Had my First case failure from pressure today - updated

[searcher]

At the risk of sounding like a dick, I only neck size my 6MM and my 223 Remington, (varmint shooting). Years ago I bought so much brass for each and I'm such a lazy shit, I shoot them until the neck splits and toss them in the recycling tub.

The worse problem is that you're not noticing a different brand brass.

Yes - kind of like mixing 5x fired brass with 10x fired brass

Interesting
All mine are on an ar. Would that make that much difference?

It is the full-length resizing and common use of the expander button when loading for an A/R. That and having to set the shoulders back more on the A/R brass allows for more brass flow. They wear the brass out way faster than a bolt gun, for sure.

 

[SeabeeKen]

44.8 gr N-140 is listed max on VV site but that is with a sierra bullet

 

[dryhumor]

I have a friend that started complaining about his 300WM not shooting as accurate as it had. Went through the list of check this check that. He cleaned the snot out of it, no carbon ring. He asked me to sort it out for him. I told him to buy new cases and I’d start from scratch. I picked up everything and noticed he had sent some loaded ammo.

There were 3-4 different headstamps, two different eras of headstamps. I didn’t use what he sent. I tossed them.

Anyway, I got it shooting small and delivered everything back to him, discussed all my notes, told him what I had loaded etc. we had already talked about the different case manufacturers of the rounds he had loaded.

He made the comment that he had been using the same fired cases in another 300WM. We looked, sure enough different mfrs. He made the comment that some would group well, then a flier or two. I told him to buy another batch of new cases for that rifle as well.

Fortunately, the load he was using wasn’t a hot one; with the different cases involved, a 300WM would have created an interesting event if a case failure had occurred.

On the plus side, the day or day after that I delivered everything back to him, he took the rifle out and shot a buck with it.

 

[Zero333]

Out of millions of rounds I've reloaded I've only had 1 split neck. And it was NOT from one of my reloads, but from factory ammo... specifically 308win 168 gr FGMM ammo.

I don't like bushing dies because I believe they are part of the blame for doughnuts. And a bushing die doesn't hold the sides of the case as consistently as RCBS FL die.

I've have Redding 308win and 243win bushing dies and results were not any better and brass didn't last any longer.

Each their own. I just go by my own experience.

I HATE HORNDAY DIES !!! their expander ball design is not worth the flies on a piece of shit. So I stick with RCBS FL sizing die sets. Dillon dies are great for straight wall pistol/rifle cartridges being loaded on their progressive presses. But for bottleneck rifle cartridges I load on my XL-650 I use the standard RCBS FL sizing dies. And depending on the application I also use either a taper crimp die (for straight wall cartridges) or a Lee Factory crimp die for bottleneck ammo that's strictly for semi-auto use.