Split .45 Cases

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ligonierbill

New member
I have been shooting this load from my Blackhawk for years: 250 OT over 10.6 AA#5. Gives me about 980 fps from a 6 1/2" barrel. It is at or near max for SAA clones, but no where near for the Blackhawk. Never had an issue before, cases drop right out. Last weekend most were fine, but I got several split cases. Picture could be better, but it appears they split right at the base of the seated bullet. R-P cases, new or nearly so. Thoughts?
 

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Magnum Wheel Man

New member
hmmm... could the bullets be a .001" or two bigger than normal, so there was a bulge there ??? ( did they slide easily into the chamber, or did they require the use of a "bulge buster" or additional sizing ??? is the bullet nose the correct fit for your seating stem??? so you can be sure the bullet is seating in straight...

if everything is "normal" perhaps the brass is just brittle... I just loaded some Hornady 460 S&W cases, as 45 Black powder Magnum, & just belling brand new cases, caused the mouths to crack... they obviously did not anneal them at the factory... after I did, I didn't crack another...

I'd suspect in these times of shortage, & maximum capacity from the manufacturers, sometimes the "normal" components run out & or are substituted, so it might just be either bad alloy or lack of annealing
 
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mikld

New member
If this is only happening with Remington brass, and with just a few, or no reloadings, I'd say bad brass. "Worn out" brass usually start cracking at the mouth, and brass with "holes" in it are usually just poor brass alloy/thin walled cases. But in nearly 30 years of handgun loading none of my fired brass has appeared like your pic., plenty if split mouths, some pressure "indicators", but none with "holes" blown in them...
 
C

chiefr

New member
Here it goes. In close to 40 yrs. of loading 45 Colt, hot for Ruger, mild for Colt, and to include black powder, I have never had good case life with WW or RP.
Even mild loads gave me split case mouths, and cracks similar to your pics. Often mouths cracked at 3rd or 4th reload. MHO: Cases just made too thin and weak. Interestingly, only 45 Colt brass split.

Even worse, for the past many years, only RP and WW made cases.

I cannot recall when Starline started making 45 Colt cases, but when I first tried them I did not have any splits. I am still loading all of the original batch I bought from my first trial. At least 10 times. With Starline, I do not have to keep track of number of reloads.

Some of my loads are equivalent to the 44Mag. Try some Starline for yourself.
 
R

rclark

New member
Looks normal to me for worn out brass. I've had this is all brands of brass including Starline. Must times it is just a split mouth, but once in awhile you'll see the side split as well. Yep, happens.... Toss, replace, and keep loading.

{edited} I see you said 'new' brass.... Mine happen many cycles (say 15-20) down the road.... Not after 1-4 reloads... Might be just a bad batch of brass which I've heard happen before.
 
J

Jim243

New member
Thin brass??? Weight a couple of cases against some older empty brass and see if there is an appreciable difference in weight.

Jim
 
S

Sevens

New member
I have had exactly that happen to brass enough to know that it's not some crazy, inexplicable or dangerous event. There are two places I see it most often...

One is when I'm building hot .38 Special loads. I have a specific use for these loads that most do not (and many make wild, passionate arguments against...) but I use them to run my Coonan with the lighter 10-lb spring. And they are slightly over published max for +P loads and I typically make a bunch of these in the WORST and cheapest .38 brass that I have because I know I lose some of the brass. That brass is a large pile of S&B brass that I purchased in a lot. It's cheap, thin, CHEAP brass and I do have exactly those splits. No, not all of it and some of them have been loaded 6-8 times with exactly the same load and no split, but many of them do split that way.

The other .38 brass I can split the same way is R-P nickel plated brass, and I don't need a really hot .38 load to do it, either. It's thin brass that I bought in the early 90s. It's old and been used dozens of times. Every time I load this lot of brass I know that some of them are on their last trip.

And the other instance where I make splits like this is in .327 Federal Magnum making full loads with jacketed bullets. This is a 45k PSI max cartridge and (especially when I'm using the nickel plated brass) I can split 'em the same way.

In both cases, the crack sometimes gets to the mouth but usually does not. I've never seen it get anywhere near the case head, I've never seen it leave any brass chunks or remnants in the chamber and I've never seen chunks of brass actually ripped or torn off the cartridge case.

Extremely easy to find and remove simply by the noise they make. With the revolver, I get rid of them during ejection. With the Coonan, I usually get rid of them after they've been tumbled and I'm sorting brass by headstamp.

In the case of these .45 Colt loads, I would chalk it up to the fact that if it's REMINGTON in any way, it's a business entity that has been derailed by craptastic corporate ownership and anything/everything associated with their name is (and has been) on a downward trajectory.

I use lots of R-P brass because I -have- it already. I wouldn't spend money on that stuff, it's absolutely substandard.
 
D

dickttx

New member
I had a piece of Remington 45 Colt brass that split like that the first time I loaded it. The rest of the box has been reloaded and shot three times since.
I first loaded it 4/6/2011, but I bought it in 1971 when I bought my Blackhwk!!
Never had needed that box until then.:)
 
S

Sport45

New member
That's just the brass letting you know you've got all you're going to get out of it. I just toss 'em in the recycle bucket and move on...
 
P

Pathfinder45

New member
Inferior Brass

I shoot 45 colt a lot in a Vaquero with nice minimal size chambers. Brass life is usually excellent. With many reloads, any brand of brass can fail exactly like those in the picture. A bad batch of brass will have failures much sooner. Defective brass can fail like that on the first firing. I once had a brand new 50 round box of factory loaded Federal 45 Colt ammo in which a great many failed exactly like that. Federal was interested in examining the fired cases and shipped me some replacement ammo for my troubles. I actually like Federal brass, but that box was defective. I have several brands of brass but feel that Starline may well be the best for 45 Colt.
 
4

44 AMP

Staff
The other side of the coin

I've been reloading .45 Colt since 1983. R-P and WW brass. My standard load is a 250gr SWC and 10gr Unique. I have YET to have a case split in this caliber, either the usual case mouth splits nor a body split like the ones in the pic.

I have seen a split like those, once, in a CDM .44AMP case, on its second, maybe third firing. Split was the same, but at the bottom, maybe 1/4" above the solid head.

OK, all my brass is old, some dating from the 80s, so, perhaps quality has slipped?
 
L

ljnowell

New member
I have the same failure on R-P 38 special brass frequently. I really like their brass so I continue to purchase it, but it fails sooner than others.
 
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