OOB discharge due to casehead separation

[Slowmo]

The reversed brush technique works best if you run the rod in from the muzzle, attach then lodge brush hard, then rap the rod hard at muzzle end. That's always worked for me. Trying to pull the rod back won't give same impact force.

Also, use a steel brush (not bronze).

So you're saying 1) run the cleaning rod through muzzle-to-chamber, 2) attach the brush and pull it back into the case, 3) hit it at the muzzle end to try to pop the case out of the chamber end? Not a bad idea if I am understanding you correctly. I do have a .50-cal brush I could step up to, but I do not have any steel brushes on-hand.

I saw a video on Midway USA where Larry Potterfield used Cerrosafe casting alloy to extract a stuck case. Basically same procedure as taking a chamber cast but when he hammered it out, the case came with it.

 

[Samuel_Hoggson]

So you're saying 1) run the cleaning rod through muzzle-to-chamber, 2) attach the brush and pull it back into the case, 3) hit it at the muzzle end to try to pop the case out of the chamber end?

Yes, that's how I've done it. Use a steel rod with a solid handle. Jam the brush hard. Give the rod a good whack with a wood mallet

 

[Slowmo]

Finally got the case out tonight by casting a Cerrosafe plug in the chamber and tapping it out with a brass rod. Was fairly easy to do.

 

[Dirk Hawthorne]

how many times are you reloading your brass?

there is a limit to how many times autoloader brass should be reloaded. revolver brass can be reloaded until you start seeing split cases. But auto brass should be reloaded maybe 5 times max.

 

[chili17]

how many times are you reloading your brass?

there is a limit to how many times autoloader brass should be reloaded. revolver brass can be reloaded until you start seeing split cases. But auto brass should be reloaded maybe 5 times max.

Where do you get that from? Ive been loading some of the same pistol brass for 30yrs. So worn you cannot even see the head stamp anymore and never had a case head separation. On the same note we had a gentleman shooting new PMC 9mm at the match last weekend that had two case mouth separations leaving a brass ring in the barrel.

 

[amphibian]

Where do you get that from? Ive been loading some of the same pistol brass for 30yrs. So worn you cannot even see the head stamp anymore and never had a case head separation. On the same note we had a gentleman shooting new PMC 9mm at the match last weekend that had two case mouth separations leaving a brass ring in the barrel.

+1, I keep using the same 9mm brass and don't pay attention to how many times they have been loaded.

 

[Garrett]

+1, I keep using the same 9mm brass and don't pay attention to how many times they have been loaded.

I was going to ask who even tries to keep track of how many loadings they have on 9mm through a machine gun.

 

[Slowmo]

I'm also in the "don't track it" camp. When I first started out reloading many moons ago, I kept track of all of my revolver brass and tried to keep track of what semi-auto pistol brass I could recover. Then I realized it was pointless.

 

[Dirk Hawthorne]

Where do you get that from? Ive been loading some of the same pistol brass for 30yrs. So worn you cannot even see the head stamp anymore and never had a case head separation. On the same note we had a gentleman shooting new PMC 9mm at the match last weekend that had two case mouth separations leaving a brass ring in the barrel.

I work in a business that is pretty dangerous and I have seen A LOT of people get hurt bad over the years, so I tend to take a conservative approach in weighing risk vs reward. Watching a guy turn his hand into shredded hamburger meat, and another guy break his spine on the same project changes your attitude towards risk and reward.

It has nothing to do with courage, it's just a policy matter - if I know something to be a significant risk, I will make up a personal reasonable policy rule about it, just so I don't have to think about it anymore.

Like for example, I had a ladder skate out from under me once. So now I have someone stand with their feet at the bottom of the ladder. Go ahead and call me a wussy, but cracking a few teeth on a ladder has a way of sobering people up. Everyone is a big hero until their teeth are broken.

There are two basic questions to ask about reloading:

1. Suppose that I pretend that brass cases do not have a service life and I pretend that they are ALL infinitely reloadable. What is the cost savings vs the potential harm?

2. Suppose that I acknoledge that brass cases can eventually fail. Okay, so what is the safe reloading count, given the complete lack of available data?

For question 1, it's irrelevant. Reloading saves so me much money that squeezing every single penny out of my brass is not important to me.

