New brasa quality going down?

[Bullshop Junior]

I havnt had any new brass in a long time. A few weeka ago I bought two boxes of factory 454 casull ammo to shoot up for the brass. One was a box of Winchester dual bond in nickel cases, the other box a box of Hornady Custom.

Half of the winchesters split around the head on the first firing...and the Hornadys all swelled around the head dramacily. Is new brass all this bad, or did I just get acouple of bad lots?

[quilbilly]

Doesn't surprise me about the nickel plated. Plated brass splits pretty easily with hot loads

[captaint]

BJ - I'm assuming you haven't had any other trouble with the pistol in question thus far ?? If not, I would personally find it unusual for Win AND Hornady brass to swell and split like that. I didn't think brass quality had gone down that badly... Like you, I haven't bought any new ammo in a long time. I did buy a couple of different kinds of new Starline brass, and they were fine. Mike

[Bullshop Junior]

Its actually a rifle, and no I havnt had any other problems. The Winchester brass didn't swell, Just split. The hornady brass swelled a lot

[Bullshop Junior]

My phone doesnt take the greatest photos but here it goes.

Here is the hornady brass. It is swollen more then the pic shows



And some of the winchester brass. They did not all split at the base, some split more then half way up, but all split around the case, and some split enough they almost seperated. None split vertically though

[Echo]

Dang. I would say 'Headspace' regarding the Hornady brass - but then, why didn't the Winchester also split? Is - a - Puzzlement!

[MtGun44]

Looks like the rifle has excessive headspace.

Bill

[Bullshop Junior]

Looks like the rifle has excessive headspace.

Bill

I dont think its head space. Ive shot this gun alot with heavyish loads and never have had a problem with it. Just these two boxes of factory ammo.

[Bullshop Junior]

Dang. I would say 'Headspace' regarding the Hornady brass - but then, why didn't the Winchester also split? Is - a - Puzzlement!

The winchester did split, but it didn't swell. Once I get some batterys for my caliper I wanna measure one of each loaded rounds, and the fired ones compaired to brass FL sized

[MtGun44]

Try putting a two layers of masking tape on the back of a case and see if the bolt
will close on it.

Shooting a lot of hot loads can stretch the action. I have always wondered
if the old 92 action was up to the pressures of the .454 for the long term.
Remember, Browning designed that rifle for .44-40 as the hottest cartridge.

The Win 95 was chambered in .30-06 but most of them wound up with
excessive headspace after a while, the action wasn't stiff enough.

Bill

[Bullshop Junior]

Try putting a two layers of masking tape on the back of a case and see if the bolt
will close on it.

Shooting a lot of hot loads can stretch the action. I have always wondered
if the old 92 action was up to the pressures of the .454 for the long term.
Remember, Browning designed that rifle for .44-40 as the hottest cartridge.

The Win 95 was chambered in .30-06 but most of them wound up with
excessive headspace after a while, the action wasn't stiff enough.

Bill

I tried that, and its a no go. I have also wondered that, and I rarely shoot 454 from this gun. Usually standard loaded 45 colt will do all I want it to.

[Big Z]

False shoulder it!

[Bullshop Junior]

Kinda hard to do on a straight wall lol

[Dusty Bannister]

Check your chamber for erosion due to firing the 45 Colt in the 454 chamber. Is it possible that a ring build up of debris, or wear is gripping the front of the case and not letting it move as it normally would in a smooth chamber. That could result in the stretch failure ahead of the case head.

If that is present, then perhaps correcting that issue might help with the other problem with excessive swelling of cases or cases splitting. Dusty

[MtGun44]

Glad to hear that it isn't excessive headspace, next would be to see if there
is anything dimensionally unusual about the chamber and that ammo. I hope
you have some of the ammo remaining unfired so you can measure and see
if it is smaller than it is supposed to be. Also, measuring some fired .45 Colt
cases to get an idea of the rear size of the chamber might help.

A close look at the chamber to see if there is any irregularity there is also
in order.

Good luck no this.

Bill