Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Case Corrosion Mystery

Bob,
No, it is still a mystery. I thought about those Federal cases and wondered if I had any more of them. A couple of days ago I searched through a carton of once-fired factory cases still in their original boxes.

Sure enough, I found another box of empty Federal 30-30 cases from the very same lot bought at the same time, that I had never gotten around to reloading.

I opened the box to inspect the cases, anticipating some corrosion. There was none at all. The cases appeared as clean and normal as if they had been fired this week.

So, the mystery remains. The same Federal cases, never reloaded look normal. The remaining old 150 gr. R-P bullets on my shelf look normal. The same lot of powder in the Win. 250 Sav. cases that were loaded at the same time in 1999 looked fine when I pulled a bullet, and fired normally at the range.

If something unique happened to these cases when I loaded them, I can't imagine what it would have been. In the hundreds of lots of cases I have loaded in my career beginning 50 years ago this is the only lot of cases that has ever done anything like this.

Denton suggested that maybe there was moisture or condensation in the cases when I loaded them. That seems like the likeliest cause, but I don't know how it would have happened. They were loaded in the summer when the temperatures are warm and our climate is very dry.

Denton wondered if I was blowing into the cases to remove dust or something before pouring in the powder and seating the bullet. I don't recall ever doing that, and it is not my habit, but perhaps I did. I don't have a better explanation at this time. Thanks for asking.

Nifty,
Do you have any other loads that were done with the same lot of powder? Might be interesting to pull those down and see what they look like inside.
I have lots of powder that is well over 20 years old and a fair amount of loaded ammo too. Makes me wonder if I should pull down a sample of each and check for any signs of deterioration.

*

I read something like this on another forum about those v powders ( I can't spell it or pronounce it ) being corrosive after awhile in storage!

A couple weeks ago my daughter was shooting some Remington 243 that I bought before I started reloading, dated 1985. We got three duds out of 12 fired. There was a little spot of corrosion at the edge of the primer and the bullet. I have been trying to figure out how they got like this stored in the house. Maybe we will pull the bullets on the rest.

What to do with the other similar aged ammo?

Might you have touched them after handling corrosive gun cleaning kit?

nifty-
You've presented a fine mystery with your description.

It's almost certainly a problem of powder reacting in some way with the brass, as Denton pointed out. The real puzzle is that the same reaction did not occur with your 250 Savage loads made from the same lot of VV-140.

Internet firearms forums point to VV-140 and VV-150 as being involved in several similar episodes of corrosion of reloads. It seems more frequent than it should be if the corrosion were associated randomly with various powders. The effect may be confined to various lots of the particular powders.

Here's a link to a thread in the falfiles.com forum, with clear photos:
[b][color:#000099]Has anyone else had Vihtavuori N140 corrode in loaded ammo?[/color][/b].
Google finds other web reports of corrosion from the same powders.

What seems odd to me is that, in both your case and the ones reported on that thread, the powder granules from the corroded cases do not appear different than usual.

Just out of curiosity, does the green stuff dissolve in water? Although it's been a long time since my General Chem course, I think Copper Nitrates are water soluble. (Copper sulfates are also water soluble, but there are not many sulfur-containing compounds in smokeless powder, I think.)

If the green stuff does not dissolve in water, it might be a copper carbonate. CO2 is probably one of the breakdown products of smokeless powder, and is responsible for the green patina on copper roofing, the Statue of Liberty, etc.

Curious.
--Bob

Ray,
The boxes were stacked so the cases were laying on their sides.

Bob,
I threw the cases away. I didn't try to dissolve any of the green, so can't answer your question as to water solubility.

Kingston,
The corrosion damage occurred from the inside out. I don't think the cases were exposed to any corrosive cleaners, especially not the inside of the cases.

Blacktailer,
I did find a box of 250 Savage cases loaded at the same time with the same lot of VV-140 powder. The pulled powder looked perfect. There was no corrosion in the case. They shot normally through the chronograph at the range.

Thanks, everybody, for your ideas.

In case y'all missed this.