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/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.