25-06 reloading - brass failures

[cmc308]

This has nothing to do with the 25-06 but more to do with factory ammo quality from the last 5+ years. I have let friends/acquaintances check the zero on their deer rifles at my private range before season the past few years. These are not guys who handload, only buy a box or two of factory ammo every fall. My stipulation is that they give me all the empty brass when finished. Most is 30-06, 308, 243, 30-30, etc. I can't believe how many cases out of a box of twenty have split necks, pin holes in the shoulder/neck junction, and creases in the case body. I'm not impressed with the current brass quality from domestic ammo producers.

I did have a very large quantity of brass that had those same issues, but since I handload and none of those issues were detected at the time, I am assuming the ones that failed after sizing were due to my negligence. Now regarding the ones that failed after first fire, I have to agree that some have had those same issues. But, for now I am taking the responsibility for the failure on my part. I can definitely show you at least 50 cases from about 6 different boxes and manufacturers that have cracks in various places after first fire. That factory ammo lot was approximately 3 years old. Not sure if that means anything.

 

[Spyder1958]

This has nothing to do with the 25-06 but more to do with factory ammo quality from the last 5+ years. I have let friends/acquaintances check the zero on their deer rifles at my private range before season the past few years. These are not guys who handload, only buy a box or two of factory ammo every fall. My stipulation is that they give me all the empty brass when finished. Most is 30-06, 308, 243, 30-30, etc. I can't believe how many cases out of a box of twenty have split necks, pin holes in the shoulder/neck junction, and creases in the case body. I'm not impressed with the current brass quality from domestic ammo producers.

Just reading through this thread, my friend just gave me a bunch of Winchester and S&B brass, once fired from his 6.5 creed rifles. After cleaning and sorting the brass I started seeing cracked necks and shoulders on the Winchester brass only. I didn’t count how many I threw in the recycling bucket but a fair number out of 1k or so. Call my buddy and let him know to keep a watch. I went ahead and annealed and resized some to test see if any others crack. But I’m of the feeling it’s low quality brass causing the cracks.

 

[fkimble@charter.net]

You also said you had primers pushed out. Did you mean they were just protruding or do you mean completely out of case? Either way indicates way over resizing of the case. With proper resizing, there is not enough space for the primer to protrude or come out of a case. A test you can easily do is take a used primer and just get it started in a resized case so it is protruding a lot, then insert case into rifle and close the bolt. Now remove case and see/measure the amount of protrusion of primer. This is the amount of headspace you have. Ideally .003 or a little less for range/target gun. Maybe .005 for a field/hunting gun. And as alluded to above, a comparator is not a measuring tool per se. It is used to compare the difference in size of two objects.

Good luck!

Frank

 

[Frankm]

Exactly on the over sizing and too much headspace guidance.

Also review your powder charges… I believe you re way too low with those slow burning powder charges. I d expect starting charges of 4831 and 4350 burn rates to be much closer to 50 grains than 40!!

Good luck