biogenic said:
Would you say the case support on my g23 gen 3 are pretty good?
IMO/IME, Gen3 40S&W Glock chamber support of case base is fairly comparable to many other brand factory barrels.
Any suggestions on how to detect "bad brass"?
There is no way to be certain. Even the case that was shot several times with "hot" loads in less supported chambers will look like any other spent case if they were "push-through" resized with Redding G-Rx/Lee FCD and polished to look "nice" again. Heck, even wet tumbling with stainless steel media will make heavily tarnished work-hardened old brass look like new again!
Once the case wall is over-stretched, it will get thinner/weaker and no amount of "push-through" resizing of case will make the thinned case wall thicker again even though they will pass the case gauge/barrel drop testing.
I shoot a lot of 40S&W loads in Glocks and exercise even more care when I am sorting spent cases. I will visually inspect the cases for obvious damage and toss the case for recycling if I have any concerns. I use Lee carbide pistol dies and they will resize case base further down than some other brand resizing dies due to smaller radius on the carbide sizer ring.
While resizing, when I come across a case that requires significantly greater effort to resize and the bottom of the resizing die won't go all the way down to the shell holder/shell plate, I will consider the case was shot with hotter load and expanded more in looser chamber. I will barrel drop test the case in the tightest chamber I have (Lone Wolf) and if it won't freely drop in the chamber fully, I will attempt to resize the case and repeat the barrel drop test. If the resized case freely drops in the chamber, I will reuse the case but if it won't, I will toss it in the recycle bin.
Many reloaders may consider using the push-through resizing dies like Redding G-Rx or Lee FCD to fix these cases. IMHO, I consider these dies were meant for certain brand resizing dies with larger radius sizers that have difficulty resizing the case base shot in generous factory chambers but not meant to fix over-stretched/thinned case walls repeatedly as it would continue to weaken the case wall that may lead to case wall failure/rupture.
Any suggestions on how to ... avoid case had separation and a possible KB
With mixed range brass with unknown reload history, especially for higher pressure 40S&W, I prefer not to use max loads. Instead, I use mid-to-high range load data for lower pressure target loads.
Some slower burn rate powders than W231/HP-38/Unique/Universal will lose accuracy and burn dirty at mid-range load data so I prefer to use faster burn rate powders that will still produce accuracy and burn relatively clean at mid-range load data.
YMMV