Something seems wrong with this primer pocket

Also been loading for 30+years and never had that happen to me either. Thanks for sharing.

That'll raise an eyebrow or two.

Normally, NNY/PPU has been decent brass for me. One in a million chance? Either, time to buy a lottery ticket, or you spent your odds!?

I've never seen that one happen before. A new addition to the scrap box.

.40

Flash hole just a little larger than spec. No big deal

Thats what happens when you clean primer pockets you wear them out.

I would cross-section the case or another from the same batch. Would make me skeptical of the lot.

To find something similar you have to get in the way back machine, to a time beyond living memory. Naramore wrote a book titled Handloader's Manual and he shows pictures of primer pockets similiar to yours. These pockets were damaged by mercuric primers and the brass failed due to embrittlement.

That brass is Hansen brass, Yugoslavian made, I bought Hansen back in the 1980's. I assume yours is of similar vintage. That ammunition is now reaching 30 years old and as a rule of thumb, gunpowder starts going bad around 20 years, and increasingly fails as time goes on. What could have happened is old gunpowder outgassing NOx (since there are water molecules in the case some of that converts to nitrogen dioxide) caused brass embrittlement in the case head. The primer pocket being a thin area failed first.

I have written extensively on the topic of insensitive munitions. The primary and first response of shooters is denial, and then more denial. But as ammunition ages it does not get better, it gets worse. It can and does fail structurally, and it can and does blow up guns. Old bulk gunpowder auto combusts and burns houses down, and is the primary cause of all the ammunition dump explosions the shooting society ignores.

A hand loaders time capsule

Bad powder at such young age

Old Ammo

I think your primer pocket went the same way as the bullet when last fired. A remarkable occurrence yet harmless. Could be a marketing ploy to sell brass tho.

I had a whole batch of Bertram .45 Basic (3.25") brass do that on the first firing in my .45-120 Sharps. The brass was made too thin at the web, and Bertram did eventually replace the brass, since it costs $3.00 each, but I've purchased my last Bertram brass. Eighteen of the twenty rounds in the box all lost the web on the first firing, so yes, I've seen this happen before.

Hope this helps.

Fred

Well it’s certainly clean now.

The brass was made too thin at the web

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That’s why I was curious about a cross section like these.

I don’t even see it on this one.

But it’s very obvious on this one.

Talk about removing the primer crimp...

forty_caliber said:

I've never seen that one happen before. A new addition to the scrap box.

.40

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For me, a new addition to my "Wall of Shame".

I can't say that I have ever seen that before. And I started loading in the late 60's! Good eye!