Cracked .357 casing.

[Mindflayer]

Yesterday while kicking a few rounds down range, I noticed one of the .357 casing was cracked. I know reloads sometimes crack, but this was a store bought ammunition. I checked a few of the other .357 casing, and they all looked normal.

It's a new Ruger SP101 .357 revolver, do you think my gun is safe?

 

[HighVelocity]

When you say "new, store bought ammo", was it actually NEW or is it remanufactured? (aka Black Hills, 3D, Miwall, etc).

Whoever made it would be getting a phone call if that happened to me.

As far as your gun being safe, did you have any trouble ejecting spent casings? Can you see any flaws in the chambers after cleaning the gun?

 

[Mindflayer]

The gun looks fine, I checked the cylinders, and didn't see any damage. The round was from Federal Ammunition, so it wasn't a reload/remanufactured round.

The casings came out fine, I didn't even notice it happened until I started range cleanup.

 

[wanderinwalker]

It happens. No need to get worked-up if it didn't tie up your revolver or damage you. Honestly, I find cases either split on the first firing or go a while until they split. First-firing splits are rare, but happen, especially if a batch of brass is a little brittle. I see those kind of splits all the time in my reloads as cases get up in age. Usually I'm sorting tumbled cases after-the-fact when I notice the problem.

 

[SouthpawShootr]

Odd that new manufactured ammo would do that. Watch your cases, if you see this again, try and track it down to the chamber. If you find that this is happening with multiple chambers, I'd change ammo brands and see if that alleviates the problem. If not, call Ruger. You might still call Federal as suggested above and voice your concerns. If you only found one case like this, then I'd shoot the rest of the ammo and swtich to another brand for a while. If you have more than one case like that, stop shooting that ammo and call Federal,

 

[HSMITH]

It isn't unusual even in factory new ammo. I have noticed 4 or 5 per thousand will crack on the first firing, 4 or 5 more on the second, maybe 10 on the third. Brass cracks, and it doesn't hurt the gun at all.

 

[Ala Dan]

Common problem that everyone experiences from time too time; nothing to
get worked up about~!

 

[bpisler]

I've had fiocchi 357mag do that,it didn't seem to
hurt anything.

 

[SeanSw]

I've gone through about 6 boxes of National Bullet Company reloads (.38 spl) and have had a few cases split on me. Some of the cases won't even chamber in my revolver, they are so swelled up. Plenty of extraction problems too.

I bought 1,100 rounds of various ammo and a small percentage of it is completely useless. At least my gun is okay.

 

[MCgunner]

Only time that's ever happened to me is with old cases in handloads. But, I don't shoot a lot of factory except in 9mm.

 

[kimbernut]

Probably nothing

to worry about but I would check the empty cases for a while and see if it occurs regularly and if so on one chamber or different chambers. And proceed from there. Its not that unusual but seems to happen most often in the more brittle nickel plated cases. If it happens continuously yes you have a problem and if it happens in one chamber only it will quickly etch a cut into the cylinder wall.

 

[rking]

I had that problem with federal .32 longs in my sp 101. Sent the emptys back to federal and am still waiting for a reply. I switched to winchester and have had no more problems.

 

[gazpacho]

This may sound stupid, but check the head stamp again. Since you found it during clean-up, it may have actually been left there by another shooter.

 

[pharmer]

Had the exact same problem a while back with Federal .32 mag. Sent a couple cases back, they called and wanted the rest of the box back. A couple weeks later I received 3 boxes of new ammo, a check for $20, and a letter explaining that the batch in question was annealed improperly. Ammo is Federal's business and they will make it right. Joe

 

[bowfin]

It might have been a single case or a batch that missed annealing, or weren't annealed properly. Your chamber would have to be really messed up to allow normally annealed brass to split that way.

By the way, annealing is really only a temporary process, even if "temporary" means decades. I am sure some of you have seen very old loaded ammunition where the brass has started to crack on its own due to the stress of the seated bullet. I have seen it in old .45 ACP loads (circa 1928) and some WWI vintage .32 Winchester Special ammunition, all factory stuff.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

This is often caused by shooting sausages instead of cartridges. (Sausages have casings, cartriges have cases.)

 

[pauli]

you know, i tried shooting sausage once, but they said i couldn't put pork products on the carrier. live and learn!