Went out and did some shooting today. All my reloads - Wolf SRM’s, 23.5 gr AA2230, 55 gr Z-max, LC headstamp with Nato cross. When I got home and was going though the brass I found a case that had split along its length. The split is only about 3/8" long, I didn’t even notice it when shooting. I’m pretty sure this has happened at least once before but I don’t have the case anymore. Has anyone had this happen to them? Any ideas on what causes it?
How many reloads through it?
My GUESS if it’s a relatively fresh case is that there was a slight flaw in the case going back to the moment it was drawn. Just a place that was too thin and this fact came to light however many reloads later.
I’ve scrapped a couple of cases with similar failure. It did seem odd but I didn’t pay too much attention to it as the cases had been reloaded around half a dozen times or more. Most of them just fail from cracks on the neck area.
I had a case split like that too, slightly worse.
This was the second firing.
Is it possible the cases were sized too much?
Measuring fired brass out of this particular barrel I’m getting a headspace of about 1.463 - 1.464. My goal for resizing is about 1.457 - 1.458 based on measurements from factory ammo. I’m loading for two different rifles so I like to size to near factory dimensions even if it means I only load a case 3-4 times. Also to account for the sizing variation across different headstamps.
Take a look at the primer and see if it appears normal. If it was way hot, the primer will be flattened which then would be a factor in the split. If not, then what someone said about it just being a reject case. Shit happens.
I too have seen LC brass split like that, but it was not a batch wide
problem and I only split 4 or 5 out of 1000. I continued using the brass
and have several more firings and have not had any more problems.