Well if it isn't "incipent" case head separation than it IS!

[Rule3]

Tales of the range. A first for me.

Was shooting the AR 15 today. Fired about 75 to 100 rounds. All LC brass been loaded maybe 3-5 times. Was just target shooting for accuracy testing and the rifle jammed, dropped the mag and pulled back the charging handle what came out was this, the next round was jammed into the cut off case.: (I had a a brass catcher hanging thingy on there) Doesn't work real well but does stop the brass from flying)

What the ??



I then saw the other piece:






Loads were 55 gr Hornady FMJ and 24 gr AA 2230

From Walkalongs great thread on this, this brass appears to be higher up than at the case head junction??

I checked the barrel to be sure the bullet exited and kept shooting, no further problems.

So do I need to worry about all the brass now or can it just be a freak thing?

 

[buck460XVR]

Looks like time to find a paperclip!

 

[Rule3]

I see no visible lines on the clean brass when loading and looking them over,

Clearly the thing split but isn't it higher up than were it should have separated?

 

[steve4102]

How many times fired?

Are you using Small Base dies?

How far are you bumping the shoulder back?

 

[rcmodel]

No.

That is the end of the tapered web and where they stretch & break.

Very uncommon for them to break back closer to the case head.
Thank goodness!!

Disregard the arrow pointing down at the intact case on the bottom.
That there ain't right!



rc

 

[Walkalong]

I have seen pictures of cases that let loose even higher up than that.

Yep, check all the remaining cases for an internal rut. It doesn't take all that long. Quick and easy.

Take a look at your sizing practice. Maybe even check the ARs headspace.

Do you have a Wilson case gauge to check sized brass?

Do you check shoulder location before and after sizing?

If no other case shows any signs at all, and have been fired the same number of times, I would say it was a bad case, but only then.

 

[NeuseRvrRat]

i find these broken cases fairly often at the range

 

[Rule3]

Yes, I have a Wilson case gauge,I usually just check after sizing but have done some before sizing. They fit the same sized, or fired.

Just checked 20 or so fired cases with a dental pick and can feel no groove or line.

Check shoulder location ? I am not clear on that?? Doesn't the case gauge do that?? Please some more info on this??

Now you have me Paranoid

I like revolvers

 

[Slinger]

I've had similar problems. Only with Winchester 5.56 NATO brass. Have had it happen about 4 times in as many years. Don't know why, maybe over worked brass.

 

[243winxb]

223 Case Separation-

I had them come apart near the shoulder. When you have 1, you will have more. I have lost the necks also on firing. When the next round loads into the part left in the chamber, the hammer drops. Very scary. One of the reasons i sold the M16.

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[quaid]

I had them come apart near the shoulder. When you have 1, you will have more. I have lost the necks also on firing. When the next round loads into the part left in the chamber, the hammer drops. Very scary. One of the reasons i sold the M16.

I have created lines in the case body similar to 243winxb's photo by sloppy use of the lee case mouth chamfer tool scraping the brass wall resulting in tool marks on the side of the brass from the brass spinning in the drill.

 

[rcmodel]

+1

I hate to disagree with 243winxb.

But, whatever caused that scratch in the photo??

It ain't incipient case separation that far foreword on the case.

 

[243winxb]

Yes, the Lee tool makes a mark that almost looks the same.

 

[243winxb]

RC, i had more than a few separations. That case in my photo is coming apart at that line, on the next firing.

 

[mokin]

I've detected it via paperclip around halfway up in my .303s a couple of times. Dremeled them just to be sure. One case fell apart during the process. Not at all what I read about but evidently it happens. Definitely worth gage checking the brass while reloading. I do it as part of the chamfering process. Glad nothing really bad happened.

 

[zaphar]

Excessive headspace? Would probably need a go/no-go gauge to check that.

 

[rcmodel]

Not if you are creating it yourself by pushing the shoulders back too far during resizing.

rc

 

[Walkalong]

Yep.

