CAN INSIPIANT HAPPEN WITH 9MM BRASS?

[marathonrunner]

How likely is case insipient likely to occur with 9mm brass? Anybody have this occur at the base of the bullet? It's scary to see how this can lead to the gun getting severely damaged.

 

[Rule3]

What exactly will happen to the gun?

In all the calibers I shoot and all the reloads used I had one case head separation in a AR with a 223 Rem round, The case came apart. Did not cycle the gun. case head extracted,removed body of case and continued shooting.

If you worry about this, take a pointed dental pick or sharp wire and probe inside each case and feel for a ridge or line right at the web of the case. Before you clean the brass if you see a line or ring around that area then you may what to toss the case. Never seen it in a handgun caliber. Seen cases split but not ICH separation. Guess it could happen.

 

[BlueOvalBandit]

What exactly will happen to the gun?

In all the calibers I shoot and all the reloads used I had one case head separation in a AR with a 223 Rem round, The case came apart. Did not cycle the gun. case head extracted,removed body of case and continued shooting.

Is that what he's asking about? Case separation? Cause I had to read this a couple times then whip out the dictionary, and I was still lost.


I will agree will Rule3, it could happen but very, very unlikey in handgun. The brass just doesn't stretch like rifles do, in fact they often shrink, and if it did it would just tie the gun up until removed.

 

[OKFC05]

How likely is case insipient likely to occur with 9mm brass?

Zero percent. Nada. Case head separation is a phenomenon of bottleneck cartridges. The pressure locks the neck in place while the case stretches toward the bolt.
For 9mm, the whole case moves back when the powder ignites.
I have accidentally loaded a .380 case with a 9mm load and fired it through a semi-auto, with the case being split open like flower petals. I didn't even notice it until I picked up the destroyed case. No damage or stoppage to the pistol.

 

[gmiller0737]

I had a Partial Case failure it blew out near the extractor groove,Case had been reloaded several times & was loaded with a reasonable charge of Bullseye,Gun was a Beretta Model 92FS The only damage to the Gun was it dislodged a spring & the Gun would no longer fire until the spring was reseated,I think the Brass was Winchester.

 

[Alk8944]

How likely is case insipient likely to occur with 9mm brass? Anybody have this occur at the base of the bullet? It's scary to see how this can lead to the gun getting severely damaged.

There is no such thing as a "case insipiant". I assume you meant "incipient case head separation"? Incipient: In an initial stage; beginning to happen or develop.

As said, this is a phenomenon associated with, usually, bottle-neck high pressure rifle cartridges, not pistol cartridges. Infrequently a head separation if encountered in straight wall revolver or rifle cartridges. This does not occur at the base of the bullet, but near the case head. Case head separations, as a rule, do not cause damage to the gun, what gave you that idea?

For some reason there is a lot of information out there regarding case failures which causes people to believe any failure of a cartridge case will cause damage to the chamber. This is, with one exception**, simply not true. This is especially true with revolvers.

Thinking about your question more I wonder of you are not asking about a failure at the case head, instead of the "bullet base"? If this is correct, then yes, case failures at the head do occur in all cartridges for semi-automatic pistols. This happens in everything from .22 rimfire up to the largest calibers. This sort of failure occurs at the feed ramp, where the case head is not well supported. The most common reported failures of this type are in .40 cal. Glock pistols. This is correctly referred to as a "blow-out"**, where the case fails catastrophically, without warning, as a result of a combination of case strength, poor support, and pressure. These are catastrophic and spontaneous failures that frequently do damage the gun extensively, and sometimes injure the shooter! Is this what you were asking about????

** This is the exception!

 

[2152hq]

I was sitting at the bench, spotting the target. My brother was shooting offhand as usual w/a Star Model B Super (9mmLuger) and had a case head separation occur.
Reloads, LRN cast bullets.
9mm brass is plentiful. It gets reloaded 4 or 5 times and tossed into the recycle box. He still loads on a single stage press only 25 to maybe 40rds at a time.

The brass opened up a bit less than 1/2 way around the base just ahead of what I'd call the web of the case.
The slide was jammed back and open about 1/4",,so the bbl had unlocked.
Case was still stuck to the breech face. Extractor jammed in outward position as if you pulled it and held on to it against the coil spring pressure it's under.
Gas from the round cracked the right grip panel (plastic) and buldged it slightly. That's not unusual.
The magazine stayed secured in the pistol.

No damage to his hand as far as cuts, but he was certainly in some pain from the grip damage under his palm. His hand had black streaks on it where the gas came through the cracks in the plastic grip panel.
Had they been wood grip panels, I think he would have had some severe injurys to his right hand.

Other than a grip panel and a new extractor spring needed, no damage to the gun. It's still in use most every week.

Yes, they can let go just like any other cartridge case.

 

[marathonrunner]

correct

There is no such thing as a "case insipiant". I assume you meant "incipient case head separation"? Incipient: In an initial stage; beginning to happen or develop.

As said, this is a phenomenon associated with, usually, bottle-neck high pressure rifle cartridges, not pistol cartridges. Infrequently a head separation if encountered in straight wall revolver or rifle cartridges. This does not occur at the base of the bullet, but near the case head. Case head separations, as a rule, do not cause damage to the gun, what gave you that idea?

For some reason there is a lot of information out there regarding case failures which causes people to believe any failure of a cartridge case will cause damage to the chamber. This is, with one exception**, simply not true. This is especially true with revolvers.

