Hornady Brass: The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off. FINAL REPORT

Just wanted to follow up on the conclusion of my previous rant. I did check all of the remaining Hornady brass and saw no indication of any pending head separation. I also checked all of the remaining twice fired Federal brass that was fired in my rifle. There were no signs of head separation with any of this brass either. I then miked all the remaining once fired Federal brass to the datum line on the case shoulder and saw something I didn’t like. Seven of the fifty once fired cases showed considerable stretching on the order of .012” to .016” longer when miked to the datum line on the case shoulder than the remaining brass. I have also confirmed that in most instances, my dies match the dimensions of my rifle chamber with setback of the case shoulder not being greater than .0015”. Unfortunately the shoulder of the seven long cases were set back .014” to .017” upon resizing these cases which is a problem waiting to happen. The “No-Go” headspace gauge I ordered from Brownells (Clymer Mfg.) came today. Unfortunately my rifle will close up on the gauge, which is disappointing as from all indications, my rifle has a low round count. Now, before I start getting trashed again for going off on Hornady, I will share this with you. The once fired, resized and trimmed Hornady brass was on average, 18 grains lighter than the Federal brass, which was also resized and trimmed. While the case head separation was indeed the result of excessive head space, that Hornady brass is too light IMO...bad combination of factors!

I may get around to doing

Ratshooter said:

You are shooting a Savage 99 in 300 Savage right? And you have excessive head space. This is an easy problem to deal with. If it were me here is how I would do it.

I would buy a 300 savage case forming die. I have these from RCBS for 7x57 and 8x57 and they work great. Anyway get the die. I am assuming 300 savage can be made from 308 winchester brass. When you screw the die down to contact the shell holder it will make proper sized brass. In your case brass that is too short. So if you need brass that is around .015 longer just use a feeler gauge .015 between the shell holder and the die. That will give you longer brass. Brass that probably won't chamber. Thats what we're after. Now slowly size the brass with the sizing die until you can just close the action. Once you have that done load the brass and shoot your rounds and they will be fire formed to fit that gun. And there shouldn't be anymore case head separation unless you set the shoulder back too far.

I had a Savage 99 with 20" barrel in 243 and I had to fully resize the brass and I loaded slightly lower pressure loads for that gun. Mine had a very tight chamber and rounds for my bolt gun would not fit the 99. It was tight with factory loads.

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I may get around to doing that. Before I do, I’m gonna explore getting the headspace problem corrected with the rifle. Easier said than done with the model 99 Savage.

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jmorris said:

I agree, size the cases just enough for the action to reliably close, you can do that on any type.

On actions that have the ability to close and compress the case even further, like a bolt action they can even be not sized enough to close on their own.

For example on a bolt action I get the best case life out of brass that is compressed as the bolt closes.

I remove the tailstock from the bolt and without a case at all the handle will drop all the way closed. I adjust the size die down in small increments until it will drop about half way, on a sized case. Like this.

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Not as easy with a pump, lever or semi but the same trial/error/adjust method still works great (sometimes need to keep in mind the ejector). They need to just close on a sized case, any additional sizing will just be the more movement upon firing. That works at least to the point you have more than one of the same caliber. Most importantly, it’s free.

This way even though your chamber is too large, the case only gets blown out once. After that movement will be minimal and case life will be maximized.

For me, cranking a die down to the shell holder/plate, right off the bat, is for straight walled cases only.

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For bolt action rifles this is exactly the process I use. The Model 99 Savage locks up from the rear and by design has a certain amount of slop in it. On top of that guns like the model 99 and the Winchester 94 have quite a bit of give ( read that springiness ) when fired. If all my cases were consistently stretching .012” on firing, your solution would work just fine. However some stretch and some do not, owing I suppose to minor variations in the drawing and annealing process during manufacture. Kind of leaves me in a quandary as to how best to deal with the situation. I’ve got a friend that was an instructor at the Colorado School of Trades. I’m going to contact him to see about building up the bolt face to correct the headspace problem, since setting the barrel back is not an option with the 99. I would give a goodly sum to visit Numrich with caliper in hand to locate a longer bolt that could possibly be fit to the rifle. Worst case scenario I’ll just shoot factory ammo and toss the brass in the garbage, although it pains me to throw once fired brass away. I’m not gonna shoot the rifle all that much anyway.

748 said:

I have found that heavier brass lasts longer.
For guns I reload the brass over and over and over again, because they don't get fired in a semiautomatic and flung off into the next zip code such as 30-30 I found the winchester cases to last the longest and are the heaviest. The worst were Remington, and they were also the lightest. If I remember correctly I could load Remington 6 times before they failed, they would split length wise some where on the body near the middle of the case body or a little below the middle of the case body. Just a little Crack usually about 1/8 inch long.
But win cases in 300sav may not be an option I don't ever remember seeing winchester loaded 300sav. Federal work well for reloading multiple times.

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That has been my experience as well. I can’t say for sure that the lighter brass contributed to the case head separation I experienced, but it probably didn’t help the situation either. I will also have to admit to a certain amount of bias when it comes to Hornady rifle brass. I’ve seen some of their brass that was so darn hard that it couldn’t be resized without a ton of undue force. In one instance, the properly lubed case hung up in the die so badly that I pulled the rim off the case leaving the body of the case in the die. Reminded me of some of what I have experienced with PMC brass. In fact I asked Hornady if PMC was making their brass. The tech I spoke with would not answer my question. Guess that’s an answer in and of itself. I’ve seen some of their brass that wouldn’t reliably seal the chamber. I did discuss my problems with Hornady on several occasions. Their advice was to anneal the cases before resizing them. Reloading the Hornady 300 Savage brass was against my better judgment. That said 300 Savage brass is hard to find. This factory ammo was fired in my rifle and showed none of the indications of the prior problems I experienced with this product. I figured that I might be okay as long as I stuck with a moderate load. Did I figure wrong? You be the judge. As for me, the PMC and Hornady brass I come across from this point forward goes in the garbage can. And yes, as far as I’m concerned, Hornady should know better.