Neck splits after 4 reloads

[homatok]

sage5907---In post #45, lonniemike states in part: "Heating brass softens it. It doesn't matter how it is cooled. Fast or slow or water cooling does change the softening effect.
You can not or do not quench brass as steels would be by properly cooling."

Brass is hardened by working it. It is softened by annealing, but all that dropping it in water does is to immediately halt the anneal process. Immediate termination of the anneal prevents the (remote) possibility of sufficient heat spreading down into the web area, softening it. Water quenching is simply an extra safeguard, sort of a belt and suspenders sort of thing.

 

[sage5907]

If you go out and party every Saturday night sooner or later you'll figure what's giving you a headache on Sunday morning!

 

[fguffey]

That leads me to believe that if you fire a 25-06 cartridge at 53,000 cup or higher it will get harder quicker.

I have fired cases once, after firing the case had no memory of what it was before I pulled the trigger. The case heads were upset, the primer pocket would not hold the primer and the flash hole increased in diameter. And the case started to suffer case head separation.

Case head expansion should have been .00025" + or - very little. I have had .014" case head expansion, I should have been going for .001" case head expansion for 4 firings. My big concern was crushing the case head.

F. Guffey