Ruptured case

[scattershot]

Reloaded 9mm the other day, amd shot them through my S&W 9mm 2.0, with the pictured results. Both were military brass which showed nothing abnormal upon initial examination, and sized, loaded and chambered normally. Fairly mild load.

After the event, I checked my stash of 9mm cases and found several more with the same headstamp. Upon examination, I found that they were expanded to the point that they would not enter the chamber of my pistol. My guess is that these were fired in a subgun or something with an abnormally large chamber, and when I resized them the sizing die set up a stress riser at the case web.

No harm done, but I just thought I’d post a heads up.

 

[RGVshooter]

And you're sure they're 9mm luger?

 

[BE Mike]

Reloaded 9mm the other day, amd shot them through my S&W 9mm 2.0, with the pictured results. Both were military brass which showed nothing abnormal upon initial examination, and sized, loaded and chambered normally. Fairly mild load.

After the event, I checked my stash of 9mm cases and found several more with the same headstamp. Upon examination, I found that they were expanded to the point that they would not enter the chamber of my pistol. My guess is that these were fired in a subgun or something with an abnormally large chamber, and when I resized them the sizing die set up a stress riser at the case web.

No harm done, but I just thought I’d post a heads up.

I recently got a R-P headstamp 9mm Luger case that did the same thing. I probably picked it up with my brass at the range. I wouldn't have any idea what gun it may have been shot in.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

I had a full auto MAC-10 in 9mm. These had a fixed firing pin and fired from an open bolt. As the firing session went long the chamber got dirty with powder fouling, and the case then resisted chambering completely. They late rounds fired looked like they had beer bellies. As a rule I would not reload these cases again. (Although I gave a few hundred that I sized to an A-hole that pestered all the shooters for their brass!)

Be careful with military and police range brass!

Ivan

 

[scattershot]

And you're sure they're 9mm luger?

Yep.... WCC95 military brass.

Good point, Ivan. I’ll for sure check mine more carefully from now on.

 

[Nevada Ed]

Those cases look like they were fired from a OLD Glock, unsupported barrel, which have been replaced.
Two new updated barrels are available, the last will full support.

That is one reason that I only reload Military cases, just one time.
I do get higher fps and good accuracy out of them but I also have
lots of "Standard" factory cases, most from the USA.

 

[S&WIowegan]

I recently deprimed and swaged 3 thousand military brass(WCC and WMA) and didn't have any bulge problems. I swaged with the Dillon bench swager and some cases still needed reaming. I loaded them all and left them on the ground after firing. Used 9mm brass is so cheap it's not worth picking up. Give this range brass a good look before loading.

 

[DWalt]

Such failures usually result from overloads fired in chambers which do not completely support the rear of the case. I once bought some commercial 9mm reloads, and found that about one round in 10 would experience such blowouts (I was shooting them in a Colt GM in 9mm). No damage done, but after three blowouts I pulled all the bullets and reloaded the primed cases with my own powder, as I had no way of knowing what powder the commercial loader used.

 

[scattershot]

I’ll end this cautionary tale with a pic of the brass in question. The three rounds on the top were as received, right out of the tumbler. The three on the bottom were after resizing. If you look closely, you can see the incipient case rupture, just waiting to happen. So I guess the bottom line is, if you use range brass, be aware that it could have been fired in a subgun or something else with an oversize chamber. These entered the sizing die just fine, and gave no indication of a problem until a couple slipped by me in the reloading process.

Let’s be safe out there.

 

[rwsmith]

I can't tell exactly from the picture.....

But did it look like the brass was chambered in something that allowed too much of the head to stick out and extruded a band at the junction of the head and the side of a cartridge?

I'm finding out that I need to be more careful with range brass. Keep getting some really odd birds.

 

[scattershot]

Actually, I think that may have been a byproduct of the case rupture. It may have started to eject as it was letting go.

 

[bigedp51]

I buy bulk once fired brass from Brassbombers and all their brass comes from military ranges.

I bought 500 once fired Winchester WCC cases and none of the cases were bulged or defective.

I deprime these cases and then wet tumble with stainless steel media. After the cases are dry they are visually inspected.

Bottom line, the only problem or defective 9mm or .40 S&W I find are range pickup brass. And this is why I buy from Brassbombers, because they are once fired and not reloaded by Joe Smuck.

 

[hdwhit]

When I get brass that is "new to me", I set my micrometer (not a set of calipers) to the SAAMI maximum dimension for the case head (as well as some other dimensions that are outside the scope of this comment) plus about 3 or 4/10,000 clearance to facilitate the process and then check every case by passing it through the micrometer, rotating it 90 degrees and pulling it back through. If the case hangs on either pass, it goes to the recycling bucket.

 

[hdwhit]

bigedp51 wrote:
And this is why I buy from Brassbombers, because they are once fired and not reloaded by Joe Smuck.

Any military headstamp round that still has the primer pocket crimp in place can be counted on to be truly "once-fired" regardless of who it is bought from.

I have purchased from BrassBombers before and have received good product. But, BrassBombers sells a lot of their product as fully processed (i.e. tumbled, decapped, and primer pocket swaged) and that is an area in which they seem to really excel. As I am interested only in "as-is" brass which has had no processing, I have also received comparable products from other sellers for less money.

 

[hdwhit]

scattershot wrote:
My guess is that these were fired in a subgun...

Or a pistol with an unsupported chamber. Brass with a bulge around only a portion of the circumference is known as "Glocked" brass for a reason.

 

[ParadiseRoad]

 

[bigedp51]

All my Glocks are Gen3 with updated barrels and I have no bulged brass problems.

Below the barrel on the far left is the early type with less of the case supported. And no where near as bad as the .45 Auto barrels posted above.

 

[Handyman163]

About a month ago, I had a ruptured case in my Shield 9mm (not the 2.0 new version). It appeared to be a factory fmj load, but unknown origin (yeah, I probably shouldn't shoot ammo of questionable origin). It was a WCC 96 headstamp. I had others in the batch that were fine with the same headstamp, so I'm not saying they're all bad, but seeing your post it makes me wonder about culling the rest of that headstamp.

The pistol was in full battery when I fired that round, it hurt my hand from the pressure, but didn't cut me anywhere (safety glasses saved my eyes). It dislodged the magazine halfway out but didn't detonate any other rounds in the mag. The casing was stuck in the chamber - extractor did not pull it out. I had to use a dowel and cleaning rod to dislodge the round later. The gun and accuracy have been unaffected. Scary stuff - always wear safety glasses!