I had come accross the once in a while single dent on a case shoulder, but have discovered on about 50 out of a total of 600 .222Rem cases that the shoulders were dented from 2 - 5 places on each shoulder. It looks the same when you applied too much lube on the shoulder, but it is not one dent, there are several of it.

Could this be caused by a lack of annealing? I have now annealed all my cases, but need to fix the dents first.

I have shoot out some dents on .270 Win cases long ago with 5gr of Unique and cotton wool. Is there perhaps anyone who could give me advise on this please?

I have not seen multiple dents in cases like you describe. But I have seen lots of dents in cases because of excessive lube. I just load them with a normal charge and shoot out the dents.

Multiple dents are a common result of excessive lube during resizing.

Attempting to use a squib or non-bulleted load to iron out the dents is tricky since it requires pretty good pressure to do so. Non-bulleted loads also waste primers, powder, and time.

So long as they chamber, just load them with a normal load and shoot them. They will act just like any other loads in FLS cases, other than being a bit homely due to the dents. After firing you will likely still see the "tracks" of the dents due to slight discoloration of the brass where the dents formerly appeared.

Lack of annealing is not the cause of the dents. If anything, softer annealed brass would dent more easily. Just lighten up on the amount of lube you use. Switching from an oil-type lube to something like Imperial Die Wax might help. Also be sure to clean out your sizing die. Most FL sizing dies are made with a weep hole to allow some excess lube to escape. Your weep hole may be plugged, or perhaps your lock ring is covering the weep hole and preventing it from functioning.

Also clean your vent hole

Many thanks for your advice. Will just shoot the dents out as normal. I use Redding dies with Imperial Wax these days and it does not have any vent holes. I discovered the dents while applying the wax. The wax works excellent. It could be that the dents was caused long ago when I had used other brands of die sets.

Clean your die make sure the vent hole is clean. Fire as normal and try less lube next time.

too much lube .. unless you are in benchrest competition, just shoot

Those small cases do not have much of a rim so they are sensitive to too much and too little lube. I always start with a clean dry die and that makes the first case or two dicey so I usually sacrifice a .223 case to get the die lubed up. Once the die has some lube in it I only use a little lube that is distributed on my fingers. It takes a while to learn how much.
If you can size a .223 case with out dents or pulling the rim off you have it down pat.

If you have a single .222 you might consider a bushing die or a Lee collet type neck sizer or even a conventional neck sizing die.

Tada!! - The big finish
However if you have to FL size work on lubing just the body of the case well and almost nothing (there must be a little) on the neck and skip the shoulder.

Buy carbide buttons and use wax on the bodies.No more dents.

My first thought was 'case dents' but no, you are referring to sizer related shoulder dents.

This dent came out the chamber - I've no idea what caused it.



There was no dent before firing. This is a reload of the dented case.

quote:

Originally posted by 303Guy:
My first thought was 'case dents' but no, you are referring to sizer related shoulder dents.

This dent came out the chamber - I've no idea what caused it.



There was no dent before firing. This is a reload of the dented case.

Have seen it a number of times and always just behind the body shoulder junction. Can only wildly guess what causes them.
Returning to the thread**** I seldom see excess lube dents since using Bardahl but when it happens I shoot them out. roger

Reloader-270,
What-powder-and-load-are-you-using?-Appears-to-be-a-severely-under-charged-round.-Most-lube-dents-will-appear-on-the-actual-shoulder.
Keep-us-posted.
Go-ahead-an-shoot-them.-The-dent-will-mostly-disappear.

Fishin'-Magician

quote:

Originally posted by 303Guy:
My first thought was 'case dents' but no, you are referring to sizer related shoulder dents.

This dent came out the chamber - I've no idea what caused it.



There was no dent before firing. This is a reload of the dented case.

This type of dent is caused by a very low pressure load that does not expand the case neck enough to form an effective gas seal or by cases that have very hard necks caused bywork hardening (being fired and resized many times)or a combination of low pressure and hard necks. For the hard necks simply anneal the cases.If the problem still exists check the load you are using. Maybe too slow a powder not generating enough pressure.

I made some dents in fired 6mm-284 cases. I backed the die off the thickness of a nickel and the problem went away. Too much case lube is another way of getting dents in the shoulders. Maybe I need to measure the cases to see if they need trimmed...

quote:

Originally posted by 303Guy:
My first thought was 'case dents' but no, you are referring to sizer related shoulder dents.