For question 2, here's what I came up with:

Back when I first started reloading, I was a big Garand fan I did a whole ton of Garand shooting. That brass is expensive AF, so I was really interested in how many times it can be safely used. And safety is a genuine concern, because 30-06 case failure can pop a Garand apart like a toy balloon.

Some types of rifles will "work" brass cases really hard, and it makes the brass brittle, and if you just keep reusing a case over and over, it will absolutely fail. Just like when you bend a coat hanger over and over again, it will eventually work-harden and snap. You can do stuff like re-annealing the case neck and shoulder to extend the life, but I never liked that idea because rifles generate 50,000 psi and that's a HUGE amount of energy.

So I gathered what data I could on case failures and I found that the worst of the "brass working" rifles and autoloading handguns could see head failure and splits in as low as 5 reloads. Sometimes the split doesn't vent any gas at all, sometimes it does something like blow the magazine out of the gun, sometimes it blows the gun up.

Some of the super-velocity small bore rifles will see case splits in as few as 3 reloads. They scour out their rifling fast too.

So to make things easy for myself, I just made a personal rule that I would use autoloader and rifle brass 5 times and then toss it.

You might say, "That's just a rule of thumb you came up with! You have no hard data to support that 5 round count for my UZI!" AND YOU ARE 100% CORRECT, AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHY I USE MY RULE OF THUMB. If there is no hard data available, given potential for severe harm, then the conservative approach is to GO ON THE LOW SIDE.

Note that I don't use this rule for revolvers. I could not find a single instance of case head failure in straight wall revolver ammo, and the mouth splits do not vent gas anywhere it shouldn't be. So I reload revolver brass until it dies.

Also, part of the above logic is the fact that I will use range brass pickups for pistol reloading. And who the AF knows what the pedigree on that stuff is? And it's free, so you lose literally nothing by throwing it out after 5 loads.

Also, I have about 40,000 9mm empties in two of those big home storage buckets, and I'm at the point now where it's not even worth it to me to pick it up.

That's my 2 cents on the topic, you maybe disagree, you may express that disagreement, you may call me a giant *ussy if it makes you happy, I do not care, it's all good.

 

[Slowmo]

I work in a business that is pretty dangerous and I have seen A LOT of people get hurt bad over the years, so I tend to take a conservative approach in weighing risk vs reward. Watching a guy turn his hand into shredded hamburger meat, and another guy break his spine on the same project changes your attitude towards risk and reward.

It has nothing to do with courage, it's just a policy matter - if I know something to be a significant risk, I will make up a personal reasonable policy rule about it, just so I don't have to think about it anymore.

Like for example, I had a ladder skate out from under me once. So now I have someone stand with their feet at the bottom of the ladder. Go ahead and call me a wussy, but cracking a few teeth on a ladder has a way of sobering people up. Everyone is a big hero until their teeth are broken.

There are two basic questions to ask about reloading:

1. Suppose that I pretend that brass cases do not have a service life and I pretend that they are ALL infinitely reloadable. What is the cost savings vs the potential harm?

2. Suppose that I acknoledge that brass cases can eventually fail. Okay, so what is the safe reloading count, given the complete lack of available data?

For question 1, it's irrelevant. Reloading saves so me much money that squeezing every single penny out of my brass is not important to me.

For question 2, here's what I came up with:

Back when I first started reloading, I was a big Garand fan I did a whole ton of Garand shooting. That brass is expensive AF, so I was really interested in how many times it can be safely used. And safety is a genuine concern, because 30-06 case failure can pop a Garand apart like a toy balloon.

Some types of rifles will "work" brass cases really hard, and it makes the brass brittle, and if you just keep reusing a case over and over, it will absolutely fail. Just like when you bend a coat hanger over and over again, it will eventually work-harden and snap. You can do stuff like re-annealing the case neck and shoulder to extend the life, but I never liked that idea because rifles generate 50,000 psi and that's a HUGE amount of energy.

So I gathered what data I could on case failures and I found that the worst of the "brass working" rifles and autoloading handguns could see head failure and splits in as low as 5 reloads. Sometimes the split doesn't vent any gas at all, sometimes it does something like blow the magazine out of the gun, sometimes it blows the gun up.

Some of the super-velocity small bore rifles will see case splits in as few as 3 reloads. They scour out their rifling fast too.

So to make things easy for myself, I just made a personal rule that I would use autoloader and rifle brass 5 times and then toss it.