Thinking about your question more I wonder of you are not asking about a failure at the case head, instead of the "bullet base"? If this is correct, then yes, case failures at the head do occur in all cartridges for semi-automatic pistols. This happens in everything from .22 rimfire up to the largest calibers. This sort of failure occurs at the feed ramp, where the case head is not well supported. The most common reported failures of this type are in .40 cal. Glock pistols. This is correctly referred to as a "blow-out"**, where the case fails catastrophically, without warning, as a result of a combination of case strength, poor support, and pressure. These are catastrophic and spontaneous failures that frequently do damage the gun extensively, and sometimes injure the shooter! Is this what you were asking about????

** This is the exception!

I guess I got my terminology wrong. I am talking about the area where the web and primer pocket. Lyman's says bulges can lead to insipient where you get a blowout and why cases should not be used more than 8x. It also speaks of primer pockets that have heavy soot along the sides of the primer should be discarded because of gas leaks which can damage the bolt face.

 

[Forrest r]

That's why I don't even mess with cases that have the "glock bulge" in them. 9mm brass is cheap, too cheap to even think about playing around trying to fix them. Some people buy the bulge buster dies to fix them. To me that just weakens the area your talking about.

Have I seen guns being damaged from this? Absolutely!!! Watched anything from the gun not extracting the split case to the extractor being blow out of the gun. To grips being blown of, mags being destroyed & thank god only sore hands.

I sort my 9mm brass, anything that doesn't look good or weak primer pockets gets recycled along with the 40s&w cases. A pic of some recycled 9mm cases turned into 147gr hp's.



Some 40s&w cases recycled into 210gr 44cal hp's.



Some recycled 40s&w cases turned into 225gr hp's for the 45acp designed so the head/hp frags.



Some recycled 9mm & 40s&w brass turned into bullets & shot out of snub nosed 38spl's and 44spl's.



How about some zombie killers made from 40s&w cases with glow in the dark bb's for the 45acp.



I'd rather recycle old brass than take chances on it harming myself or any of my firearms.

 

[Rule3]

Insipient, as ALk states is "about to happen".

This is a picture of my 223 round that was just a bad piece of brass.

What happens in handgun semi auto, lets use the Glock 40 SW as example, due to insufficient chamber support, the brass will weaken if loaded to hot and bulge , weaken and blow out if repeatedly reloaded Not the same. The primer issue is also not the same.

In a 9mm with proper fully supported chamber, don't worry about it. I have 9mm brass that I can not tell you have many many times it's been reloaded.(many many times) But they are not constantly loaded at max or +P levels. I have a 9mm handgun that will bulge brass with very hot +P loads) but again it is not the same thing.

This is the 223 Lake City brass: No longer incipient, it happened! The being semi auto the case head extracted and the next round tried to chamber and got stuck which is also how you remove the rest of the bad case.

 

[MichiganScott]

I guess I got my terminology wrong. I am talking about the area where the web and primer pocket. Lyman's says bulges can lead to insipient where you get a blowout and why cases should not be used more than 8x. It also speaks of primer pockets that have heavy soot along the sides of the primer should be discarded because of gas leaks which can damage the bolt face.

I'd be ecstatic to get eight reloads on a semi-auto pistol case. I've been reloading for 40 years and have never seen a pistol primer leak. I believe the OP is confusing pistol brass with rifle.

I've had brand new pistol brass split without damage.A Glock bulge is a whole different thing altogether.

 

[marathonrunner]

Everything I read was in Lymans manual. I cleaned every primer pocket to which seems it didn't do anything other than maybe cause a few crumbs to fall out of the pocket in a form of dust. Lyman's also recommended no more than 8x using brass over

 

[Treeman]

A little knowledge sometimes causes us more stress than complete ignorance. Incipient case head separations are rare in straight cases. Head separations CAN occur but are highly unusual) Most suspected "incipient" (as above this word means starting to or about to occur) head separations in bottle necked cartridges are misdiagnoses. -Resizing naturally leaves a slight shiny ring at the bottom of the "pressure ring" on fired cases since that is the last place that the die contacts the case wall in resizing . Caution is good but manuals have created a lot of paranoia in those who haven't gained the experience to distinguish normal from an early warning sign.

Rule3, It looks like that separated .223 had been through an HK's fluted chamber at some point.....those tend to stretch cases badly in my limited experience with them.

 

[Rule3]

A little knowledge sometimes causes us more stress than complete ignorance. Incipient case head separations are rare in straight cases. Head separations CAN occur but are highly unusual) Most suspected "incipient" (as above this word means starting to or about to occur) head separations in bottle necked cartridges are misdiagnoses. -Resizing naturally leaves a slight shiny ring at the bottom of the "pressure ring" on fired cases since that is the last place that the die contacts the case wall in resizing . Caution is good but manuals have created a lot of paranoia in those who haven't gained the experience to distinguish normal from an early warning sign.

Rule3, It looks like that separated .223 had been through an HK's fluted chamber at some point.....those tend to stretch cases badly in my limited experience with them.

Unknown? It was a batch of processed LC brass , "once fired" from TJ Convera. So it's LEO or Military brass

So far it's the only piece that did that. I do not load full power loads in my AR (or any gun) So it's a mystery. Could be as you say.

 

[moxie]

I've reloaded semiauto brass scores of times. No problems. Never had a case head separation.

Have reloaded .223/5.56 brass ~5 times with no problems. No case head separations, incipient or actual.

 

[David Sinko]

I've had some resized 9mm brass (almost exclusively A-Merc) turn out looking like belted magnums but in my 30 years of handloading I have not experienced a case head separation in any conventional handgun cartridge. Two months ago I did finally experience my very first case head separation of ANY kind, a piece of LC brass in my SCAR 17S. I had rescued that piece of brass from the range and did not know its history. My "ugly brass" collection contains numerous pieces of brass that either have separated or are obviously ready to separate, courtesy of other shooters' loads and chambers.

Dave Sinko