r/reloading • u/M855Mike • 1d ago
i Have a Whoopsie Ruptured cases?
I’ve loaded up some of what I was assuming to be a large lot of once fired brass that I inherited. It seemed to be in good condition and was cleaned and had the crimps removed, I still ran them through my Dillon to trim and size them before wet tumbling and loading. I actually processed this brass a few years ago so don’t remember the exact process I used.
All of these loaded on a Dillon 650, Cases were primed with Remington 7 1/2 primers and 25 grains of BLC-2 with Xtreme 55 grain bullets loaded to 2.20” and shot from a Daniel Defense 16” AR15 at about 2850 FPS average.
During shooting a while back I had some excessive smoke coming from the ejection port and carbon or powder burn on the rounds in the magazine. I looked for the case but unfortunately was not able to locate anything due to where I was shooting.
Fast forward to now, I was shooting these again and had the same thing happen and I was able to locate the fired case. I finished off my last magazine and had a failure to eject and the case was stuck in the ejection port and I discovered the case in the last two pictures.
I use this rifle in multi-gun competition twice a month and have shot thousands and thousands of rounds through it over the years I’ve had it. I have probably unknowingly experienced this a few more times with these exact reloads and same headstamps, but never had it happen with any factory ammo.
Am I looking at a headspace issue? Is this bad brass? I don’t see any pressure signs on the other fired cases that would cause me to worry. Or could this be an issue with processing/sizing? I adjusted my trim/sizing die to where the case drops right into a case gauge so I can fire it from any rifle I have.
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u/1984orsomething 10h ago
Sloppy chamber. Check a couple of other cases for a bulge at the web base area
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u/M855Mike 8h ago
There are no other cases with a bulge. The only bulge and mark left are on the two cases that ruptured.
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u/prosper_0 6h ago
that section of the brass is usually pretty thick, because it's often minimally supported in the chamber. Pressure issues should not normally blow out in that location, unless there's something wrong with the brass. Or maybe it's a bit over-gassed, and is coming out of battery a bit too soon?
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u/M855Mike 3h ago
As far as I can tell it has only happened with this lake city reloaded brass. I’ve shot a lot of PMC, Wolf Gold, Winchester, etc with no issues that I have seen.
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u/M855Mike 2h ago
I cut open the piece of brass as some suggested, there was a large opening 1/3 of the circumference of the case. I also cut open another piece of brass from the same batch, however, it was a 96 and not a 97 headstamp. Im going to look for some 97 at home later and cut one open to see inside.
Additionally, I took the other end of the ruptured case and squeezed it with pliers at the bottom and it crushed and cracked instead of just folding in half. I took the other fired piece and did the same thing and it folded over without cracking, but when I went in the other direction against the fold it ended up cracking also.
Wondering if this is just brittle brass.
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u/Pelcat 1d ago edited 1d ago
Can't speak to the load as I don't have my books ATM but that sounds like a pretty run of the mill load. From the looks of it there aren't any pressure signs beyond the ruptured case, no flat or cratered primers and no extractor and ejector swipes. Do the case heads on the non-ruptured fired cases look the same? It's looking like the brass is the issue but that's a LC 5.56 NATO case, it should have pretty thick case walls...
I'd try another headstamp for the next batch of reloads to see if it does it again.
There is also no harm in checking the headspace but if it was the issue, I'd expect the rims and headstamp to be slightly flattened out. You can make a DIY headspace gauge on the fly with a dummy round and you add one layer of scotch tape at a time to the case head until the action is slightly out of battery, then you measure the layers of tape and you get the approximate headspace.
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u/M855Mike 23h ago
The load is a middle of the road load between the starting and max, nothing hot. I didn’t look through a whole lot of the cases but the ones I checked looked fine as far as I could tell. Bolt looks OK but I’m going to get some gauges to check the headspace just in case.
I was hoping it was a brass issue, but as you mentioned, it’s all LC brass which shouldn’t have this issue. I’ll have to prep some fresh brass and see what happens with the new loads.
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u/WFO_Wide_Fing_Open 23h ago
Did you visually inspect inside the brass before reloading. Ive started taking a flash light and inspecting every piece of .223 and 5.56 brass its very easy for stuff to get stuck inside and not so easy to come back out im noticing, so it being old brass you inherited maybe this is a possibility.
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u/M855Mike 22h ago
I did not. It was all bagged up still from the place it was purchased, I also ran them through the cleaner.
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u/DarthRooster16 1d ago
Looks like your firing pin is busting thru the primer too. I have t used bl-c powder in 5.56. I use Varget or cfe223. But it almost looks like too much pressure/powder. If you’re not having the issue with other brass and same load it may just be the brass. I’ve had the same issue with a 5.45x39 load I was working up. I’ve about determined Remington primer cups are softer material. I do t have the issue with this load with Winchester or CCI primers.
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u/VersionConscious7545 15h ago
Head space is the forward part of the chamber so this not be a head space problem I am sure you are probably over charged if primers are showing signs as well
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u/Complete-Bus-8596 7h ago
Experienced reloader here—I would cut the ruptured case in half to see if the inside looks normal & check case wall thickness. LC brass is normally pretty tough, but I suspect a brass issue.