Bottleneck brass does get worn out!

[muddocktor]

Hey everyone, I went to the range yesterday for a little rifle and pistol play and one of the rifles I brought was my old Winchester Post 64 Model 70 my Dad gave me around 1969 or so for a deer hunting rifle. It's chambered in 264 Mag and it's been a great and pretty accurate rifle for me since then. I don't hunt any more, but do like to kill paper at the range with it. So yesterday I brought a box of reloads that I had just reloaded the day before in some older brass. This brass dates from around the early 70's from ammo I had bought at a local chain store (Howard Brothers for you older folks) that's since gone out of business for $4.97 per box and I really have no idea how many times it has been reloaded, but it's at least several times.

Anyways, while shooting that box up I had a couple of cases extract fine but shown a bright ring roughly 3/8 inch up from the belt, indicating an incipient head separation. And I know for a fact that this rifle doesn't have excessive headspacing as I had it checked less than 100 rounds ago by a qualified gunsmith. I had it checked because I had actually had a head separation happen, with the forward part of the case remaining in the chamber. It actually fell right out with the bolt pulled and giving it a slight butt-slap on the bench. I'd never had this happen before, so I brought it to my gunsmith right away to check for headspace issues and to check for any chamber damage that might have happened. It was OK and I haven't had any problems since.

Anyways, when I got home I threw most of my brass into the old Lyman 1200 to clean up and forgot about the bad brass. When I pulled it out a little while ago, you couldn't see the bright ring, but you can see the physical ring left above the belt and web area on the outside of the case.

I took some pics of a good case, a bad case and with them sectioned right above with a hacksaw so you can see the inside and what happened to the cases. You have to remember that this is a high pressure round that operates above 60,000 psi, so metal will flow when shot. And in this case, it happens to be right above the web area. And I imagine this will happen in the same place on most of your belted magnums derived from the old 375 H&H Magnum. I did check the other 17 cases in that box with a sharpened and pointed bicycle spoke and didn't feel any separation line started inside those cases.

Here are the pics, in case some of you haven't see what an incipient head separation looks like:

This is a good case that I sacrificed for reference to the 2 bad cases:


Here is one of the bad cases that shows a physical indentation line around the case above the web area:


Here is one case cut apart, showing the line developed internally on the case:


This is the 2 bad cases and 1 good case sectioned, to show the difference internally where the failures occur:


If you look at the right-most case, you can actually see where that cases was starting to thin just a little bit right at the point where those other 2 cases were failing.

And I would imagine that just about all your bottleneck cartridge cases will fail in this are eventually, if they don't get junked out by the neck splitting before the cases stretch enough to thin the case above the web area.

 

[Twoboxer]

One of the causes of premature separation is bumping the shoulder back further than necessary during re-sizing.

You can check for incipient separation by straightening a paperclip and bending the last 1/8th inch at a 90 degree angle. Scrape that bent edge up and down the lower portion of the case to be tested and you can feel that groove.

Especially now that you know what it looks like

 

[Alk8944]

Yes, they do wear out, did someone tell you that they didn't?

While excessive headspace does cause this it usually takes only 2-3 loadings before failure. There are two components to headspace! First is of course the firearm itself which is easy to check with headspace gauges. The second component is the cartridge itself. Then you need to factor in tolerances for both components. Typically the tolerance for the chamber will be a specific figure +.004", -.000". For the cartridge it will be the same figure -.006", +.000". So, even if the headspace of your gun is less than maximum, there can still be .010" clearance between the supporting shoulder in the chamber and the portion of the case that contacts that supporting shoulder. In your rifle that would be the belt!

The problem with this is that the headspace tolerance is intended to reduce the likelihood of a case failure on the first firing, it does not include repeated stress from multiple loadings and firings. The way to reduce case stretching and failure, even for belted cases, is to size the case so the shoulder bears on the chamber shoulder instead of depending on the belt. This is exactly like loading any other bottleneck rifle case. You should get several more loadings from your brass if you pay close attention to this detail. I mention this not only because it is the right way to size belted cases, but because loading die instructions in the past have been known to advise that the sizing die be set to bump the shellholder, and many people still believe this is the way to do it!