You might say, "That's just a rule of thumb you came up with! You have no hard data to support that 5 round count for my UZI!" AND YOU ARE 100% CORRECT, AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHY I USE MY RULE OF THUMB. If there is no hard data available, given potential for severe harm, then the conservative approach is to GO ON THE LOW SIDE.

Note that I don't use this rule for revolvers. I could not find a single instance of case head failure in straight wall revolver ammo, and the mouth splits do not vent gas anywhere it shouldn't be. So I reload revolver brass until it dies.

Also, part of the above logic is the fact that I will use range brass pickups for pistol reloading. And who the AF knows what the pedigree on that stuff is? And it's free, so you lose literally nothing by throwing it out after 5 loads.

Also, I have about 40,000 9mm empties in two of those big home storage buckets, and I'm at the point now where it's not even worth it to me to pick it up.

That's my 2 cents on the topic, you maybe disagree, you may express that disagreement, you may call me a giant *ussy if it makes you happy, I do not care, it's all good.

I don’t think anyone is making a derogatory comment towards you. If there’s any rub, I suspect it is because what you are now indicating is your personal policy was previously phrased as a general rule that suggested others should do the same.

 

[Dirk Hawthorne]

Fair enough. My first post was lazy.

On a side note, have you ever seen any risk vs reward conversation among men that didn't eventually devolve into empty blargh about courage?

Setting that stuff aside, does my personal rule lack all merit from a logic standpoint?

If it could be shown that a 9mm round does not have enough power to pop an UZI apart, then it would be an invalid rule. Because the potential for harm is not there.

My rule is based on people losing fingers to rifle brass failure. And the occasional handgun blowing up. But if it doesn't apply to UZIs, then I would gladly accept that.

This isn't a pet topic of mine. I'm not a gender studies professor with 7 cats who is praising communism. The 5 reload rule was what I could logically squeeze out of scarce data. I'll amend it if warranted.

 

[Samuel_Hoggson]

Late '80s purchased a RL1050 in .45 ACP and decided to test lifespan. Started with a batch of nickel plated RP headstamp (which I now consider near the bottom of the barrel for .45). Never trimmed one. Tossed when neck or body splits were noted. At the 100 reloads mark the original 300 cases were down to just over 100. At that point the remainder were tossed.

It's an interesting topic, just did a casual search re 9mm brass lifespan. Seems most people cull as they go and don't worry about number of reloads. Just me, perhaps, but I'm not going to the trouble of rehabilitating 9mm cases that have the sizing die "waist". Supposedly you can use a .380 die to eliminate the bulge, but don't have the patience for that.

Have a very different approach to rifle brass, and cull before 3rd trim.....assuming they're found beyond max length, and not just being trimmed for uniformity. Also use a pick to assess thinning just above the head.

 

[Dirk Hawthorne]

I admit that I'm very cautious compared to most people.

But on the other hand, like I said, I save so much reloading that I don't feel the need to squeeze a quarter until the eagle screams.

Also, I have people at work giving me brass and my club lets me scrounge the brass buckets, so it's not a big deal either way.

The thing that kills most brass is "work hardening." Every time the gun is fired, the case metal flows under pressure. And then when it is resized, it gets harder and more brittle each time.

Some guns will work brass harder than others. Some support the case really well, some don't. Some have lots of headspace, some don't.

One of the things that makes this topic tricky is that when someone has a kaboom, there are a lot of different possible causes - was it a case failure, wrong powder, too much powder, firing out of battery, or bore obstruction?

 

[slimshady]

Lee makes a "bulge buster" kit that pushes the case through the body of their factory crimp die, the carbide sizer ring swages it down. 9mm being a tapered case, you use the Makarov die. Mainly for removing the the little bulge from Glock unsupported chambers at the feed ramp. Commercial brass processors run them through a roll resizer that is automated, the cases are sent through motorized rollers that swage the base area to spec.

 

[Dirk Hawthorne]

Now that I think on it, worst problems I have seen with 9mm is cases bulging real bad on guns with a huge feed ramp cut in the chamber.

Occasionally you see a kaboom on guns like that.

And then you have the occasional hand grenade that usually involves ammo made by USAAmericanFreedomCommando Ammo Reloading Co. So who could say what caused the problem?



I NOT ONLY HAD AN OUT-OF-BATTERY KABOOM ONCE, I HAD A OUT-OF-GUN KABOOM.

