I bought a couple bags of Hornet brass recently. It's Winchester brass which has usually been good stuff in my experience. I loaded up about 36 of the cases recently. The bullet I used is a Lyman 55 grain cast GC bullet. All I did to the new cases was bell the mouths just enough to start the bullet. The load is a very light load: 5.3 grains of Lil'Gun with a couple of different primers. Previous efforts involved the Federal 205 small rifle primer. Groups have been good, but I thought I might get better ones so I tried the CCI 450 magnum small rifle primer in half of them, the Remington 1 1/2 small pistol primer in the other half.
Three of the cases developed longitudinal splits near the base the first time they were fired. The cracks are between 3/16" and 3/8" in length. The pressures are low enough in these loads that no harm to rifle or self has resulted, but I am rather surprised. (I found the first shortly after it was fired when I saw a lot of soot on the case. I didn't notice the other two until I inspected the rest of the fired cases closely.)
These were two of three or four bags of Hornet brass the local Sportsman's Warehouse got in stick recently. Unfortunately I can't make out the lot number on the one bag I have handy. Perhaps I can find the other and see if it is legible there.