Case head separation happens when we fire a case over and over and when it has room in the chamber to stretch. If a rifle has excessive mechanical head space a case can do this on one firing. Another way is if we push the shoulder back way to far and create "artificial" headspace, or excess clearance in the chamber. It adds up to the same thing. The case has too far to stretch and it thins near the case head.

 

[rg1]

I've come to be obsessive about checking cases for signs of stretching. I've bought multi 1000 round lots of once fired military brass and usually find anywhere from 10-20 or more with the classic stretch ring inside the case. I have bought a lot of 500 commercial cases with so many stretched cases that I scrapped the entire 500 round lot. Most of the stretch rings are in the normal position about 1/4" from the extractor groove but I've seen a lot of stretch rings about an inch from the extractor groove and even several with the stretch ring near the case shoulder. When the stretch ring is mid point on the case body or near the shoulder it leaves a much thinner case wall than if the stretch ring is back near the case head and it'll separate in the thinner area of the case body faster than at the thicker area of the case wall. Like mentioned I'm obsessive in checking case stretching. I use the bent sharpened wire feeler method and also a penlight shined though the primer flash hole and you can visually spot the stretch ring. I wear bifocal reading glasses and also a magnifying head visor when looking inside the case mouth with the light shining through the primer flash hole. You can get separations anywhere on a .223 case.

 

[W.E.G.]

5x-fired .223 brass fired in a semi-auto should be tossed unless you want to deal with this sort of event on an increasingly-frequent basis.

I would toss an entire lot of multi-fired brass before I would paw through it case-by-case with a paperclip looking for a ring on the inside of the case.

Brass prep is tedious enough without THAT step.

 

[rcmodel]

I agree completely!!

I try to make it a point to lose my AR-15 brass in the weeds after about 3 load cycles.

.223 brass is cheap in the grand scheme of wearing a glass eye-ball, and new AR-15 bolt parts and upper receiver if a case lets go and doesn't seal the chamber.

rc

 

[Dthunter]

Walkalong said it all.

Measure, check all of your rifle chamber/headspace and cartridge case dimensions(case head cleadance).

And yes check all cases for that infamous internal ring.

All brass has a life expectancy. Its just normally shorter with autos.

 

[Walkalong]

I started with 40 once fired factory RP cases (Shot it myself to get some idea of factory velocities with two different bullet weights.), and 30 or so converted LC .223 brass.

After shooting loads 57 through 61 at the range Sunday, I tumbled it, sized it, tumbled it, trimmed it, deburred and chamfered it, and then checked them all for signs of an internal rut starting. There were absolutely zero signs of a rut in any of the cases. I just primed them and there are 63 cases. The others were scrapped due to loose primer pockets. No split necks yet.

In the beginning, some loads were only tested with three cases, but then I used 5, 10, and 15 cases per load as the loads got closer to something that looked useful, using bullets from 110 Gr to 155 Gr. Some light loads, but many at the top, and a couple of them over, where I will not go again. Whoops.

At first loads were tested for velocity etc, and 50 yard plinking, but a couple got tested for accuracy at 100 yards and Sunday all five loads (110 V Max, 125 Gr SST, Speer 130 Gr HC, 147 Gr FMJ, & 155 Gr A Max) were shot at 100 yards. I am going to re-test a couple, and tweak a couple. I have two other bullets to shoot at 100 yards as well. (125 Gr TNT, 123 Gr Z Max [.310])

When I first started loading 300 BLK I just got a shoulder measurement with my home made gauge, and moved the shoulder a couple of thousandths on average. Then I finally found A Wilson gauge in stock and to my delight found my sized brass fell in between the steps, although near the top of the gauge.

The moral of the story is that if you do not move the shoulder back too far, incipient case head separation can be, for the most part, avoided for many firings.

I have three buckets full of .223 range brass, but am a tight sort (Frugal) and see no reason to scrap brass that has life left in it. I do not mind checking the inside. It doesn't take all that long, and can be done while watching TV etc.

It's cheap, it's easy, it can save problems at the range, or worse.

 

[ranger335v]

That's a seperation, nothing "incipent" about it.

Tumbling polishes out any "bright ring" which is the only visual incipient sign of case thinning we gonna get.