Not saying you are doing it wrong, I don't know. You may already be aware of this and be doing it right, but there many who may read this might not be aware!

A third thing that you cannot control is the slight stretching/compression of the receiver and bolt under firing stress. Cases will eventually fail from this stress source no matter what else you do.

BTW, good photos, far better than most loading manuals show! Do you have an idea how many firings?

 

[M29since14]

Wilson makes an adjustable gage with a sliding bushing that can be moved around and set to your individual rifle so that you do not unintentionally over-size your brass (as noted above). Handy to have for your rifles that have belted cases if you want to avoid the risk of head separation. My first one was for .300 Weatherby and I nearly fainted when I saw how much my old set of full-length dies was over-sizing the brass.

 

[MichiganScott]

The way to reduce case stretching and failure, even for belted cases, is to size the case so the shoulder bears on the chamber shoulder instead of depending on the belt. This is exactly like loading any other bottleneck rifle case. You should get several more loadings from your brass if you pay close attention to this detail.

^^^^^^^^^
What he says.

It's been said that the .375 H&H is the only cartridge before the invention of the .458 WM that actually needed a belt. I disagree. I even set my .375 H&H resizing die such that the cases headspace on that virtually non-existent shoulder.

 

[AveragEd]

That "bright ring of death" is much more common to belted cases than non-belted ones because belted cases headspace on the belt, leaving almost the entire case body free to stretch when fired. A rimless non-belted case headspaces on the shoulder, so only the neck is subject to stretching.

My first "magnum" centerfire rifle was a Winchester Model 70 in 7mm Remington Magnum. Four reloads was the most I could get from brass before that ring was visible, even when neck-sized only. If you bend a paper clip and cut it so it has a curved point at one end and reach down in a case with it, you will be able to feel that stretched area that can be seen in your photos of cutaway cases.

Since that first belted magnum, we have had a belted 7mm STW. Brass life with it was also short and they also were neck-sized only. When the Remington Ultra Mag family of non-belted magnum cartridges came out, we retired that rifle as it is a somewhat hard to find 1997-2001 stainless steel BDL with a factory engraved receiver, detachable box magazine and muzzle brake. The 7mm RUM that replaced it as a shooter for us has yet to lose even one case to stretching. The same applies to our .300 RUM, .300 SAUM, .338 RUM amd .375 RUM, all non-belted magnums.

There now is just one belted magnum in our safe, a stainless steel Remington Model 700 BDL/LSS in .257 Weatherby Magnum. I bought it in spite of its belted cases strictly because that rifle was only chambered for that cartridge for one year, 2008. I haven't shot it enough to reload its cases more than once so I don't know if its double-radius shoulder will curb case stretching as much as Roy Weatherby claimed or not.

All I can say is that I've never had a non-belted case exhibit that ring and I have some fairly highly intensive rounds for which I loaded brass as many as nine times so I'm not sure how much I would attribute all your case failures to misadjusted dies as a lot of that stretching takes place on the initial firing so there is no way to prevent it.

Ed

 

[Ole Joe Clark]

I don't think it's all that unusual. I've heard about it for years and I think I have seen it in a couple of .243's or .270's. My memory is not what it used to be.

 

[rwsmith]

With annealing...

With annealing and lower power loads I know I've gotten 20 rounds out of some cases I've had since the early 80s. Since I'm shooting mostly really reduced loads I hope I have enough brass to last as long as I need it.

 

[moxie]

Thanks muddocktor!

Really first-class presentation.

 

[muddocktor]

Alk8944, I'm not positive on how many loading cycles that brass has gone through, but I would guess somewhere between 7-10. They have been trimmed a few times and annealed at least once.

