Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 5.56/223 brass reload failure saga

I had an experience that is unusual in my 40 years of reloading I thought I’d relate.

A couple of decades ago I bought a bag of 500 of once shot 5.56X45 Lake City brass with head stamps of 87 and 92. I full length sized and loaded 200 of them with different loads for accuracy checks and sight in.

After selecting the best load for the rifle (a TCR 83), I NECK SIZED and loaded 150 of them for a prairie dog shoot. The load used H380 powder and Federal 200 small rifle primers. This was in 1995.

In addition to the 5.56/223 barrel I took a 22-250 barrel and loads and ditto with a 243 barrel for the shoot. When a barrel got too hot, I would switch to another barrel and rotated through the 3 barrels throughout the shoot. After the shoot I shelved the leftover 5.56/223 loads in my ammo safe. There were 33 rounds left in one box and 50 in another of the 5.56/223’s.

For further P-dog shoots I stayed with the 22-250 and 243’s (2 of the 243’s) and the 223 barrel stayed in a safe. As time went on, I sold the 223 barrel to another TCR collector while the leftover loads of that day in 1995 stayed in my ammo safe.

I didn’t have a 223/5.56 rifle for 20 years but recently found a new TC Compass II rifle for sale that called my name. So, I rummaged through my ammo safe and found those leftover 2 boxes from 1995. I found that they would not chamber in the new Compass II rifle.

So, pulled bullets and discarded the old powder.

I then lubed and started to full length size the brass. I started with the 33 brass from the one box. 18 of the 33 resulted in split necks. In going through the remaining 50 I had 13 of them split out of the 50. So, I decided to discard all of this brass as too much of a possible risk. I noticed most that split were marked 87 (1987) on the head stamp.

I still had the remaining 350 of the brass that had never been used in my stash. After cleaning I took a random sample of 75 of those through full length sizing with no failure or splits.

It remains to be seen if the splits will happen after I shoot these 75 rounds and reload them. Or, if the loaded rounds sitting in the ammo safe for 25 years had some cocktail reaction that degraded the brass.

I have had other caliber loads (of commercial brass) that were leftovers hang around the ammo safe for up to 10 years (or so) before being shot and reloaded but only those 83 have sat that length of time and have had such failures.

FWIW - Ken

I picked up some old once fired 308 brass and resized them to 7-08. 9 out of 10 of them cracked. I think with age the brass gets brittle. I should of annealed them before resizing. My guess is they were just old enough that the brass got brittle with age. Annealing may of helped. Or, maybe not.

kwg

Old Brass hardens... annealing it might not help either.. depending on age.. but it never hurts..

I anneal a lot.. and use mainly previously shot brass.. whether picked up at the range or purchased from a local source..

I have it happen with older 308 brass.

Military or civil makes no diff.

Sometimes it just happens out of the blue.

I still use some from 1972 and for 556 brass it is still good after many firings over the years.

I've seen it out of old brass too. I'd anneal it if you've got the ability or chuck it. Most likely I'd chuck it, 223 brass is cheap.

My experience with necks cracking is with brass that has been loaded and stored for a long time . (same as yours )

It has happened to 223, 243, and 243. I have stopped loading and keeping on hand for an extended periods.

I try to load and shoot within a year.

this is a follow up to my original post.

I have shot and (FL) sized the sample of 75 of 350 Lake City brass twice now and have had no issues on necks cracking.

I can only conclude the loaded rounds of 2 1/2 decades I described above had some reaction that caused the brass to be brittle and crack at the necks.

I decided to rummage through my ammo stash and pull out any other caliber rounds either original or ones I had loaded from the mid 90's and see if they had similar problems.

I shot a (20 round) box of one of my collector and original Remington 33 Winchester in my '86 Winchester. The box had to be pre-WWII as I do not believe Remington loaded any 33 Winchester after the war. After shooting I full length sized the brass and loaded it with IMR3031, Hawk 200's and WLR primers. Shooting this and doing another full length reload had no issues.

Tried the same with some 45-70 loads I had made in ´97. Brass was Winchester, AA2700 powder, 350 Hornady slugs, and WLR primer. Shot them and full length sized with no issues.

So, the experience with the 5.56 Lake city brass, H380, and #200 Federal primers has been an anomaly. If any chemists or chem-E's out there have any ideas, my curiosity awaits their thoughts.

A friend of mine has a 348 M71 and had bought some original factory ammo and we shot it when he first bought the rifle without any issues. Stored it away for a couple of years and decided to shoot it for an upcoming Nilgai hunt and he started getting split necks with the factory fodder. I looked at them and pointed out that the ones that split were showing quite a bit of tarnishing at the neck shoulder junction. Told him it could be that the powder was probably oxidizing already as the ones that split were a bit smokey when fired.