is...not sure that end of the case will matter much to the facts tho. Measuring shoulder bump to me...is not very accurate. Or at least I am not that accurate in trying to measure .002" off the shoulder. Die set to barely kiss the plate....ie minimal to no bump....I THINK.

 

[brisket]

The obvious....which took me a minute....is.....there is NO BELT!

This was supposed to be 1X fired factory brass. I loaded and fired a 212 ELD-X over 75.5 H1000. Not been an issue in my other batch of Hornady brass. I didn't notice anything until I tumbled that batcha and went to trim

No issues with any other brass from same lot or shooting session. I am GUESSING there was no belt from the factory?

No belt from the factory would be surprising, but with hornady anything is possible. 1X fired from your rifle, or purchased that way?

It looks like it was swaged down in something to me. Maybe a chamber with really bad headspace or a die that was manufactured wrong? Is there a thin/thick spot on the inside of the case?

 

[Wrench]

Fired in a 300prc?

 

[Jesse Jaymes]

Lol....not what the barrel says. Win Mag Bergara. No issues prior. Nada

 

[Jesse Jaymes]

No belt from the factory would be surprising, but with hornady anything is possible. 1X fired from your rifle, or purchased that way?

It looks like it was swaged down in something to me. Maybe a chamber with really bad headspace or a die that was manufactured wrong? Is there a thin/thick spot on the inside of the case?

1X fired NOT in my rifle. Scooped it from a member here. Not MFing them....I coulda looked the bag over better.

 

[Wrench]

The way the web is stretched and the taper runs close to the same angle....I'm serious, was it possibly shot in the wrong chamber....or any chance that it was forced into the wrong sizer?

Is this one abortion or is the lot that way? I've had some brass that had mom and dad who were brothers and sisters.

 

[tdhanses]

Over pressure head separation is what it looks like to me, I’ve had similar when I blew primers. Being your primer didn’t blow my guess is defective case.

 

[Jesse Jaymes]

The purchase was to be 20 pcs 1X fired Factory Hornday. 50 pcs 1X fired Nosler. I built my load on Hornady brass, as it's available everywhere and ADG is NOT. So when the sale for the factory fired brass arose I jumped on it....as I've never tried Nosler and wanted to measure and shoot some on the Cheap. No clue what the seller shot it in or bobbled. I did NOT inspect each case that closely. Ran it through my FL neck sizer and loaded it up.

I do not own any other similar chambered rifles. Have doubles or triples in 7mag, 300 Win Mag and 338. But I've not shot any Long Actions in anything OTHER that 300 Win Mag all fall and winter. So for sure I DIDN"T FIRE IT in anything other than a 300 Win Mag.

 

[tdot]

Is there a small crack in the case? There's a black line, about where the belt should be. I'm on a phone, so limited in the detail that I can see.

How many other pieces of brass have you fired from this same lot that you received? Anything else look like this? Do you have any of the brass in the same state you received it?

If the belt was there at one point, and then fired in an incorrect chamber or abused in a collet reloading die or something else. Then the brass should still be there, it would have been pushed into the case. It doesnt just dissapear.

But I believe the belt is over top of the internal web, so not sure where the brass would be moved to.

 

[Jesse Jaymes]

Yes re: crack...like right where most heads separate. I’ve fired all 20 pcs. Dont recall any issues....but I will for sure be inspecting them now or probably just shit can them all before they mix.
Different lot of brass...but I’ve got 3-4 firing on different lot Hornady. One anneal in the middle. No issue. Same dies. No adjustment. Co Ax press so plug n play once set

 

[swampsnyper]

Was it the 1st round fired? Oil in the chamber maybe.

 

[fraz01]

Send those pic's to Hornady. Would be interesting to hear what they think. Looks like a factory defect, your on the right track to pitch the brass.

 

[Sobrbiker]

Probably fired in a 300RUM, stretching the case and losing the belt. Co-ax presses provide a lot of leverage, so depending on how you were cranking away you coulda pushed the shoulder back.
To answer the question “What the hell is this?”: a great reason to drop the cash n new brass, esp where 60k+psi is popping off inches from your face.

 

[ResearchinStuff]

What it is is a case that was made with a belt, and subsequently lost it's belt due to excessive expansion. That brass is 100% trashed now, but there's still a lot of detective work to do to figure out how it became trash. You can see that the body of the case is about the same diameter as the widest point on the belt and the base, which could have been caused by the following things:

1. fired in a 30 nosler or 300 prc or 300 RUM chamber at some point, can't be proven or disproven at this point.
2. fired in a 300 win mag chamber at pressures high enough to nearly cause case-head separation (nothing on the base looks like it was over pressure to me, but who knows, it is difficult to prove if this happened but plenty of guys have messed up powder charges at some point or another)
3. fired in a 300 win mag chamber that is oversized in the case web area, which could be proven by doing a chamber cast if your gun has the chamber problem.
4. fired in a 300 win mag chamber where the reamer was run in too deep, causing the belt area to be 2-3x as deep as the actual belts on the cases. This shouldn't happen, belted cases are designed to headspace off the belt for the first firing and SAAMI specs are intended to control this depth. Again, this could be proven with a chamber cast if your gun is the culprit.
5. a reloading die that is oversized in the base area and not squeezing the brass down, this could be proven by measuring fired cases, resized cases, unfired cases, and the inside of the die itself.

It concerns me that you don't know if the cases arrived like this when you bought them, if they became like this when you resized them, or when you seated the bullets, or if they became like this when you fired them. At a minimum, you had to have touched a case from this batch 120 times to load, fire, and eject the cases. That number could easily double if you trimmed the cases and used a case lube that is wiped on and off. Knowing when the shape deviated from what's expected would enable you to quickly pinpoint what the problem was. There's no way that you should have got home with 20 empties from your own loads before you realized that there was a problem with all of the cases. (For anyone else who might read this in the future, if you pull a case out of your gun that looks like this STOP SHOOTING THOSE LOADS BECAUSE SOMETHING IS WRONG.)

I'm also concerned that you didn't back off your load when using brass that had been fired in someone else's gun first. Not all chambers are the same, and unless you're full length sizing back to SAAMI minimum specs each time the brass coming out of your dies has the potential to be different, particularly when fired in different guns before firing. We already know you're not going back to SAAMI minimum based on your die setup, so there is going to be a difference between your once fired brass and that other guys once fired brass. Anytime you fire the first shell of a new recipe (powder, bullet, seating depth, primer, brass, air temperature), you need to go over that case carefully and look for abnormalities. It's a safety issue for you and those around you.

You said it's too tough to measure things like shoulder bump, but that excuse won't help your eyesight or buddies face if your next reloading anomaly is catastrophic. There are thousands of people who figured out how to make measurements of cases, powder, bullets, etc and can tell you in excruciating detail the dimensions of their cases. If that's beyond your skill then you should focus on self improvement until you have developed the skills needed to control the variables and document them in order to reload safely.

If you have the skills and it's more of a focus/attention issue, I strongly encourage you to increase your attention to detail while you're reloading or give it up until you are able to really focus. When you're reloading, your bench is no place for a beer, whiskey, joint, inquisitive child, tv with your favorite show, or someone you're trying to become intimate with. 50% focused during this hobby is the most dangerous place to be.

 

[rayporter]

i never buy fired brass, it aint worth the danger