PMC 40 S&W casehead seperation.

[KP95DAO]

At an IPSC match yesterday and a guy was having problems with his 1911 in 40 because the caseheads of his PMC brass seperated during firing.
The seperation occured along the internal radius crack in the base. Very strange. This happened three times before he got rid of the PMC cased rounds in his ammo. Mixed lot ammo. I know, not very bright of him; but, oh well.
Anybody else have a similar problem with PMC or other brand brass in 40 or other cases?
Thought I might pass along your thoughts to him next month.

 

[Johnny Guest]

Rather distressing - - -

- - -If these were factory loads. But I note you wrote,
"caseheads of his PMC brass," and "got rid of the PMC cased rounds." Does this mean they were handloads in PMC brass? If that was the situation, do you have any information on the load used?

I have seen some difficulty with brass which had been fired in Glocks. Never heard of the problem with PMC factory ammo.

Best,
Johnny

 

[Eric Blair]

I have a PMC .40sw cartridge downstairs..

I have a PMC .40sw cartridge downstairs.. that will not pass a case guage. The brass is to long. Considerably.

Federal American Eagle is the only factory brand that hasn't given me some duds/problems/grief.
This includes;
Winchester White Box
S & B
Fiocchi
PMC
PMP
Wolf
Hornady
Most any Surplus
(Others I can't think of)
And I won't even mention commercial remanufactureers.

The reason I got into reloading was to avoid the problems I've had with commericial ammo.

Maybe me and my friends shoot more then most, I doubt it, but we have all had tons of ammo problems. (Maybe 5-8k rounds fired per year, per person, with 4 of us. This doesn't include MG Shooting.)

I've reloading .40 PMC Brass, including brass shot out of a glock. Seems to work fine in all types of handguns, Glocks/Sigs/Berettas, after resizing with a dillon resizer. All brass is case guaged check with 1 out of 1200 or so out of spec.

My .02. I love PMC brass. It seems to be easier to seat primers then S&B or PMP brass.

YMMV,

Eric