can corroded cases be salvaged?

[dakotasin]

i came into posession of some 22-250 cases that had the case mouths corroded. i tried full length sizing a dozen and 4 of the case mouths cracked during that process; i decided to anneal a batch of 100 and see how that worked out. after annealing i lost 10 more cases due to cracking during the sizing process.

are corroded bottleneck cases more or less a lost cause? i've never dealt with corroded cases before.

 

[WNTFW]

I'd say not worth the effort and potential problems.

 

[Sav .250]

Why even fool around with someting that could be a serious problem?

 

[rcmodel]

Dark brass colored corrosion usually doesn't hurt anything.

Cartridge brass is 70% copper, 30% zinc.
Once it turns to crusty green and/or has black spots under it, the zink has been leached out of the cartridge brass and the cases are scrap metal.

rc

 

[243winxb]

If brass laid outside for a period, ammonia, that forms in nature, can attack the brass causing "Stress corrosion cracking". Annealing will not fix it.

 

[GrimmLV]

Toss them, not worth the potential risks...

 

[Lorenzo Rojo]

+1 on all offered advice: Once honest-to-goodness corrosion vs. tarnish sets in, the cases are junk. Slight discoloration can be removed with tumbling or sometimes a mild vinegar treatment and some scrubbing. But when the green death sets in, the cases are useless.

 

[dakotasin]

cool... thanks, fellas!

Why even fool around with someting that could be a serious problem?

not fooling around w/ it - just asking if they were any good, and experimenting w/ them in their fired, inert status for experimentation's sake.

243 - the cases were in a stored container inside a house. i have no idea what they might have come into contact w/, but they are certainly corroded, and not merely tarnished.

 

[ranger335v]

"...just asking if they were any good, and experimenting w/ them in their fired, inert status for experimentation's sake."

Yep, that's a good practice. If we never step outta our present box we will never make any discoveries or learn anything.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Corroded casings (slight surface discoloration) can be salvaged, but cracking of the case mouths sounds like a bigger problem than just corrosion, more like the aging and weakening of the brass is causing both the cracking and the corrosion. There's a limit to what I'll try to salvage (my son won't believe that) and I have been selling my way-too-old brass to the scrap metal recylcer.