This dent came out the chamber - I've no idea what caused it.



There was no dent before firing. This is a reload of the dented case.

That is bizzare. I wonder if the case needs to be trimmed and the excess brass had nowhere else to stretch too..

quote:

Originally posted by 303Guy:
My first thought was 'case dents' but no, you are referring to sizer related shoulder dents.

This dent came out the chamber - I've no idea what caused it.



There was no dent before firing. This is a reload of the dented case.

I would be very surprised if that dent has anything to do with firing in the chamber or poor obturation as snowman suggests. I suggest that the dent has come from some damage to the round before chambering as you can actually see the outline of something the cartridge has hit. Maybe it was dropped at some stage and the dent not noticed. If it was caused by firing in the chamber one would expect to see every case with that same load exhibiting that same or similar dent, as you would too if the cases were hitting something on ejection.

I have seen the effects of poor obturation with low pressure loads even to the extent of seeing small indentations on the case shoulder caused by kernels of un-burnt powder (same shape as the H4831 powder being used in these loads).
I have also seen some small creasing of case shoulders again due to poor obturation, but never such a well-defined dent on the main body of the case as shown in the photo.

Poor obturation is almost always accompanied by very noticeable blackening around the case neck and shoulder area.

Shoulder collapse is usually accompanied by a blackening of the case, especially when very slow powders are used in large overbore cartridges. Less so in smaller cases . This is discussed in the Speer loading manual. I have a copy of the Speer # 10 manual in front of me and shoulder collapse is discussed on P58 with pictures on P-59.

quote:

Originally posted by snowman:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by 303Guy:

This type of dent is caused by a very low pressure load that does not expand the case neck enough to form an effective gas seal or by cases that have very hard necks caused bywork hardening (being fired and resized many times)or a combination of low pressure and hard necks. For the hard necks simply anneal the cases.If the problem still exists check the load you are using. Maybe too slow a powder not generating enough pressure.

Snow Man, FROM WHERE ARE YOU GETTING THIS INFORMATION ?
Some years ago a number of us tried to run down authoritative information and could not. roger

quote:

This type of dent is caused by a very low pressure load that does not expand the case neck enough to form an effective gas seal or by cases that have very hard necks caused by work hardening (being fired and resized many times)or a combination of low pressure and hard necks.

Well, the powder used was a slower one - H4350/AR2209 but the the chamber pressure was not that low, being a starting load or thereabout. The neck had been annealed and the case did not need trimming. Nor was the dent caused by mishandling in any way (this I am sure of). There may have been some blackening in the dent itself - I don't remember. But from snowman's quote one could reason that the annealed neck and slow powder with a light bullet allowed the bullet to move forward without sealing the neck, allowing gas to get between the case body and chamber wall, then as the pressure increased rapidly, that trapped gas may have formed a pocket which once the chamber pressure began to fall, was able to blow the dent.

It has never happened with a heavier bullet nor with a hotter load with the same bullet so I'm thinking snowman has nailed it.

quote:

Maybe too slow a powder not generating enough pressure.

I've just found that same (or similar) cartridge with the dent so I shall pull the bullet and weigh the charge since I can't find the starting load data I may have been using.

The case does not look to have been newly annealed as usually this shows up in discolouration of the brass around the neck and shoulder area, so I'm assuming annealing was done earlier in the life of the brass and with several resizings the brass will now have harden a little.
A newly annealed case being softer is more likely to obturate rather than not.
When I talk of a light load of slow powder, I'm referring to an extraordinary light load not just a normal starting load. AR2209 is not that slow and I am currently using this powder in reduced cast bullets loads in the big 404 case without any problems at all (63grs as opposed to full power loads of 80gr+).

I would expect that a load of slow powder that was so low that it would not obturate a case will be giving other issues such as delayed ignition heading towards the danger of detonation.

Squib loads of fast powder with cast bullets will often result in some lack of full obturation of cases with a little blackening showing up around the neck area but this is expected with some cast loads. I have never seen denting of a case such as in the photo under any of these scenarios.

Then again one can always be proven wrong.

The case may have had two or three firings since annealing but no more. More likely it was on the first firing with a newly annealed case. I did over anneal so the necks were real soft - too soft. AR2209 has been stable with loads as low as 65% load density but with a filler. I can only speculate what caused the dent.

quote:

Originally posted by 303Guy:
My first thought was 'case dents' but no, you are referring to sizer related shoulder dents.

