Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Old load and neck splits?

I recently found a pop bottle crate of assorted loads and brass of different calibers stored in the garage and forgotten about since moving here in 2016. Among them were several .223 Rem rounds, some partial boxes of factory loads from probably 20 years ago and some reloads anywhere from probably 2005 to 2015. I decided to shoot them up more to empty the brass than anything else. With the factory loads the brass came out fine. The only reload I tried was my old standard load of a Sierra 40 grn H.P. with 28.0 grains H335 and a gm205m primer for 3600 fps in Winchester brass, not by any means a hot load and it always gave good brass life. Any notes of how many times the brass has been fired were lost in the flood before the move. The ammo wasn't touched by the flood. There were about 30 loaded rounds and the rest of the 50 round box had empty brass from the same lot. I fired two 3 round groups and when I went to pick up the brass I noticed that 4 of the six rounds had split necks. I examined the other previously fired rounds and the neck appeared fine. Could age have hardened the brass to cause the split necks?

Thanks.

Yes it can.

I had that happen to me with old factory ammo in 30 Remington. I pulled the bullets on several of them and reloaded with the factory powder and bullets. That helped tremendously. I suspect neck welding (?). Anyway, I will pull all of them before using and reload with the factory components. That brass and ammo is too expensive for one shot and done.

Jim

Have had the same issue with yellow box Winchester 25-35. I was thinking of bumping them a tad deeper with a seating die to break the weld. Any thoughts?

Yep, have seen it more than once in old ammo. Some were even visibly cracked before being fired.

Anymore I try to pull the bullets in older ammo as gently as possible, whether factory or handloads, then anneal the necks.

I found some old .220 Swift ammo I'd loaded in the early 2000s recently. 55 grain V-Max, 50 grain Ballistic Tips, and some 50 grain Barnes VLC (blue coating).

Started pulling the bullets with a hammer-style kinetic bullet puller. The coated bullets came out easily enough, usually on the first strike. The BTs were a little tough, took two or three really good whacks to get them out.

The Hornady bullets wouldn't budge.

I tried bumping them down a bit to dislodge any welding, then tried to pull. Nope. Pushed one down as far as it would go into the powder, then tried to pull. It came partially out, then stuck at about where it had been originally seated, and wouldn't go any furhter.

Intrigued now, I cut the case below the bullet, then started carefully cutting along the neck parallel to the bullet. Once I was through on one side, I did the same on the other side. I couldn't get either side off by prying with a small screwdriver.

Took a propane torch to the bullet. Melted the tip, and finally the two pieces of the neck popped off the bullet.

I crushed all the cases in a vise and threw the mangled ammo away. I wasn't going to try to fire them. I have no idea what kind of pressure would have built up behind the bullet to get it moving, but it probably wouldn't have done my rifle any good.

I first tried seating the bullet deeper but it wouldn't budge. When I removed the bullets it would take 7 or 8 hard strikes to remove (normal is 3-4) so I was pretty sure I had neck weld.

Mule Deer has the best method as stated above.

Jim

work hardening from sizing with standard neck sizers, that sizes waay to small. with ball expanders. Lee Collet neck sizers helps alot with collet to diameter against the mandrel, but annealing helps more.

Thanks guys, reckon I'll pull all the bullets and anneal all the brass. Never considered bullet weld. Would bullet weld screw with accuracy? The two groups were still as small as they ever were.

Would you also anneal some old stock new brass still sealed in the bags? They were in the crate too.

Thanks MD and Texasbatman!

Cartridge brass does not age harden. It is a stable solid solution at room temperature and at elevated temperatures up to annealing temperature.

However, what can cause cracking/splitting of brass over time is stress-corrosion cracking, aka "season cracking". This occurs when the brass has some residual stress - perhaps from being fired and/or sized, or from a bullet being seated into a tight neck - and is in contact with an agent like ammonia. The ammonia might only be in trace amounts, and there are any number of potential sources from copper solvents to household cleaners (like Windex) to urine to organic material decaying. The ammonia attacks the material at grain boundaries, weakening them, assisted by the residual stress. What you end up with are splits, or planes of weakness which split on firing.

What can prevent this is annealing brass necks and shoulders before putting the cases up or loading them, as well as storing the brass or loaded rounds in airtight containers. Working to eliminate sources of ammonia also suggests itself, though this can be harder than it seems as there need only be a trace.

Annealing the old brass may save it, but if it is already splitting then the damage may well have been done. With the NOS unfired brass it was likely annealed already though, and if that is the case the likelihood is that it will be fine.

"Cold welding" or diffusion bonding of bullets to case necks is a real phenomenon. It has been the subject of discussion here before. Leaving your case necks sooty inside before seating bullets seems an effective means of preventing it. Saves work too.

I’ve seen brass and copper over time becoming brittle without any exposure to ammonia. I also know people who have used brasso, which has ammonia in it, without any issues of causing brass cases having split necks shoulders or whatever

Age hardening and SCC are two completely different and unrelated mechanisms.

If you are going to go back and completely change your posts after I've responded to them it is going to make it very difficult to have any sort of meaningful discussion with you.

As to the first sentence of this, your revised post (while it lasts), cartridge brass may become brittle as a result of work-hardening, but it does not age-harden. As a stable solid solution at room temperature there is no metastable second phase to precipitate and thereby pin dislocations. SCC is not strictly an "embrittlement", it is an intergranular attack. There are other chemicals which can cause it, but ammonia is the most usual, and it only takes trace amounts. Ammonia is surprisingly ubiquitous, as, among other sources, it is commonly found as a breakdown product of organic matter. Things like timber, cardboard, food scraps, rat or mouse urine are sources, not just Brasso. SCC (as "season cracking" was first noticed when brass ammunition was stored in stables with straw bedding (and horse urine).

As to the second sentence, SCC requires not only ammonia but stress. If those cases were annealed and stress-free then yes, Brasso is unlikely to cause SCC. Having the stuff around cases which are work-hardened on the other hand is a risk factor. It is also time-dependent, so if you gave them a polish and then used them SCC will not have had time to develop.

Sometimes things are a little more complex than at first they appear.

Sorry, did it while you posted, couldn’t help that

Makes it even more unlikely that the bullets were/are welded to the cases. I hardly ever clean the inside of the necks. Plus, I'm sure I would have used either spray graphite or "One Shot" for the lube and not cleaned it out of the neck afterward.



Thanks all.