I'm seeing premature neck splitting with .308 Win Match brass that came from Atomic Ammunition through the CMP. The ammo was made with once-fired military brass and then I fired it and now I'm reloading it. More than 5% of the cases have small to medium cracks in the neck, most of them at the neck/shoulder junction before I attempt to fls them. I know that LC brass is thicker and harder than commercial .308 brass, so I'm going to try annealing, but it seems odd that only two firings are causing so many failures. Wouldn't the NATO military brass have been annealed before delivery to the military? What else should I do to increase the lifespan?
Neck Splits With Lake City Brass
- Thread starter FatOldMIHunter
- Start date
I thought about that possibility, but I figured the CMP wouldn't sell that as match ammo. Either way, what can I do to get the most out of it?
Just Dave
Gold $$ Contributor
Annealing is your friend there.
My whole lot of 50BMG cases, are all LC10 ( Or older, nothing newer) . I anneal after every firing, and had my FL die converted to accept bushings, so I am setting shoulder back, and only squeezing down the necks as minimally as possible, and opening them back up slightly with a mandrel-die.
My current batch is on it's 4th reload, and I do lose a few each time, but for the most part they hold together well.
.
Now if Lapua, would get their BMG brass below $4 each, I would switch.
My whole lot of 50BMG cases, are all LC10 ( Or older, nothing newer) . I anneal after every firing, and had my FL die converted to accept bushings, so I am setting shoulder back, and only squeezing down the necks as minimally as possible, and opening them back up slightly with a mandrel-die.
My current batch is on it's 4th reload, and I do lose a few each time, but for the most part they hold together well.
.
Now if Lapua, would get their BMG brass below $4 each, I would switch.
Did the CMP sell the brass as match or did Atomic Ammo put that label on it?
Anneal it.
I guess this answers that question.
I really can't remember whether the CMP called it match ammo. It certainly didn't perform very well and the velocities were not tight. The website on the label is no longer good, but now they sell the same thing in new brass at attomicammunition.com.
The splits are occurring before my die is involved. My guesses are 1) Never factory annealed (no obvious color change on case). 2) Fired once by the military, possibly from M60. 3) Not annealed before reloading by Atomic.
Then fired by me, decapped, ultrasonically cleaned and inspected. That's when the rejections occurred. I sized and primed 25 of those that passed inspection last night and they passed inspection again after sizing. My die might not be the right die, because pulling the expander out was not smooth and easy. But the rejections occurred before my die (RCBS) was involved. I did lube the case neck inside and out with graphite (Imperial Dry Neck Lube).
Thanks to both who confirmed annealing. I will certainly do that. I'll probably get a headache from trying to inspect and anneal all of them at once, so probably in lots of 50.
I just picked up 1,500 lc 10 and although being dirty most are nice. Factory annealy color visible on all. I'll check all of mine really close after shooting. I had heard that lc brass from 10 on are all match quality .
I have some 7s,8s,9s, and mostly 10s. I didn't check to see which years I've been throwing out. It's quite possible that Atomic tumbled them and took the annealed color off. They were shiny when I got them.
If the case head doesn't say the word "Match" or the letters "NM" it is not match brass. It looks like from the one photo posted that what this "Atomic" outfit is calling "Match" is nothing more than Lake City brass loaded with Nosler "Match" bullets. Later LC special brass has the letters "LR" {long range} and it does not have crimped primer pockets.
What year is this brass?? Should have the year on the case head. Brass from the 50's and 60's probably have hardened up to the point they might split. I mean, it's not as if the military is going to reload the stuff and work harden it, they fire it once and toss it. All military brass is annealed or they wont accept it and the point is it wont harden up too quick unless it is older stuff.
One thing I have seen and I load and shoot a lot of Lake City brass is indentations that look exactly like cracks at the junction of the shoulder/neck area. Not saying yours are not cracks, they very well may be, but I had several batches of regular brass that had those marks {not on every case} and they were marks left from some foreign object in the chamber, mine were not cracks. They did look like it and initially I thought they were. Proof can be had by carefully pouring solvent into the cases and watching for a leak.
Whether or not you really need to anneal should be easy enough to "feel" when you resize and withdrawal the expander. If the neck is hardened up it will be hard to pull thru and sometimes give a little chirp. It wont go away or get any easier just by adding more lube. Annealing is not a bad thing to do and cant hurt if done properly, but you wont have any trouble knowing when you need it and are soon going to be splitting cases. You should be able to feel it before you ever split one once you know what to look for.
What year is this brass?? Should have the year on the case head. Brass from the 50's and 60's probably have hardened up to the point they might split. I mean, it's not as if the military is going to reload the stuff and work harden it, they fire it once and toss it. All military brass is annealed or they wont accept it and the point is it wont harden up too quick unless it is older stuff.
One thing I have seen and I load and shoot a lot of Lake City brass is indentations that look exactly like cracks at the junction of the shoulder/neck area. Not saying yours are not cracks, they very well may be, but I had several batches of regular brass that had those marks {not on every case} and they were marks left from some foreign object in the chamber, mine were not cracks. They did look like it and initially I thought they were. Proof can be had by carefully pouring solvent into the cases and watching for a leak.
Whether or not you really need to anneal should be easy enough to "feel" when you resize and withdrawal the expander. If the neck is hardened up it will be hard to pull thru and sometimes give a little chirp. It wont go away or get any easier just by adding more lube. Annealing is not a bad thing to do and cant hurt if done properly, but you wont have any trouble knowing when you need it and are soon going to be splitting cases. You should be able to feel it before you ever split one once you know what to look for.
IIRC, the CMP sold it as "match ammo", but probably only because that's what the company that reloaded it called it. The brass is from many years. The oldest that I noticed is 92. The newest is 10 and it seems that most are 8,9, or 10. Some of the rejects have been 10s. What I found is definitely cracks because it is clear even after ultrasonic cleaning that gas has vented through them. This most likely happened when I fired them. They've only been fired once by me and theoretically only once before that by the military. I'm not sure whether they cracked due to lack of annealing, but they do not appear to have been annealed by Atomic. If I had to guess why they cracked, a strong guess would be that Atomic treated them roughly in their sizing process, possibly because they were partially fire-formed in loose machine gun chambers and it was hard to get them back to spec.
I already mentioned that it is difficult to pull the expander back out through them. I stand right in line with the die and ease the handle up as carefully as I can and sometimes I have to be ready for the sudden slip. I've annealed fifty that passed inspection and I'll see how they compare to some that haven't.
Not all brands of brass will do this, using the same standard fl die. Has to be extra metal at the neck shoulder junction from the manufacturing process?
I honed out the neck of an old 223 Rem fl die, to work the brass less.
Bought another new 223 Rem fl die and outside neck turn the brass for it.
Both methods seen to have helped brass life, without annealing.
A bushing die would seem to be the best fix?
When I first started loading LC .223 brass I noticed what looked like cracks starting in the neck. It never has cracked after 5 loadings. I do not know if this is an "imperfection" in the brass, but it did not turn out to be cracks.
AR 15, 5.56 The fired case was being extracted and contacted the locking lugs on the barrel extension many times in a test done by another reloader.
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