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This is a puzzle to me. I have a plastic storage container that has several boxes of 30-30 ammo, factory and reloads, that has always been stored indoors. I recently pulled out an old box of Federal ammo that had been once fired and reloaded back in 1999. I was going to shoot it up since it was one of the older boxes I had.
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I checked all of the other ammo that was in the plastic storage box, including some other reloads of the same age. This corroded lot was the only box of Federal cases. There was no corrosion present on any of the other ammo. Not even a speck. Other brands of cases loaded with the same load looked fine. The plastic cartridge holders didn't seem to be the cause.
I still have some of the same lot of R-P 150 gr. Core-Lokt bullets on my shelf, and they look fine.
As far as I know, these cases were not treated any differently when I reloaded them back in 1999. I don't tumble my cases or use any liquid cleaners. I don't understand how the corrosion started from the inside, if that is what happened. That is how it seems. The powder that I dumped out of the broken case looks perfectly normal.
Has anyone else had this sort of thing happen? Does anybody know what happened here? Is it just a bad lot of cases? Could it be some kind of reaction between the bullet matel and the brass? The worst of the corrosion is all around the base of the neck. This is a first for me in 50 years of reloading. Comments and suggestions are welcome.
nifty-
Based on the replies to date, have you (or others) any thoughts on why
only the Federal cases corroded?
Were any of your reloading procedures different for the Federal cases than for the other brass reloaded at the same time with procedures that were at least similar?
Thanks.
--Bob
