I was making a small run with the 45Colt and using my Rockchucker press. Most of the brass was Starline but there was some WW, Remington, and Federal also in the mix.

When I tried to seat the cast bullet in the Federal cases, there were 6 of them, in every attempt the case would buckle and show a big bend halfway down the case. None of the other cases had any problems with the process.

I heard that there was a time when some of the manufacturers used some thinner walls on their cases and wondered if this was the situation here. The FC cases seemed to be older but some of the Starline were also older.

Any ideas on the Federal cases?

Maybe the cases were/are a tad shorter and did not have as much bell on them as the others.

quote:

Originally posted by impala#03:
Maybe the cases were/are a tad shorter and did not have as much bell on them as the others.

I thought about that too as I was processing them but after the first 3 crumpled I looked at the next ones for length and bell and they appeared to be the same. Still a puzzle.

Perhaps the brass is harder with more springback after expanding so the bullet did not properly start in the case mouth.