This is supposed to be one of the most user-friendly and reloadable rounds on the market today, and yet some bozos just can't leave well enough alone. I found these cases in the brass barrel on our 300-yard range in La Luz yesterday. Apparently the rifle held as there were no bloodstains anywhere in the vicinity.
Contrary to popular belief, some guys are too dumb to reload, or even shoot. I have seen them here too. One guy I know blew the cylinders open on at least 3 OM Ruger revolvers because he wanted to see how much they could take.
Posts: 17275 | Location: USA | Registered: 02 August 2009
I've had a few case-head separations many years ago, not from real high pressure like these rounds but from trying to get one last load out of a case. I would like to know how much pressure it took to blow that primer pocket like that.
Posts: 2650 | Location: Lakewood, CO | Registered: 15 February 2003
Originally posted by dpcd: Contrary to popular belief, some guys are too dumb to reload, or even shoot. I have seen them here too. One guy I know blew the cylinders open on at least 3 OM Ruger revolvers because he wanted to see how much they could take.
That's what you call a slow learner...
Pushing case life is one thing, but that looks like pushing pressure a smidgen too high or both.
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Posts: 22442 | Location: Occupying Little Minds Rent Free | Registered: 04 October 2012
The 6.5 Creedmoor is designed to be more efficient and this is done with it's different shoulder angle and short, fatter powder column. It's said that it and other similar cases like the 6mm Creedmoor burn most their powder inside the case. It's very high pressure and it's very sensitive to not having the correct load. The 6mm Creedmoor is even worse in that respect. I built a 6.5 Creedmoor on one of my AR 10 builds. Really a good cartridge.
Originally posted by dpcd: The guy I refer to didn't intend to blow them up. So it is not like it was controlled experiments as you imply. Just idiocy.
I know a guy that does blow up firearms on purpose. He's a pretty smart man, I believe he's a physicist. Learned some pretty interesting things from his tests. One example was how amazingly strong the Russian Tokarev pistol really is. Clue: You had will give out before the pistol when shooting 9x23 ammo in one that was converted.
Pretty impressive extractor marks. That looks like he may have needed a mallet to get the bolt back open. You would think after the first one he would have thought about pulling that batch.
Posts: 849 | Location: MN | Registered: 11 March 2009
Do not underestimate the determination of idiots when it comes to rifles. About 20 years ago I had a guy bring me not one, but TWO new Rem 700s in 243. After the first bolt locked up on the first round, he proceeded to pull out a second one and do the same. That one he broke the handle off trying to open it. The bolt noses were expanded, and the brass was melted, but the three rings of steel thing worked. The chambers were swollen and had expanded into the receiver threads. Turned out he had loaded pistol powder instead of rifle powder, from the same shape of can.
Posts: 17275 | Location: USA | Registered: 02 August 2009
My PH in Africa had to beat his bolt open and had separated cases. He did not know you needed to calibrate your digital powder scale every time you use it. He checked it the first time but not there after!
Posts: 746 | Location: South Central Texas | Registered: 29 August 2014
As much as I hate to say this because it gives fire to the antis, buy there are REALLY some folks out there that have no business owning a gun + damned sure no business reloading! If one follows the rules in reloading it is a great hobby + means of tweaking maximum performance for a load. Besides, it is just great fun. But there are always those that don't follow the rules of common sense (IN ANY MODE) A case in point, about 30 years ago a young man that I loaded for wanted to start doing it himself. Admirable! I told him how to get set up + what to buy. He did. He bought all new equipment + the 1st time on the range blew out his cylinder on an S+W 686. Of course, it wasn't his fault?! It must have been that new Lyman scale! Regardless, after he called Lyman, in 2 days he had a new scale + a new S+W revolver. They did not want an issue, but in my opinion, he screwed up + didn't know what he was doing (dbl charge?) but I am more inclined that there was some beer involved in the loading room which is ALWAYS a NO-NO
Originally posted by Live Oak: My PH in Africa had to beat his bolt open and had separated cases. He did not know you needed to calibrate your digital powder scale every time you use it. He checked it the first time but not there after!
The other problem is choices in reloading powders in Africa were rare and the only available powders were from Somchem. When Somchem blasted eight of its employees into the great unknown in 2018, more power choices thankfully became available. Somchem was touchy stuff and the manufacturer also had a little problem with production quality and maintaining burn rates from one lot to the next. They also mislabeled a few lots just for shits and tickles as well. So each lot was as if working with a new powder. To say that lots of PH suffered unintended consequences of this is an understatement.
Here in the States some reloaders seem to believe the max charge weight is a starting point. As one fellow shooter described it to me - The reloading manuals always stop short on the maximum pressures modern guns can handle.