Me and my brother took turns shooting a 9mm MAC10 at a local public range until it was literally as hot as a soldering iron.
It stopped shooting because the Remington gun oil turned to oil-soot.
The bolt closed really slowly on a live round, which I ejected.

As it was flying through the air, it cooked off and this girl in the booth next to me went, "OW! Something HIT me!"

So we decided to let it cool down a tad, from 500 degrees to say 300. The gun was fine. It was an SWD that had an UZI grip welded on it by Practical Solutions. Who did a fantastic job on the gun.

If you ever want a gun that is literally indestructable and incapable of jamming, get a M10 with an UZI grip.

 

[Dirk Hawthorne]

Late '80s purchased a RL1050 in .45 ACP and decided to test lifespan. Started with a batch of nickel plated RP headstamp (which I now consider near the bottom of the barrel for .45). Never trimmed one. Tossed when neck or body splits were noted. At the 100 reloads mark the original 300 cases were down to just over 100. At that point the remainder were tossed.

It's an interesting topic, just did a casual search re 9mm brass lifespan. Seems most people cull as they go and don't worry about number of reloads. Just me, perhaps, but I'm not going to the trouble of rehabilitating 9mm cases that have the sizing die "waist". Supposedly you can use a .380 die to eliminate the bulge, but don't have the patience for that.

Have a very different approach to rifle brass, and cull before 3rd trim.....assuming they're found beyond max length, and not just being trimmed for uniformity. Also use a pick to assess thinning just above the head.

100 reloads? How many before you started seeing splits? I see splits in magnum handgun brass after about 10 loads.

Don't forget that 45 acp is like 18,000 psi and 9mm is like 35,000 psi. Big difference.

The reason that brass is used for gun cartridges, even though it's expensive AF compared to steel, is because it has a unique quality of flowing under pressure without rupturing, and then springing back slightly.

The flowing under pressure lets it extremely tightly seal all that gas in the barrel, which can be 65,000 psi in some guns. Which is enormously high pressure.
When it springs back, it allows the case to be extracted. Otherwise it would be useless.

They can replicate this performance with very mild steel, but nowhere near as good as brass.

Back in the old days, they used to make "balloon head" brass cases, where the head web was sort of hollow, but they stopped doing it because they had blowouts sometimes.

 

[Samuel_Hoggson]

100 reloads? How many before you started seeing splits?

IIRC, some cases split early, maybe 10 reloads. Then nothing till well over 50.

Incomplete obturation is more common than you might think. If you load anything - rifle, pistol, shotgun - to relatively low pressures you'll see soot down about to the pressure ring. I've seen it with all gauges of shotshells b/c tend to load low-pressure stuff below manual starting loads. Done the same with '06, .375 H&H, etc. A friend does this with his .460. Not a big deal.

Steel-cased stuff, especially if loaded to relatively low pressures (think Wolf BB poly), is another example. There, it's more a matter of chamber dirt accumulating.

Then there are purposeful designs - chamber flutes - that limit obturation. No danger, it's the way they work. Roller delayed blowback guns (think HKs) are thus partly "direct impingement" on that basis. Unlike the in-line piston M-16, which is not DI in the slightest.

What matters to us is case head integrity. Every so often someone will have a normal pressure KB due to a reverse-annealed case. Which is partly why there is no final polish on military stuff. An over-pressure KB can do the same with disastrous result.

Anyway, much as I think like you on this matter, ie., being extra cautious, the others are correct on facts. You have a much greater risk from a 9mm bullet telescoping due to poor neck tension.

 

[amphibian]

So coincidentally this happened to me this past Sunday:
I've had a few like this over the past 30+ years of reloading. Not enough to make me change my processes.

 

[arch stanton]

Where do you get that from? Ive been loading some of the same pistol brass for 30yrs. So worn you cannot even see the head stamp anymore and never had a case head separation. On the same note we had a gentleman shooting new PMC 9mm at the match last weekend that had two case mouth separations leaving a brass ring in the barrel.

You and me both. I have reloaded the same brass over 20 times easily and just through away the junk.

 

[chili17]

So coincidentally this happened to me this past Sunday:
I've had a few like this over the past 30+ years of reloading. Not enough to make me change my processes.

is that amerc ammo out of FL? Cannot quite make out the head stamp.