I have an issue with winchester ammo. This is the third shell I have had split down the side. I will have pictures later this week. The first accurance was with 30-30 shells and today with a 38 round. These WERE factory rounds (not reloaded), but they were not new, they had been stored for awhile but would that matter?

Does brass weaken with time?

Any input would be appreciated. I kept the 30-30 shell casings just as a riminder but today when unloading the cylinder of my s&w 357 I couldn't get the ejector rod to budge so after some use of force (beating on it) the shell casings came out and there in my hand lay "De ja vu" another winchester casing spilt down the side. The gun was unharmed thankfully but

What gives? I am perplexed.

Thanks

I'm a relaoder, another name would be "brass rat". I am always on the look-out for reloadable brass of any caliber. I have also been finding what appears to be and I assume is, once-fired brass that has case splits. I attribute the trend to cheaper methods of manufacture that aren't turning out acceptable brass. To me, brass should NOT split on first-firing.

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Old paratrooper in NC

We shoot 9mm winchester white box 100 rnd value pack.Right at 3000 rnds out of five guns.3 smiths one bul cherokee and a xdm with not one bad round.All 115 grn. We have since stepped up to speer layman in 124 grn,seems to shoot flatter and guns cycle better. Hope that helps..

Brass will age harden. I've seen old factory ammo that has cracked necks and never been fired. Certain chemicals in the air speed up the process.

I once bought 100 new RP .44 mag cases and one or two out of each cylinder split on the first firing. Sometimes you simply get a bad lot of brass.

The Winchester factory brass for reloading also has faults. A Couple years ago, I was making up a batch of Prairie Dog loads in 22-250, and out of 300 brand new rounds, there were 5 with split necks that looked just folder over. 1 or 2 per bag of 100.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

New to the forum, and new-ish to revolver shooting. I've got a Model 657 that I'm determined to kill a deer with this year, and while practicing today, I had a Win Platinum tip split on me. Same as one of the posters above, it took some persuasion of the ejector rod to get the shell out. As a newbie, what should I be looking for in the cylinder to know if the gun is still safe to shoot? By the way, it has exactly 84 rounds through it, mixture of the Platinum tips and Fusions.

Attached Images

split case.jpg (81.4 KB, 57 views)

Split cases do nothing more than dirty up the inside of the chambers lower than normal. Now if the same hole does all the spiltting, then you may have a oversize chamber. The factories are cutting cost and the firest thing to go was the QC guy. Next they try to cut corners which can result in "one use only" brass.

I had two boxes of 44 mag ammo I had loaded with new unfired Win
brass, 240 gr Hornady JHP and Win 296 powder. They had been sitting
in a wood ammo case in a closet along with lots of other ammo. All
the ammo was in plastic ammo boxes. I decided to shoot a few of them and when I opened the boxes I found that nearly all of the cases
had split down the side. I have never had this happen before. I have
an old Ruger Single Six 22 revolver with both cylinders. I had never
fired any 22 magnums in it and decided to shoot a few over my
chronograph. I loaded it from a box of Win 40 gr HPs that I had
sitting in my closet. Velocity variation exceeded 200 fps. When I
kicked out the emptys I saw why. Several cases had split down
the side. Cases that split upon firing do more than just dirty your
chamber. The release of powder gases causes a severe loss of
velocity of the offending round. All of these problems have involved
Winchester brass.

I've never seen a revolver damaged by a normal-pressure split case, and I've seen a bunch of split cases. As the two posters above noted, you get a dirty chamber and reduced speed on that round.

I shoot my .38 practice brass reloads until the brass is disgraceful, and all brands eventually start to split (currently using Federal +P brass; I bought a large supply).

All cartridge brass eventually work hardens and becomes brittle from sizing, and some brass is made too brittle and splits on the first firing.
If you ever do sheet brass metal work, like repousse', you know that the brass must be heat annealed periodically as it is worked, or it will crack and split.

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Science plus Art

Contact Winchester. They are very reputable and will look in to the matter. I only had issues ONCE with their Promo line of 12 ga. Shotshells and they replaced them with the upgraded AA Shells. I sent them 1 2/3 cases and they returned 2 cases to me. They sent me an apology letter explaining that the rims of the metal bases had been poorly formed and hoped the upgraded AA shells would make me happy. YES THEY DID!

Chief38