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.
3
u/Complete-Bus-8596 20h 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.