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Posts: 22442 | Location: Occupying Little Minds Rent Free | Registered: 04 October 2012
Probably just a case that had been reloaded/resized too many times. Back in the day when I was shooting competition I learned early on that with once fire military .308 brass you could only full length resize and reload that brass about 4 times before you'd begin to see case head separations in about 3-5% of the brass...so I just quit reloading my match brass after 4 round trips...end of problem.
Maybe this person learned the same lesson...maybe they stuffed too much powder in the case. Who knows. I've had blown primers as well...
Wear a good pair of shooting glasses. Or shoot factory ammo...
The bolt head is likely pitted from the blown primer. The case on the left looks sort of ok but it looks like the start of overpressure. It could come from lots of things. People try and push the Creedmoor far past what it was designed to do. Hornady cases are not known to be particularly robust. Too many cycles will weaken the case wall. Bullet seating into the lands can be problematic if you're running too hot. Too much crimp can contribute to that as well. And then there's headspace. A friend brought me his Sako 6mm Remington once and has a few cases with blown primers. It pitted the bolt head. The ammo he used was new in the box Remington. The headspace was good. I told him I thought the ammo was suspect. He sent it in to Remington and they gave him a new box and told him the powder was compromised because it likely had bounced around on the dash of a truck in the sun for some time which it had. It changed the burning characteristics of the powder.
Posts: 1111 | Location: Blooming Grove, Tx. | Registered: 28 June 2012
2 of the 3 show extreme over pressure, and one just “normal” over pressure signs.
As to hornady brass, I got a new rifle in 6.5 to play with, and brought 100 rounds of their cheap load for the rifle. I split that into 50 rounds I did the work up with, and the rest. The work up brass has been kept separate as it has more loadings on it, but now it’s all using the same load.
It’s doing well after 10 loadings, pretty much at the top of the recommended loads, as the rifle seems to shoot better there. I did over load it a bit for one series and it looked a bit like the one on the left, with mild extractor marks, so it wasn’t babied. (The overload was a half grain over hornady’s max load that several gun writers were claiming was great with H4350)-
One issue is some folks want max velocity, and I can get over 150 FPS more with a certain powder, but nothing else is close to that (this rifle seems to be a smidge fast, it shoots the factory ammo a consistent 25 FPS faster than factory claim)- yet a guy I was shooting with was going to load his up more since my rifle showed him “the case can take it”.... even after my comments that would be a bad idea... “listen up, sonny, I’ve been loading for 35 years...”
So yes, some folks really shouldn’t be allowed to play unsupervised.
The only things I’ve done that would extend case life are neck sizing and annealing- the necks did tend to work harden. I’ve got no complaints on Hornady 6.5 creed brass.
Posts: 10995 | Location: Minnesota USA | Registered: 15 June 2007
Originally posted by crbutler: 2 of the 3 show extreme over pressure, and one just “normal” over pressure signs.
As to hornady brass, I got a new rifle in 6.5 to play with, and brought 100 rounds of their cheap load for the rifle. I split that into 50 rounds I did the work up with, and the rest. The work up brass has been kept separate as it has more loadings on it, but now it’s all using the same load.
It’s doing well after 10 loadings, pretty much at the top of the recommended loads, as the rifle seems to shoot better there. I did over load it a bit for one series and it looked a bit like the one on the left, with mild extractor marks, so it wasn’t babied. (The overload was a half grain over hornady’s max load that several gun writers were claiming was great with H4350)-
One issue is some folks want max velocity, and I can get over 150 FPS more with a certain powder, but nothing else is close to that (this rifle seems to be a smidge fast, it shoots the factory ammo a consistent 25 FPS faster than factory claim)- yet a guy I was shooting with was going to load his up more since my rifle showed him “the case can take it”.... even after my comments that would be a bad idea... “listen up, sonny, I’ve been loading for 35 years...”
So yes, some folks really shouldn’t be allowed to play unsupervised.
The only things I’ve done that would extend case life are neck sizing and annealing- the necks did tend to work harden. I’ve got no complaints on Hornady 6.5 creed brass.
I have Hornady, Winchester, Sellier Ballot, and Federal brass. So far I'm not liking the Federal. Top two for me are Winchester and Sellier Ballot. I have Redding's top die set for my 6.5 and it comes with two sizing dies. One is full length and the other is a neck sizer. The bullet seater is their match micrometer die. I'm shooting it out of an AR10 that I built using Mega MaTen matched receiver (they quit the business and the receiver are back to mother company of ZEV), with a Xcaliber 5R stainess barrel. It shoots bug holes with every brand and style of bullet I've tried so far.
fullsizeoutput_161d by ComeWatson, on Flickr
fullsizeoutput_161f by ComeWatson, on Flickr
