[TH3180]

So here are three pics here. The title really says it all. what would cause this?

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i131/TH3180/Guns%20and%20Fun/DSCF7362.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i131/TH3180/Guns%20and%20Fun/DSCF7363.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i131/TH3180/Guns%20and%20Fun/DSCF7365.jpg

[deadin]

I would guess age. (Brass can get brittle with age unless you re-anneal it.)
Do you have any problems with current stuff? If so it may be your chamber.

[Bluehawk]

If it's a factory catridge and not a reload it would be a defect...I've had mil-surp do that every once in awhile...especially older 7.62x54R from Albania. Most likely the brass was not annealed properly.

[Friendly, Don't Fire!]

I also think it has been reloaded one too many times.

[Mal H]

what would cause this?My guess is failure to use the camera's manual focus or perhaps the macro lens function. ;)

[TH3180]

I would guess age. (Brass can get brittle with age unless you re-anneal it.)
Do you have any problems with current stuff? If so it may be your chamber.
Not mine I found it at the shooting station the other day at the range and I had never seen anything like it before. I was just wondering what would cause something like that. There was probaly 10 of them that I found not even looking real hard.
Now when you say age. How old are we talking here. Are you talking 3 years or are you talking 30 years?



My guess is failure to use the camera's manual focus or perhaps the macro lens function. ;)
Thanks for the tip. My cheap camera doesn't have mannual focus and the macro function doesn't work real well. when the pic was taken there was a lot more white around it. I cropped it and down sized it. I will try to take better pics from now on.:D

[JellyJar]

When brass is worked, like when being formed into a cartridge, it hardens and becomes brittle. The brass then needs to be "annealed" to make it softer and not brittle. Annealing means heating the brass to a sufficient temperature to let the metal crystals change without melting.

If this is brand new brass then it was defective out of the box from the factory. Not annealed properly. If it was reloaded then during firing and resizing for reloading it has become hard and brittle again. If reloaded throw it away and be careful of all your older brass. If new contact the factory or just watch out for the rest of the rounds from that box!

Years ago I was shooting 38 target wad cutters. The case of one cracked all the way from the rim almost all the way to the case mouth. Bad lot of brass!

[rjrivero]

In addition to the overworked/under-annealed brass, I would also like to add that improperly stored ammuntion can do this very thing. I believe it was in India where they stored ammunition in the barns. The ammonia from the horse urine caused the brass of the ammuntion stored there to "season crack" and the cases would look very much like the one you posted.

[sonier]

hhaha 7.62x25 rounds, that is beyond normal. Near all 7.62x25 surplus cracks bad. The only time it dosnt is when your reloading with new starline brass, that split down the case could mean different though.

[wally]

Looks like someone has been shooting the 50+ year old Polish ammo from Century. They sell it for ~$90/1260 rounds.

I pay a little more (~$115/1260) rounds from Sportsman's Guide and haven't seen any of these cracked cases yet, although I pick up very little of my brass, and it shoots so well I wouldn't care.

Century is honest describing them as "having some cosmetic neck cracks" -- which have a real good chance of growing when shot!

Unless the gun is spitting gas back at you, I wouldn't worry about it. The lack of much carbon on the outside suggests it probably isn't.

I'll see this on my reloads when the case has hit its end of life :).

[TH3180]

When brass is worked, like when being formed into a cartridge, it hardens and becomes brittle. The brass then needs to be "annealed" to make it softer and not brittle. Annealing means heating the brass to a sufficient temperature to let the metal crystals change without melting.

If this is brand new brass then it was defective out of the box from the factory. Not annealed properly. If it was reloaded then during firing and resizing for reloading it has become hard and brittle again. If reloaded throw it away and be careful of all your older brass. If new contact the factory or just watch out for the rest of the rounds from that box!

Years ago I was shooting 38 target wad cutters. The case of one cracked all the way from the rim almost all the way to the case mouth. Bad lot of brass!
It's not mine I found it at the range,

[sonier]

hahah yea that ammo does say some may have case neck cracks and there fine to shoot. I love that cartridge its cheaper to by surplus than reload.

[Bluehawk]

Sonier...why the hahaha's at the beginning of each posting...what's so funny??

[sonier]

cause its a funny cartridge, it has history and it is amusing that its one of the few surplus rounds that does split and people say just shoot them. Im sure if anyone was shooting there ar-15 and found a case resembling that theyd be freaking out lol

[fireman 9731]

Yep, old surplus 7.62x25 will do that. Not that uncommon, that is a more extreme case than I have seen before though.

[TH3180]

Thank you everyone for you responses on why that thing was cracked. Like I said I am a new shooter and really want to learn as much as I can. I had never seen anything like that and it really made me wonder. I guess I don't see the humor in it, but I am just a dumb punk 30 year old.

