Case Ruptures

[TimS]

JB Weld

 

[Monte F]

Bondo and a little sanding, will be good as new!

 

[T-shooter]

That scares me and I'm not afraid of anything! Are those actual ruptures and cracked all the way through to the inside. How hard is the brass. Can you easily flatten it with pliers?

 

[Oso]

That scares me and I'm not afraid of anything! Are those actual ruptures and cracked all the way through to the inside. How hard is the brass. Can you easily flatten it with pliers?

Yes cracked all the way through. Common spot to experience ruptures is toward rear of case where brass transitions from webbing (solid brass base that houses the primer pocket) and the case body (thinner brass). If the rifle's chamber is too large/loose it can create a rupture. The case's webbing doesn't expand at same rate or absolute change as does the case body resulting in a rupture as case splits open.

The brass alloy that S&B uses to manufacture their cases, both rifle and pistol, is very hard...noticeably so when resizing cases during reloading. It resists resizing and has a lot of spring back.

 

[jonbearman]

I have seen a lot of crazy failures but nothing like these. You should canvass the range and ask around who may have shot them and have him send them to S&B for evaluation. They may need to recall the lot. I wonder how much damage it did to his chamber.

 

[Rdlningcltchdmpr]

Oh, I'm sure you're smarter than trying to reload them. But I do know some guys who wouldn't get the "hint" and would, in fact, use the ones that didn't split again.

Those cases can easily be fixed with a tig weld.

 

[chop house]

I have seen a lot of crazy failures but nothing like these.

i had war surp 7.7 arisaka in the 1960's that did similar with surp ball ammo. the failure was more a pinhole and less of a crack, but the gas got back to pepper me none the less. thankfully i wore glasses even then....!

anyway, back to S&B brass.... i was recently shooting some herter's 22-250 that was horrid accuracy wise as loaded by factory, but i didn't care 'cuz i was shooting it specifically for the brass (made by s&b). the reloads worked great... for a while... then had sizing/seating consistency issues iirc. again, the light bulb comes on......

 

[carlsbad]

Dusty called it. Brittle fracture. Load is pretty hot from the primers. Must have been a pretty good AR10 to manage the gas, eject these, and keep on shooting. --Jerry