Ok everyone,

I was sizing and decapping some some .45 acp brass

and noticed that the flash hole on one of the

cases was about 3 times bigger than usual. I

know it can affect internal ballistics, but is

it dangerous or just an occasional occurrence?

I only noticed it on one out of probably 20

cases of the same original box of ammo. It

fired the first time, so I guess it would be ok.

Please let me know if I should discard any cases I find like this.

Thanks a lot!

3x larger? That's a pretty good size hole! I think I'd not reload them.

That's kinda what I was thinking. It's just barely smaller than the primer pocket itself. I'll post pics later when I can from home.

Save that for a souvenir or mash it flat.
It should not be loaded.

Not exactly relevant to your condition but I've experimented with flash holes up to .125" diameter in .308 with near max. charges and found no noticeable effect in velocity or primer appearance. roger

The casing with the enlarged hole was a Winchester? All of their Win-Clean line that I've seen used the larger flash hole.
I don't remember if I reloaded them or not, haven't been loading much .45 acp lately.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick R:
The casing with the enlarged hole was a Winchester? All of their Win-Clean line that I've seen used the larger flash hole.
I don't remember if I reloaded them or not, haven't been loading much .45 acp lately.

It was indeed a winchester. It's a lot of mixed brass I'm sorting through. There was some other winchester rounds also, but I can't be sure if they are from the same box. The flash hole on the others was of normal size.

There are 4 combos (that I know of) in 45ACP brass
1) Large primer w/ normal flash hole
2) Large primer w/ oversize flash hole (Win-Clean)
3) Small Primer w/ normal flash hole ("non-toxic")
4) Some WW-2 era Lake City Arsenal cases that used a "between" size primer (they had the 30-06 and 45 lines side by side, and this prevented a primer mix-up)

The first 3 can be loaded with the same powder/bullet data, with #3 simply requiring a different (SP) primer.
#4 is relegated to collector/scrap status

I have loaded the Winclean cases w/large flash hole numerous times and never had a problem.

Regards,
hm

Thanks everyone, great info as always!

While cleaning up my shelves I came across a box of Winclean brass for 45 Auto. Being that it is the only such batch out of a thousands of regular Winchester cases (and being discolored and corroded as well) I chucked them into the scrap bucket.

Here's a interesting fact of win lead free line.

We were required to use them at our academy indoor range to cut down on the leading problem.

Shelve life is around 3 years after that time period expect duds.

I kept a partial box around for 5 years to test I had 30 percent duds after that time period.