The reason I started this thread wasn't to ask questions why this happened. I know that bumping back the shoulder, especially on a belted magnum contributes to excessive case stretching, but I didn't realize how much back in my younger days. And I know that belted magnums are much more susceptible to this since they headspace on the belt and not the shoulder. Plus, for most of the reloading of that brass it was always full length resized instead of neck sized only and I probably did bump the shoulder back too much. Nowadays my bolt rifle brass typically only gets full length resized about every third load cycle.

One good thing about 264 Mag is that usable brass availability isn't bad. At least half my brass is 7MM Rem Mag necked down and annealed. I also do this with 308 brass too, for my 260 Remington. I did buy some expensive Lapua 260 brass, but a lot of it is simply range pickups from folks that don't reload and that I have watched shoot at the range.

 

[Geno44]

I also think how "hot" the round is loaded has an effect on this. I try to stay away from the maximum load in favor of longer brass life and less wear and tear on the gun.

 

[muddocktor]

That's very true, Geno44. And that brass was run on hard too, as my go-to load bad in the day came out of one of the early Speer manuals and was hot. Around 61 grains of 4831 (from the days of pull-down 4831) with a 140 grain Speer spitzer bullet. Then I went to 61 grains H4831 with the Sierra 140 grain spitzer boat tails.

 

[AveragEd]

I'm sorry if my post included a lot of information about which you already were aware. I see a lot of Internet inquiries from folks who are relatively newcomers to handloading and as such lack the knowledge that experience brings to the table so I tend to over-explain things sometimes. Blame it on being a writer as I receive reader mail from subscribers of all experience levels.

Ed

 

[DWalt]

It's well known that belted cases have that problem. Conventional un-belted cases can have an indefinite lifespan if they are reloaded by neck-sizing only after the first firing. The first firing results in the case expanding under pressure, molding it to fit the chamber exactly, resulting in zero headspace for that specific rifle. Neck resizing only preserves this zero headspace condition, and it does not fatigue the brass by constantly working the case body at every reloading. The bright line indicates stretching and thinning of the case wall as a result of full-length resizing. If the case is not stretched and shrunk repeatedly, it won't happen. Even if a rifle has excessive headspace when it comes from the factory, that will never be a problem if fired cases are neck sized only.

 

[muddocktor]

AverageEd, I have no problems with you "over-explaining" things at all. I posted the thread for information purposes anyways, and explanations and more knowledge are always helpful both to myself and other members. The more information we get out there to people who might not be as experienced is good in itself. Plus, those cases just begged to be sectioned and posted up in a reloading forum anyways. And you did bring up an excellent point about how the belted mags are more susceptible to this than a regular bottleneck cartridge case that headspaces on the shoulder alone. There are a lot of rifles out there that shoot belted magnum cartridges and people should be aware that if reloading them, the cases tend to have a shorter life even if you aren't moving the shoulder back excessively.

 

[Nevada Ed]

I do not have any belted ammo rifles......
but this has been a very enjoyable reading session for me.

However I have done my share of "Hot" maximum loads when I was young and did not know what I was doing to the rifles that I was shooting.
I did have signs at the base of the cases on a lot of my hot loads but the neck or shoulder always gave out before case separation.

I finally learned that a 90% load would drop a deer just as well and damage a lot LESS prime meat........ plus get 4-5 more loadings out of the case.

I would say those two demo cases were just about ready to make for a bad day..............

Thanks for the great pictures and post.

 

[fredj338]

One of the causes of premature separation is bumping the shoulder back further than necessary during re-sizing.

You can check for incipient separation by straightening a paperclip and bending the last 1/8th inch at a 90 degree angle. Scrape that bent edge up and down the lower portion of the case to be tested and you can feel that groove.

Especially now that you know what it looks like

Most guys set their dies up wrong for belted cases & head seps are common. Yes belted were designed to headspace on the belt, but the reloading aspect was never considered. No reason a belted, bottleneck case, should headspace diff than unbelted ones. Set the FL dies to NOT set the shoulder back or only 0.001". I have found belted cases will last just as long as non belted neck sizing or partial FL sizing.