This dent came out the chamber - I've no idea what caused it.



There was no dent before firing. This is a reload of the dented case.

I agree with the later participations that this dent was caused by the resizing process whereby the neck area of the case has been too hard. Had similar issues with Winchester Nickel Plated Cases after 1st firing - 60 out of 100 had dents like this. Later read on the forum that they are no good for relaoding since they are too hard and could damage the resizing die.

quote:

There was no dent before firing. This is a reload of the dented case.

That's not low pressure blow by, the rest of the case isn't nearly dirty enough and the dent itself is too small for that. It look's more like what I would expect from a bit of trash in the chamber when the cartridge was chambered.

Hold up a case with a dent in the side behind the shoulder/case body juncture and ask: “What caused this dent?” My answer? “I do not know”. Add information like “This dent appeared after sizing” I can handle that, or, “The dent appeared after firing” again, we can handle that.

I am a case former, there is no way to dent a case, fold a case or crease a case I have not done. I have even collapsed cases into what appeared to be bellows (something like an accordion). Some failures were caused my method and techniques, others by design.

Dents that appear in the case after firing are caused by gas trapped between the case and chamber, when the pressure drips inside the case the greater gas pressure (trapped between the case and chamber) collapses the case to the inside, as to the cause, ‘time is a factor’, In the perfect world the neck expands and releases the bullet, the neck expanding seals the chamber in the perfect world, it is possible to soot the necks when firing with slow burning powder, again, time is a factor.

A wild guess without knowing if the dents appear after firing, I would say the gas is escaping past the shoulder and neck and getting trapped between the case and chamber when pressure gets high enough to seal the chamber, and that is a bad habit, because? Gas is hot high pressure metal cutting gas, the case is designed to protect and seal the chamber, dents that appear after firing indicate the case is not protecting and sealing the chamber, again, sooty necks mean gas was trapped between the chamber and case neck before the neck sealed the chamber, proof the neck sealed can be seen by the thin build up on the neck, back to bad habit, the neck of the chamber must be cleaned before the deposit builds to the point the case neck can not expand when releasing the bullet.

F. Guffey

I understand the question “How do you fix the dents” I determine what causes the dents, when trouble shooting the problem must be explained ‘In a sequence of events’, All of my life dents created when forming will (like magic) pop out when fired. I was at a range a few years ago when a shooter next to me said “Tell me you are not going to shoot those cases with the dents” and I replied with “I am not going to shoot those cases with the dents”, then I shot them, and the shooter next to me said “I thought you said you were not going to shoot those cases with the dents” and, I replied with, “You told me to tell you I was not going to fire the cases with dents”. Anyhow, some of the dents turned into creases, I decided the advise I was getting was coming from advisers that had never formed cases before.

F. Guffey

Gentlemen,

Could this type dent be caused by the empty case striking the receiver/ejection port side of the weapon? Are these cartridges being fired in semi-auto weapons?
In firing my M1 Garand, several of the ejected cases have identical dents as those shown by 303 Guy. Also whenfiring my Colt Nat'l. Match, Many of the cases have dented mouths from striking the ejection port. Just a thought.


Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Reloader270:
Had similar issues with Winchester Nickel Plated Cases after 1st firing - 60 out of 100 had dents like this. Later read on the forum that they are no good for relaoding since they are too hard and could damage the resizing die.

Yes, you can certainly read that on the forum; however, that doesn't mean that it is true. The next time you have bright, shiney, once-fired nickel cases that "are no good for reloading", let me know and I'll pay the postage so you won't have to burden your garbage can with them.

Semper Fi may be onto something here. What rifle was the cases fired in?

To somewhat get this thread back on track, I have FLS approximately 180 35 Whelen cases over the last couple of days. I use the lanolin/alcohol spray on lube sold by Dillon and Midway, allowing a full day of evaporation for the carrier.

Well, approximately 30 of those cases are dented at the neck/shoulder juncture. They were sized in a Redding die which has no vent hole. Is this normal, or did my Redding set get away from the factory without the required vent hole? Previous to this the only time I have ever had this issue was with an RCBS .243 sizer die that got out of their factory without a vent hole. When I called them I was told to throw away that die and they would send a replacement, which they did.