22-250 Brass Problem?

[spot69221]

This brass is from a custom build of a friends. I have never seen (Winchester) brass do this, it was brand new never fired, FL sized before loaded. The same lot of brass is used in his other 22-250 rifles for multiple firings. I am questioning if the neck angle in the chamber is a few thou off. Not every piece does this, maybe 50% of the time. I notice a sharp/shiny ring at the neck shoulder junction. Mechanically it looks like the brass is being chambered hard at that point before it's shot. I would think it's causing a crimp point creating the failure.

He has a Redding FL die and neck sizer. He has also taken about thou off the shell holder, I will check in to get more details this week and see if an expander ball has been used.

 

[former naval person]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

Bad brass in my opinion. Try annealing it before loading. Age hardening does occur.

 

[spot69221]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

Usually the line is from sizing.

 

[ChrisGarrett]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

I started with 3 or 4 bags of new Winny 22-250 brass and had 9 necks split after 1 cycle. These were from about 5 years back and seem to be caused by improper annealing at the point of manufacture.

Chris

 

[former naval person]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

No telling how long they had been sitting around before you bought them. Brass will age crack as I pointed out. The angle where the neck meets the shoulder is a stress point. Annealing will relieve the stressed area and should allow many loadings. Try it.

 

[Fuzzball]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

"Age cracking" generally occurs to cases that were insufficently annealed during manufacture.

 

[pyplynr]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

I've had some do that when fireforming my 22-250 Ackley Improved brass but brass made for a specific chambering.

 

[spot69221]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

Odds are stacking up for old/bad brass.

 

[ChrisGarrett]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: spot69221</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Odds are stacking up for old brass. </div></div>

I'm still cycling LC-66 and LC-72 in 762 and LC-89 in 556. Odds are it's defective brass, not old brass.

Chris

 

[Fuzzball]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

"I'm still cycling LC-66 and LC-72 in 762 and LC-89 in 556. Odds are it's defective brass, not old brass."

I don't yet know how old brass has to be to dry rot. I still use some of my original gun club stock of GI surplus .30-06 cases from '42 and a little bit of commercial .30-30 stuff from the early 50s. ??

 

[ChrisGarrett]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Fuzzball</div><div class="ubbcode-body">"I'm still cycling LC-66 and LC-72 in 762 and LC-89 in 556. Odds are it's defective brass, not old brass."

I don't yet know how old brass has to be to dry rot. I still use some of my original gun club stock of GI surplus .30-06 cases from '42 and a little bit of commercial .30-30 stuff from the early 50s. ??

</div></div>

I forgot to mention the Virgin RA-61 that Pat's Reloading sold some 4 years back. I picked up 600 pieces and I prepped 200. I've got 9 cycles on them, annealing once on the 4th and but for one neck that split after the last cycle, the other 199 are going strong.

I was born in 1962!

Chris

 

[former naval person]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

Yes, Chris, but the shoulder is shallower on the .223 than the .22-250. And the Military is annealed deeper than the Winny. JMHO

 

[ChrisGarrett]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: former naval person</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Yes, Chris, but the shoulder is shallower on the .223 than the .22-250. And the Military is annealed deeper than the Winny. JMHO </div></div>

Winchester's QC has dropped over the past couple of years. I got two sealed bags of 308 from a guy here, 2+ yrs back, that were so badly deformed I saved them to laugh at when I get down.

These weren't run over with a car, because they were more like hydraulic pressure dents, smooth and rounded, but on 20 out of 100, I couldn't even get them to fit into a case gage, they were that out of whack.

The 22-250 bags I got were just defective and IIRC, three had seams on the shoulders, where it looked like they weren't formed properly, so I didn't even get to load those.

Two friends bought 500 pcs of Winny 308 each, back in late '08, early '09 during the Midway sale ($32/100) and I loaded up about 700, total for them.

I kept collapsing the shoulders on random cases during what I thought was the seating station. I know about the crimp step, but couldn't actually track it down in the beginning. I thought the necks were too tight, causing the problem upon seating, as I backed out the die and readjusted the body/crimp step, but no luck. It kept happening.

Finally, I picked up a case and noticed that it had an unusually long neck. The shoulder was fine, but the case measured at 2.841"-2.844", all in neck length. I think out of the 700, I had 15, or so, with this problem. I trimmed them down and they were fine, but it was really frustrating.

I like Winchester brass and use it all over the place, but I hate to say it, they've dropped the ball IMO, recently.

Chris

 

[samnev]

Re: 22-250 Brass Problem?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ChrisGarrett</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: spot69221</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Odds are stacking up for old brass. </div></div>

I'm still cycling LC-66 and LC-72 in 762 and LC-89 in 556. Odds are it's defective brass, not old brass.

Chris </div></div>
I still am using some US 30-06 brass from 42. I agree with the defective brass crowd.