Brass Failure

[Pepe-Lepew]

This is my first post, so hello to all. I purchase a CZ 527 from a friend and it came with a lot of used/new brass. I am not sure how many times some of the used brass was fired. After cleaning and resizing about 1000 cases I only found a few cracked or split necks. Most of the cracks probably occurred during resizing. Should I continue to reload the used brass?

[Wrangler John]

The major cause of split necks is work hardening of the brass from sizing and firing repeatedly and age embrittlement. Embrittlement can occur with loaded or empty cases. Another cause of split necks is an oversized chamber that allows too much expansion. This works the brass excessively when it is resized further weakening it.

The answer is to anneal the necks to restore the grain structure of the brass, softening it. The necks of EMPTY UNPRIMED cases are heated in a propane torch flame to about 600-650 degrees and allowed to cool, or quenched in a pan of water. The trick is to anneal just the neck, allowing the heat to transfer down over the shoulder, without heating the case body or head. It only takes a few seconds to reach the required heat, which must never approach red heat where the neck glows. Get them red hot and they are ruined. It should just turn a brownish color. I tumble polish cases before annealing to better see the color change. Plunging the case in water kills the heat so it doesn't reach the head softening it with disastrous results.

There is also another little known fact, that jacketed bullets can electrolytically weld themselves to the neck walls. After about six weeks the effect begins and proceeds as time passes. When I pull bullets from old lots of ammo, I first set up a seating die to seat the bullet a few thousandths into the case braking the weld. There is quite a loud "snap" as the case separates from the bullet longitudinally. Then I proceed to pull the bullets, which couldn't be pulled before breaking the weld. When fired these cases will usually split, as the weld also indicates embrittlement. Old military ammo is worse because they usually had a asphaltic or other sealer applied to the bullet to prevent moisture intrusion. These cases should be completely unloaded, deprimed and annealed prior to use, but in most instances it's just easier to scrap them out after unloading.

My rule is never to fire unknown brass, brass picked up from a range, or anything from a gun show. That's just my rule. I always purchase fresh brass from an online vendor and save all packaging with the lot number and a receipt.

[jo191145]

Excellent post John.

I still remember the first bullet I pulled on some South African 5.56 ammo and discovered that black driveway crack sealer inside.

Pepe Welcome to the forum.

As John said, annealing is in order if you want to save this brass.
Question is, is it worth saving? Only you know the answer.

Is it all one lot of brass? Is it at least all the same manufacturer?
Winchester brass has its ups and downs in Quality. Some lots rival Lapua for quality (excluding the flash hole). Some are scrap right out of the bag.
Early production 204R Hornady brass was a fairly hard/brittle too. Annealing is the only answer.

Do you need 1000+ cases at a time? If yes, then I'd seriously consider annealing the ones you have now providing they're all one headstamp.
Brass is'nt cheap these days.
Can we assume those 1000 fired cases were all fired in your CZ at least once? Maybe more?
If so I would hesitate to buy another 1000 or so pieces of new brass for a barrel with that many bullets through it.

No p-dogs where I live. When I screw a new tube on one of my Savs I'll buy 150pcs of Nosler brass for it. With periodic annealing and proper headspacing on my FL die they'll last as long as the barrel. I never need more than 100 loaded at a time.

[Pepe-Lepew]

It is all Hornady Brass. Most of it was purchase by the case as loaded factory ammo. Even though much of it was labeled fired once or twice I was unsure since I did not fire it. From your responses I assume the Hornady brass to fail first with neck splitting. From my experience so far, the majority of splitting occurs when I re size it. If the brass fails where it will not be dangerous or damage the rifle I do not mind using it. If the necks split during firing will that cause any damage to the rifle chamber, like erosion?

I do not plan on loading it all. I only use 50-100 rounds per range trip. So far the rifle has shown very good accuracy. The below target was shot at two hundred yards. The larger group was made by a new shooter.

[jo191145]

Sounds a lot like the Hornady brass I began with. Bought 3 cases of factory ammo back in the day.
Heres my expierience with it. Just like you I got some split necks during resizing. Got some during firing too.
Being new to handloading this annealing thing sounded like dangerous VooDoo out of my league. I was a little apprehensive to try it.

So I lived with some split brass. I would questtimate I lost about 4%. I culled the splits as i shot and the rest of the brass seemed to work just fine. Some of that brass was reloaded up to 15 times. Thats just the way it worked for me with my specific lots of brass. You get no quarentees with yours;)

Of course some where along the line I switched to bushing dies that work the brass much less. Sorry but I can't recall if that was back in my Hornady brass days or not. Too much brass under the bridge you might say.

Theoretically a few splits should'nt hurt your rifle. The same gases are hitting your throat with every shot. On the other hand a popped primer can burn the bolt face pretty good. My jurys out Definately something to avoid anyway. Annealing is'nt that hard to do and it might solve the problem unless your specific brass has some defective hairline cracks from the factory. I haven't had any splits in any rifle in years. Good brass is worth the $$$ if accuracy is the game.

Hornady/Winchester I've bought Hornady brass new and never had a split. Primer pockets can be very tight on some. I've seen Winchester split coming right out of the bag years ago. I've also seen some very good winchester brass. Its really a crap shoot until you pull it out of the bag.

Noslers the best in my opinion but it depends on how badly you want to tighten up that 200yd group.

[Wrangler John]

I received a "bad" lot of Hornady brass a few months ago where a few necks were split when I opened the box, and some were wrinkled down into the shoulder. Sent a sample back to Hornady and they replaced the two boxes. This was not loaded ammo but empty cases. Not a single one of the replacement cases has failed after several firings. Generally Hornady brass is very good. Nosler is too, but now I buy Winchester as the cost is lower and I can afford to loose one or two to split necks per 500.