Really beat up brass...?

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mpthole

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I've been noticing lately that my brass is really getting beat up. This particular example is worse than the others in that it has a sharp "indent" as well as the "flat spot". Both pictures are of the same pieces of brass - on the left a newly resized piece and on the right the beat up one. The only difference in the pictures is that I rotated the brass on the right to try to get a better angle in the picture.

I don't think the "flat spot" is causing any major problems when it comes time to resize the case for reloading. I'm mostly concerned about the "indent".

The majority of my spent brass has a flat spot on it, only very few get the indent.

Is this something I should be concerned about as far as reliability of the weapon (1911 gov't model)?

DSCN0418_sm.jpg

hi-res 1.3megs

DSCN0419_sm.jpg

hi-res 1.3megs
 
That brass looks alright to reload. The flat spot it from ejection and will be smoothed out in the dies. As far as the 1911 goes...When my glock chokes on my reloads, I put em aside to shoot in my Colt. It takes some really horrendous ammo to make a Colt choke.

The 45 is probably the most forgiving cartridge to reload for. When loading for anything else I'm more critical with the brass and when in doubt throw it out. Especially with rifle brass. Brass is cheap compared to guns.

Think pressure when inspecting brass and reference pressure charts in the load manuals. The higher the pressure the more critical you should be. 45acp is fairly low pressure compared to most cartridges.
 
If the resizing die doesn't fix it the expanding die will and it will work fine.

If you do run accross some brass that is too beat-up to go into your resizing die, run it through the expanding die first. Just short stroke the brass on the expander die to iron out the internal dents.

Darkside
 
Banged-up Brass

Howdy Mr. Thole!

The flat spot is from the brass skiddin' across the bottom of the ejection port because it's bein' ejected at 3 O'Clock instead of 2 O'Clock. Nada problemo unless it bounces it up into the top of the port and nails ya between the peepers....which it probably does at times. More likely to occur with an old style, unlowered ejection port.

The first picture...the case on the right with the crunched mouth. That's an
extractor problem. The case is fallin' off the breechface and the slide rams it into the barrel. Usually happens on the last round due to a round not bein' under the empty to keep it high on the slide. You'll eventually have
a case badly crunched when the slide doesn't lock on the last round if you haven't already. The case falls, misses the ejector, depresses the mag follower, and fails to lock...OR...the slide locks with the empty case still in the port, on top of the mag.

Maybe there's not enough tension and it may be that the extractor is
clocking. Check the tension. If that's good, it's clocking. If it's clocking,
load one round per magazine and see if it doesn't do it every time.

Standin' by...
 
... it's bein' ejected at 3 O'Clock instead of 2 O'Clock. Nada problemo unless it bounces it up into the top of the port and nails ya between the peepers....which it probably does at times.
Click to expand...
You hit the nail on the head with that one. I've been glad I wear eye protection at those times otherwise I'd have a piece of brass stuck in my eye!

... Usually happens on the last round ... You'll eventually have
a case badly crunched when the slide doesn't lock on the last round if you haven't already. The case falls, misses the ejector, depresses the mag follower, and fails to lock...OR...the slide locks with the empty case still in the port, on top of the mag.
Click to expand...
Bingo again. I've been noticing that its been getting worse and worse over the last two weeks (been doing a lot of shooting lately). I first noticed the gun having problems when a fired case wouldn't extract and the gun would kind of "lock up" - the empty would still be sitting in the chamber and the slide would lock back.

So, in between the failures to extract and the beat up brass, probably a good thing I just ordered that Ed Brown Hardcore extractor the other day. ;) In the meantime I'll try to adjust the tension on the stock extractor.

Thanks all! Won't worry about reloading the shells unless they're really, really bad; and it looks like that extractor is about at the end of its life.
 
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