I bought a couple bags of Hornet brass recently. It's Winchester brass which has usually been good stuff in my experience. I loaded up about 36 of the cases recently. The bullet I used is a Lyman 55 grain cast GC bullet. All I did to the new cases was bell the mouths just enough to start the bullet. The load is a very light load: 5.3 grains of Lil'Gun with a couple of different primers. Previous efforts involved the Federal 205 small rifle primer. Groups have been good, but I thought I might get better ones so I tried the CCI 450 magnum small rifle primer in half of them, the Remington 1 1/2 small pistol primer in the other half.

Three of the cases developed longitudinal splits near the base the first time they were fired. The cracks are between 3/16" and 3/8" in length. The pressures are low enough in these loads that no harm to rifle or self has resulted, but I am rather surprised. (I found the first shortly after it was fired when I saw a lot of soot on the case. I didn't notice the other two until I inspected the rest of the fired cases closely.)

These were two of three or four bags of Hornet brass the local Sportsman's Warehouse got in stick recently. Unfortunately I can't make out the lot number on the one bag I have handy. Perhaps I can find the other and see if it is legible there.

Have to give Winchester props for being very responsive - overnight- to their internet consumer complaint feature. Got the direct response form, so we'll see what they say with the better detail it allows.

I expect they'll make things right.

Interesting. I've never seen them split there, Hornet or other cartridges. I have had split necks/shoulders, but not on the Hornet since I started using Lilgun powder.

I'd be interested as to what Winchester says.

Yeah that area really surprised me (and, I'm sure, would have gotten my attention, had the pressures been higher). I did have a reformed-from-300 Weatherby, 2nd or 3rd time fired Remington nickel case do something similar in my 340 one time, but that's the only other time I've seen a case split along the length like that and involved neither shoulder or neck.

I had a batch of Remington .44 Mags split the same way. I called Sierra to double check on their load and was told it was bad brass. Funny thing is the 63 cases out that 100 that did not split on the first firing never did split.

I had a Starline 40-65 case split in the same area, cast bullets and black powder. I'm still shooting about 150 pieces of that lot of brass, I would say some of the cases have at least 2 dozen firings and I have not had another split.

I picked up 500 pieces of WW 7mm-08 brass about a month ago. I've only opened 2 bags ... so far it's bad. I haven't had a chance to shoot it, just loaded some test loads. Of the two bags, I'd say a third of the cases feel like they have loose primer pockets from the git-go.

Tom

That's what I found out with the 7MM-08 brass I bought, junk for sure. Had a 2 primers fall out of new brass when I pull it out of the loading block to seat bullets. I'll stick to Hornady for my 7MM-08 brass.

In the past, Winchester was on of my favorites. It seem that their quality control began to slip during the shortages of 2004 and 2008. I've had many case necks split on new brass on their first firing. Its probably a good thing that its really hard to find right now.