 

[AveragEd]

I finally learned that a 90% load would drop a deer just as well and damage a lot LESS prime meat........

I would say those two demo cases were just about ready to make for a bad day..............

You said a mouthful! When that impending case separation takes place, the bulk of the case remains in the chamber and can be quite difficult to extract in the field.

Your first point is very true as well. Last fall, I shot two whitetails - a doe at 77 yards with a muzzleloader and a buck at 105 yards with a .280 Ackley Improved. Both were shot in the same area and at nearly the same angle. Despite being 28 yards closer, the only meat damage to the doe was the two holes the 270-grain bullet traveling just under 2,000fps created. The buck had over a pound of meat around the entrance hole turned into bloodshot jelly by a 140-grain bullet at 3,200fps.

The only reason I use a centerfire rifle for deer is just in case I would spot the buck of a lifetime at a range too distant for a smokepole but that's all I carry during our anterless seasons unless rain or snow is a possibility. On those days, I carry a 5" 629-3 Classic DX. Meat damage-wise, that's like using a muzzleloader.

Ed

 

[Duckford]

Very good thread overall, and a lot of good stuff. I've reloaded, and my father reloaded, a lot of 220 Swift and 7mm Rem Magnum, and never had problem with wearing out a barrel, nor ever had the major problems with head problems on the 7mm, because the objective was making a good load, not a maximum load. Just because you can hit 4,000 fps out of the Swift does not mean you HAVE to, and and the 7mm can be way tamed down and I feel became more accurate with some bullets, and was a better deer cartridge when reduced. Maximum loadings are a fine hobby for some, but that doesn't mean you have the best load, and you are walking into a world of long term costs as a result.

In fact, one reason I like the bigger cases in some cases, is the fact you can run it reduced and enjoy lower pressures and safer shooting, and still have better performance than a smaller cartridge. I can enjoy a .224 at higher than .223 velocities, and still enjoy the longer case life from lower pressure with the Swift. It gives me greater versatility and higher power if I need it in a load, or better performance overall reduced.

When I was waiting for help at a local sporting goods store, I was listening to the man talking to the clerk, bragging about damaging his rifle, bolt and extractor by pushing his .223 Ackley over the limit. The dummy, if he would have gone out and bought a .22-250 he could have gotten better performance without putting himself in danger. And to brag. But, I suppose there has never been a shortage of people who find it their life's mission to "max out" and press their luck, and find its limits, too.

One reason why the big belted 375 H&H is so great is because of this versatility. It works great with reduced loads, both jacketed and lead. I've been quite excited to get my cast bullets to work, and now I can plink with my expensive safari rifle without wearing out my brass, or barrel, and found a load that will kill a deer fine at 100 yards that costs $0.12.

Max loads ain't what they're cracked up to be.

 

[AveragEd]

I have for years thought that although we gun owners don't want "Big Brother" in our business, we need mandatory education for new gun owners and perhaps even beginning handloaders. I see examples of uneducated gun owners at the private club I frequent most so often it's scary.

One guy used a folded pocket knife to hammer on the safety lever of his bolt-action rifle because it was stuck in the "On" position with a live round in the chamber. Another forgets how his safety works and needs his reading glasses to read the markings so to see if it is on or not, he just pulls the trigger after loading the gun. And a young member shooting his AR-15 for the first time was putting more bullets into the 2x4 target backer frames than into his silhouette target at 15 yards and thought that was "good enough."

Then there are the handloaders striving for the biggest fireball from their handgun loads, 9mm shooters apparently only concerned with how quickly they can empty their gun's magazines instead of where their bullets are going and rifle shooters thinking that putting five rounds into a 9" pie plate at 100 yards is sufficient for deer hunting.

We are a politically incorrect bunch that needs to be concerned about people like that giving us a black eye when their bullets wind up in places other than where they were intended. The news is too full of "bad gun" stories now.

Rant over.

Ed