Winchester .44 Mag brass issue

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MJFlores

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I bought 2 boxes of Winchester White box .44 mag ammo for shooting figuring I'd have decent brass to use for reloading afterwards. After shooting it, about half of the brass seems to have a bulge just up from the rim. I know it's not the chambers in the cylinder because only about half shows this...and all my reloads using Star Line brass dont show this. Anyway, seeing those bulges made me leary of using the whole lot (100 cases) but I decided to size a few just to see if the bulge would be removed. On some they may have , but some ended up with a line you can feel with your finger nail...I cant tell if it's a crack but I dont think it is....seems to be more like the bulged brass was all forced into one area in the case wall. Very strange. Has anyone ever see this? This is just once fired Winchester brass. Would you throw it away? Of throw away the bad ones and try to keep the better ones? What would cause this sort of thing? Maybe Winchester brass isn't what it used to be. Attached are some photos, hopefully they show what I'm seeing.
44casesA.jpg


44casesB.jpg
 
I don't want to tell you this, but I think you have some chambers that are well out of tolerance. Not all, or ALL your brass would have the same malady.

But you need to take a look; you don't show photos of the brass before it is re-sized, but if the bulge is large enough to leave the kind of damage on the brass it is leaving after re-sizing, I am surprised you aren't seeing stress cracks in the cylinder.

I hope I am wrong...
 
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I'm having a hard time....

I can't tell what I'm looking at. Can you show a few angles with unsized and resized brass? Just off the bat, I'd throw out anything that didn't iron out well after resizing, and only use the rest for poo-poo loads, at least until I figured out what was going on.
 
Bulged cases

I doubt it's the brasses fault too. Can you show us a picture of the brass before you sized it? If the chambers are properly sized the brass won't bulge. Number your chambers & see if the same one(s) have the problem.

Here's a picture of my bulged brass after it was shot in my new 657-5. They wouldn't even go thru the extractor. All (6) chambers were bad. S&W replaced the cylinder, but it should never have left the factory like that. (This was W-W brass too. New cylinder & same brass is fine.)

.

657-5 Bulged Cases
SampW657cylinderdefectonbrass02_zps171edbd3.jpg


.
 
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The WW brass is probably on the small size while the Starline is larger. The resized brass looks like it was resized in a carbide die that does not have the radius on the opening like it should.
 
I dont have any more unsized brass with the bulge because I ran it all through my die. The die is a Redding Titanium carbide die, I'll check to see if the mouth has a proper radius (my guess is that it does). Maybe it is one or more chambers in the cylinder? The Starline brass doesn't have the bulge but it wasn;t loaded nearly as hot as the Winchester factory stuff was either. The bulge was just enough to see, not as extreme as the photos posted above. I guess I'll have to call S&W and see what to do. I hate sending guns back but if it has to happen I would think they'd fit a new cylinder. Is there an easy way for me to check the dimensions? I only have dial calipers. Has anyone else had success getting them to swap out your cylinder?
 
Any chance you can post some pictures of the Starline brass ran through the same sizer?
 
As Jelly bean asked, How about pictures before sizing? Did you clean the brass before sizing? If so why are they all black and streaked?

So have fired reloads in Starline brass and did not have this problem?

So many variables I would try and determine if it is a brass, load issue, die issue before sending a gun back. Is this a new revolver?? Have you shot heavy loads in it before??

So many questions I know but based on little information you can read how many potential things it may or may not be. Its just a crapola shoot.
 
I have some more brass (federal) that has a slight bulge too. I dont think it would show up in a picture because it's very slight looking at it with the naked eye. I just cleaned and ran one through the sizer die and it has the same "crease" or line that some of the Win brass got. The gun is about 6 months old now (629) and the Redding dies are only a few months old too. I'm thinking it's a chamber issue, and heavy loads show the problem much worse than the very mild loads I made up with Starline brass. Any idea on how to prove it out before contacting Smith & Wesson? I can take new brass and run it through the die and everything looks fine, two different brass brands loaded as factory magnum rounds have the problem. Darn!!
 
MJFlores said:
I have some more brass (federal) that has a slight bulge too. I dont think it would show up in a picture because it's very slight looking at it with the naked eye. I just cleaned and ran one through the sizer die and it has the same "crease" or line that some of the Win brass got. The gun is about 6 months old now (629) and the Redding dies are only a few months old too. I'm thinking it's a chamber issue, and heavy loads show the problem much worse than the very mild loads I made up with Starline brass. Any idea on how to prove it out before contacting Smith & Wesson? I can take new brass and run it through the die and everything looks fine, two different brass brands loaded as factory magnum rounds have the problem. Darn!!
Click to expand...
Inspect the chambers - you can see the over-bore. Then contact S&W (phone is fastest) and they'll send or email you a FedEx label for shipping. While you're on the phone, ask the person what the turn-around time is running. Follow the S&W directions and viola!

Include a writeup and toss in one of the bulged cases.
 
Why send a gun back to SW when you do not even know what the issue is??:confused:

Load up some full Mag loads in the Starline brass.

Shoot them, see if they have a bulge before sizing then size them, note any difference. Proceed from there.

You can not really tell SW that you shoot handloads and expect them to work on a gun.
 
Some bulging is normal, and the hotter the load the more you'll see. The case is expanding to meet the cylinder walls, but the solid part of the case head doesn't expand that easily.

I've never used Redding's titanium carbide dies, but the cases in your photos above are a little odd. As Rule3 said, do you clean your brass before sizing? I'm wondering if the Ti carbide picked up some crud and deposited it at the bottom of the rings travel. Check your dies instructions and see if they tell you how to clean them, and any other instructions that may apply.
 
I did clean my die, and believe it or not those cases were tumbled for about 5 hours in cob with a few drops of Dillon polish. I got them as clean as I could...but those Winchester white box rounds were filthy! The ring you see on the case is definately a brass ring, that you can feel with your finger nail. Do you think remaining case crud could cause that? Anything is possible I suppose. I just sized another 22 Starline cases that were once fired and they all sized and looked perfect. They had been loaded with 8 grains of HP-38...not a full magnum load but no slouch either. I'm not sure what to think...the Starline brass came out a whole lot cleaner...could residual case crud be the cause?
 
So if the brass was clean and shiny and then you resized and they came out looking like the picture?? Something funky with you die. Resizing should not make them look like that.
 
Maybe I should try another die just to see....I think a Lee carbide sizer is cheap enough. Who knows, maybe the Redding die is under sized and needs to go back?
 
Measure! Sort by mfg/headstamp. Measure the case diameters of factory ammo. Measure the case diameters of fired ammo. Measure the case diameters of sized cases. Shoot several "un-bulged" rounds through each chamber in the cylinder, to find if there is one or two "large" chambers. Isolate which brass is bulging, when, and which chamber. Then you'll have an idea where to start (is it the gun? the dies? or the brass?)...
 
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