[ljnowell]

I would say to the above comments that the case does not appear to have been reloaded at all. I base that on there is no line at the bottom of the case where the resizer stops, and going by the headstamp appearance I would guess berdan primed.

More than likely its cheap mil surp that was not good from the get go, or its old and the brass is just brittle.

[GigaBuist]

I guess I don't see the humor in it, but I am just a dumb punk 30 year old.

The humor, I think, is that if you'd posted you found knecked down pistol brass with a split and didn't even post pictures most of us would have guessed it was an old 7.62x25mm case. They do that.

[Tinpig]

Here's an Aquila .30 cal Carbine case. I bought the ammo new from CMP two years ago, never been reloaded. Never had a problem before or since with that ammo or that rifle. I just figured it was a random over-charge or a random bad case.

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc91/ccanhamjr/Guns/IMG_2411.jpg

Tinpig

[TH3180]

The humor, I think, is that if you'd posted you found knecked down pistol brass with a split and didn't even post pictures most of us would have guessed it was an old 7.62x25mm case. They do that.
I'm just trying to learn here. I had no clue that there were cases out there known for it. I also had no clue what would make something like that happen.

[tkopp]

Ditto with Wally. I get this every single time from the green tins at my loca ammo shack, but I see no bulging, warping, marks on the inside of the chamber, etc.

When I use Sportsmans Guide ammo, I also get no split brass.

[longdayjake]

7.62x25 is a pretty high pressure round. Sometimes they just have cracked necks. Also, some chambers are larger than others. That may explain why some people get these and others do not. I have actually seen quite a bit of this from 7.62x25.

[altitude_19]

A small neck crack can turn into a big one with high pressure rounds. Looks like the result of a gas-cutting effect. Super heated gases traveling at supersonic velocity will turn that millimeter crack into an inch on very short order. VERY much like a hot knife through butter.

[Steve Marshall]

There are several reasons why brass cracks. We get the overused non-annealed brass. Truth is, until a decade or so ago, annealing brass was voodoo. Then we get age cracks which at first glance can be a frightening thing. But then again, what does the military care? It's not like the 1st Reloading Division is out there scouring the firing ranges or battlefields looking for brass. There can be voids in the raw stock. There can be stress cracks. And this is the primary reason for cracked brass. The brass has in effect, too small an opening for the bullet. About 5 years ago, I loaded 10,000 or so rounds in .223. These were sized with the Dillon sizer/trimmer. The necks are about .004" smaller in the I.D. than when sized in a normal die. You guessed it. Once fired brass had a crack rate of about 50%. Now most of the brass in the first can was LC89, so naturally I assumed the worst and figured a bad lot of brass. But as I got into different ammunition cans, I found different arsenals and years of brass. I even found some commercial brass mixed in. And the 50% rate held. Even with commercial brass. I can't detect any appreciable difference in velocity or accuracy between the cracked and non cracked brass. But since I suck as an AR shooter anyway, who's to say? And on very close inspection, I even found a very small amount that were cracked prior to shooting. So, unless you're a benchrester don't worry too much about it. Should it make a difference to you, were you to find some of your own or factory loads, just pitch them. I paid less than a penny apiece delivered for my brass, so no big loss.
And before I forget, the other big reason brass cracks is oversized chambers, which tend to be in military firearms.

[fguffey]

And there are reasons beyond the ability of a reloading forum to wrap their minds around as in sealed containers of 70 rounds when fired in one rifle having 6 cases split and the other 64 cases look as thought they could be reloaded.

And then there is the difference between BG! and BAAAANG, the BG does not give brass time to stretch, and there is the possibility case manufactures are using reloading annealer's as experts on annealing, when formed from nothing to a case it is required to be annealed as many as 5 times, what if the manufacturer thinks annealing is just a matter of waving a case over a flame and you do it your way and we will do it our way, and annealing temperature is arbitrary?

And then there is the possibility of a shaped charge created by powder laying in the case for 70 years, the split may not be a split but a cut. Then there are those that stuffs cereal between the bullet and powder and do not notice an effect inside the case created etc..

F. Guffey

[Owen Sparks]

Ever have to break a piece of metal using only your bare hands? You are not strong enough to just pull it apart so instead you bend it back and forth, back and forth and back and forth until it wealens to the point that it comes apart. That is exactly what happens to the mouth of brass cases that have been belled and crimped too many times.

[dart67eb]

7.62 x 54 will do that occasionally up at the neck in my 91/30 but not my m38

[ozarkgunner]

I found the exact same type of cartridges at my local public range. I meant to bring a few home to post and ask what caliber and what was up with them. I found a bout ten of them and every single one was crack on two or three sides.

This is in southwest Missouri.