Hunting Washington Forum

Equipment & Gear => Guns and Ammo => Topic started by: Rob on August 17, 2009, 02:32:58 PM

Title: Question on Brass
Post by: Rob on August 17, 2009, 02:32:58 PM: I recently picked up some new Remington Brass (300 Weatherby Mag). As usual with new brass I sized, measured, and inspected it prior to loading.

Here is what I found.
-The bag of 100 cartridges actually had 101 inside
-2 of the cartridges had cracks in the necks that I could see from both inside and outside of the neck so I discarded those.
-78 of the cases were just fine.
-9 of the cartridges had an odd kind of curl on one side of the neck that looks to have been created in manufacturing. The curl caused a bulge out of the side of the neck, starting at the mouth and ending an average of 0.035 of an inch down the neck. Big enough to impact chambering.
-12 of the cartridges had the same curl in the neck, however it was much smaller and right at the neck. By by lowering the seating die to create a crimp on the empty cases, and then re-sizing, I was able to work them out so they should chamber just fine.

I took the 9 cases with the large curl in them and trimmed them until the bulge was gone, then re-sized them.

Here (finally) is my question.
The case "trim to" length is 2.815. After trimming my cases to below the bulge, the cases came out to be between 2.770 and 2.298 inches. Any issue in using cases like a 300 Weatherby mag that are .01-.04 inches under the trim to length?
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: cascademountainhunter on August 17, 2009, 02:45:02 PM: i dont know forsure but i would shoot them, then maybe they would be close to the right length after fired.... :dunno:
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: Straight Shooter on August 17, 2009, 03:37:10 PM: The first thing that I would have done was contact Remington and explain the issue. If they are as reputable as I think, they will apologize and make it right.
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: JackOfAllTrades on August 17, 2009, 03:45:16 PM: If the case necks were cracked, I question whether the cases were once fired or not.

You'll be able to shoot the short necks just fine as the head space is set on the belt and the case shoulder. They'll probably stretch a bit more too, so just do a good inspection each time you reload all your magnum brass. If you're crimping a bullet, then you'll want to adjust your crimp die for the shorter case. If you're just slipping a bullet in, with no crimp, you'll not have a problem.

Most manufactures list that there could be a 10% loss of new brass cases sold in bulk due to imperfections.

-Steve
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: hunterofelk on August 17, 2009, 04:07:20 PM: You may have just gotten a bad batch. I usually get neck cracks in brand-new Winchester brass, but rarely from Remington's brass. I notice the necks of the new brass not being round, but a little dented, probably from falling out of the manufacturing press or whatever tool they use. I run all the new brass through my neck sizer die and do notice a curl in the neck area if I am not successful in re rounding the case. The neck might have been so deformed that the lip was curled in as the die was used. Sometimes I fire a round and see a crack in the case neck, but didn't notice any difference in how the round went off. I use once of twice fired brass for hunting and follow advice I've read about cycling the rounds in a safe area before taking them hunting.
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: Rob on August 17, 2009, 04:15:43 PM: That's kinda what I thought; no issue with short cases so long as there is plenty left in the neck. With less than .05 inches in loss, there is still plenty of neck left. And I agree that after a couple uses the fireforming and such would induce stretching. I'm just new to reloading so I wanted to get second opinions and make sure I did not get a bunch of "what the hell are you thinking?!?!?" comments prior to going ahead with my own judgement.

It was new brass the cases were all clean inside. Looked to be more like manufacturing imperfections. Hard to describe what was wrong with them, but the cracks were not consistent with being fired. More of a flaking or a blister, almost like when you see chrome peeling off of something, only on the case it went all the way through the brass.

I thought about contacting Remington as I was very disappointed with their quality control, but the cost of the cases in the grand scheme of things made that more of a hassle than it was worth.

Sounds like a bad batch. I'll be doing extra careful inspections the first few times they are used just to see if there are any other imperfections that show up. The necks were uneven, I suppose it could have been my neck sizer that caused the curls. I did not do a complete visual case check until after I sized them.

Thanks for the input!
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: chevysquid on August 17, 2009, 04:49:57 PM: Some of those cases will have an AOL that is 1/2 an inch short. Depending on the load, couldn't that lead to some pressure issues?
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: bobcat on August 17, 2009, 08:39:22 PM: I think he said the shortest was 4 hundredths of an inch too short. That's not even close to half an inch. It would be less than 1/16th of an inch.
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: mazama on August 17, 2009, 09:02:51 PM: I usually save bad ammo,bad brass for firing after cleaning or to make target check, the best are reserved for hunting.
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: chevysquid on August 17, 2009, 10:14:53 PM: "The case "trim to" length is 2.815. After trimming my cases to below the bulge, the cases came out to be between 2.770 and 2.298 inches."

I've never been great at math but 2.815 inches minus 2.298 inches is around .5 inches I believe. Or maybe that is a typo because I did see where he said .04 inches too. Just want to be better safe than sorry. Don't need any blown up guns and faces.
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: JackOfAllTrades on August 17, 2009, 11:16:28 PM: 1/2" short would mean there was no neck. Kinda tough to get a bullet to seat properly. I'll take it that there's a typo in this information. Having the neck length no less than the bullet diameter should be fine.

-Steve
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: bobcat on August 18, 2009, 07:20:06 AM: Yeah I saw where he said "2.298" and assumed it was a typo.
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: Rob on August 18, 2009, 10:44:55 AM: yeah! typo...

should have been between 2.770 and 2.798
Title: Re: Question on Brass
Post by: jeff100 on August 21, 2009, 11:33:55 AM: Case necks are annealed to soften them up so they can be sized and resized. My guess is the new cases with cracked necks likely had problems with the annealing and were a tad too brittle...