Home Forums Hunting & Shooting BPCR Captec new brass failure

Purchased a new lot of 44-77 brass from Captech. Brass prep consisted of running each case through the neck sizing bushing die and expander plug to iron out the necks.

Loaded 100 preped cases with 70 grains of OE, CCI200 primer, .060 vegetable wad and a 400 grain patched bullet for nothing more than fire forming. Fired the first round and it ejected properly and had fully formed to the chamber so I dropped it in the water jug, wiped the bore. The second round fired and ejected normally but noticed it had separated half way around the shoulder/body junction but did not leak gas into the chamber. To shorten up the story I fired 20 rounds and nine of them had case separations, from very minor to one that I opened up by pushing the neck over with my thumb. Eleven fired and formed without and signs of issue on the outside.

While inspecting the loaded rounds I discovered that the necks are not concentric with the case, at the bottom of the neck where it meets the shoulder there is a slight bulge around half of the shoulder below the neck and the other half flows into the shoulder flatly.

I also had fifty rounds of the older Jamison brass, virgin, loaded up that also needed fire formed so got them out and fired all fifty with no issues. None of these had the bulge at the neck shoulder junction either.

After some thought I remembered asking the lady who answered the phone about rim thicknesses, she had checked with someone and stated that the new brass was the same as my older Jamision brass which rims measure .077-.078. Now, after checking the new brass it measures .070 and the primers look good but are totally flush with the case head. Should have been the first thing I done upon receiving it. With rim thickness and the off center necks is there anything else you fellows can think of? Calling Captech in the morning.

Did 70 gr, even fill up to the base of the neck?

Yes, of course, 70 grains came up above the bottom of the neck, even some compression, slight, but compressed enough to hold powder tight.

Last night I pulled "one" cartridge apart and added 10 more grains and compressed the powder, and the wad to .100 above the bottomof neck, here is the fired case.

Think you may have a chamber problem. I've fired formed norma 45 basic brass trimmed to length , and have not lost a case.

Yeah, a chamber problem. After firing 200 plus cases of the older Jamison brass, half of those have been fire 3 times each without any issues whatsoever I have a chamber problem.

Notice bulge below neck.

Middle two rolled 180 degrees, no bulge.

Was that bulge in the case prior to loading?
Were you wiping between shots. We see lots of bottle neck case separations if the chambers aren't mopped after wiping, or even solved one fella's case separation by telling him to quit spitting and blowing water thru the blow tube unless he mopped the chamber.

Wipe between shots and run two dry patches, the last for the chamber only. None of which explains why the fifty virgin pieces of the old Jamision brass fire formed with the same loading on the same day did not nor has ever had issues in this rifle.

Yes the bulge was in every case prior to neck sizing.

When I see a bright ring like is at the bulge, thats an indication its toast on the next firing.

Can't comment on faulty brass or other wise, but those rings are solid indicators of ICS at least for me thats the first thing I"d have been scared of...

I'd agree, but on new, never fired brass I would not expect to see anything of the sort.

I agree, I'd say faulty forming as a first issue.

I'd never fire with that ring. Bound to show up with a feeler inside as a crevice basically.

Be interested to hear the company reply

Also guessing from reading you loaded them all, don't have any new unsized etc...?

I do, another hundred, the bulge is in every one.

As far as a reply, none to my email or called back.

I know that this is an old thread but what is going on here is a misadjusted sizing die. The case was run in the die to deep and pushed the shoulder back leaving to much space between the shoulder and chamber end. In other words.....head space.
Been down this road with mine.

No. The only part of the "new" case that was sized was the neck, with a neck die, the body was not touched. I do not full length sized any of my BPCR cases and several are not resized at all. Besides, a rimmed case head spaces on the rim not the shoulder and when using black powder the case will fire form to the chamber.

Fact is this is the only lot of brass that I have recieved from Jamision that has done this and several hundred previous pieces fire formed perfectly and none of them had shoulders that touched the shoulder of the chamber when new.

In any case, Jamison replaced the batch of brass. The replacment batch that was recieved did not have the off center bulge at the neck shoulder junction and every one of them fire formed perfectly. The only complaint I still have is that their rim thickness varies from .069 to .080.

I seem to have a problem when I type not everything gets put down for some reason, like something is updating.


Yes you're right, a rimmed case does headspace on the rim. I left the word like out. (with the shoulder pushed back it acts like a head space problem)

When I looked at your photo with the three loaded rounds and the case that had the neck split it is clear that the shoulders on the unfired rounds have the shoulder pushed back with a lot longer taper also they have a longer neck then the fired case does. Also you said that you "Brass p​rep consisted of running each case through the neck sizing bushing die and expander plug to iron out the necks" This I can see in your photo. Running a case through a bushing die can give you a eccentric case neck if your case is not fully in the shell holder or if the press ram is not in line with the die.
Also if that bushing die is made for a .45 parent case, like a .45-70 the larger diameter .44-77 case will not fit properly in the die body and it will leave a ring below the case shoulder.

My .44-90 bn cases below in my photo I had this problem also when I had the neck sizing die set to tight and it pushed the shoulder back and it stretched and pulled the necks off.

I'm glad you resolved your problem with the cases.

That batch of cases from Jamision came new with eccentric necks, so much so that one side had a noticeable buldge before anything was done to them. This buldge is where the separation occurred every time. Another problem I had with 10 or more pieces from this lot was eccentric case bodies at the rim. Rim diameter was correct and would fit in the rim recess of the chamber when placed there rim first. However when the case was placed in the chamber normally the rim would not sit into in the recess as the body of the case was off center.

BACO has somewhat solved the rim thickness issue for me as they sell modified Jamision cases with rims of .076 +\- .001 that fit my chamber perfectly.

I did test out my 43 Spainish Mecham neck die when I first got it for concentricity on fire formed cases, they roll out at .003-.004 with the 44-77 cases and .005-.006 on the 44-90 cases. However, this rifle/patched bullet does not require resizing, a good thing as it turns out.

End the end, I still think the quality of the old Jamision head stamped brass was of better quality.

A lot of my .44-90 bn brass is the old .44 Bell Basic and it is good brass despite what some say about the brass. The rimes where for the original rim recess and the thickness ran .082-.084" and this worked out well after I turned the heads down to .078" for using pistol primers. When Jamison started making the .44-90 BN cases I got three hundred and it has been good brass. I lost less then 10 do to compressing the powder by being careless and a couple while hunting. The New .44-77 Jamison has been very good.