Case head separation.

[Pumpkinheaver]

I've been reloading my own ammo for going on 15yrs and have never had a casehead separation, untill today! I was shooting my L1A1 at a steel gong at 200yds. I hit the gong and I saw the casing land on the next shooting bench to my right. I went to fire again and the rifle went click. I looked in the ejection port and the head of the previous casing was still there, only the body of the casing had ejected not the head. My question is why did this happen? The brass had only been fired once before and it was a mild load of varget under a 147gr FMJ so I don't think chamber pressure was too high. No other problems occured with the same ammo(this happened with my next to last shot). Do you think I might have pushed the shoulder of the case too far back during resizing causing excessive headspace? It's really got me puzzled.

 

[41 Redhawk]

If this was loaded the same way as al the other ammo, I would say you had a bad case. It is rare but it does happen.

 

[Sunray]

Yep, sounds like a bad case to me too. Cases are mass produced. Sometimes a bad one gets by the QC people. What flavour of brass?

 

[Clark]

Repeated reloaded cases can stretch a thin spot.

Overloaded cases can blow the case head off.
I have done it in 9mm

But all I have done is get the primers to fall out of rifle cases.

 

[Pumpkinheaver]

It was Winchester brass that I bought new and it had only been fired once before. I hope it was just a case of a bad piece of brass, but I will be checking the fired brass sometime today with the "bent paperclip" technique to see if any more are ready to do the same.