I started with new Winchester 458 WM brass, full length sized, loaded with 68 grains of RL-15 and Hornady 400 RN's. And federal 210 (large rifle, NOT magnum) primers. The case neck area showed color changes of annealing on the new brass. After firing 18, I was about to reload them.

While resizing, I had four develop longitudinal cracks in the neck, near the shoulder. I set the die so that the shoulder was just bumped, instead of full-length resizing. One observation I made, comparing my fired rounds with the single Winchester casing that the gunsmith included (from test firing), is that my necks were very sooty on the inside, while his was almost clean. I'm not sure this has any significance though. Bolt lift and extraction were easy, although there is the tiniest hint of primer flattening.

Any idea what is going on? A 20% brass mortality rate per session of reloading doesn't seem too good.

Thanks in advance,
Todd

quote:

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Originally posted by Todd Getzen:
Still trying to figure this out.

I started with new Winchester 458 WM brass, full length sized, loaded with 68 grains of RL-15 and Hornady 400 RN's. And federal 210 (large rifle, NOT magnum) primers. The case neck area showed color changes of annealing on the new brass. After firing 18, I was about to reload them.

While resizing, I had four develop longitudinal cracks in the neck, near the shoulder. I set the die so that the shoulder was just bumped, instead of full-length resizing. One observation I made, comparing my fired rounds with the single Winchester casing that the gunsmith included (from test firing), is that my necks were very sooty on the inside, while his was almost clean. I'm not sure this has any significance though. Bolt lift and extraction were easy, although there is the tiniest hint of primer flattening.

Any idea what is going on? A 20% brass mortality rate per session of reloading doesn't seem too good.

Thanks in advance,
Todd

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I reload at the other end of the scale, .17 Ackley Hornet.

An observation I have made that I have never seen mentioned anywhere is that when reforming cases it seems important to do fireforming as soon as possible after case forming.

I base this on a batch of 100 WW cases (all same manufatcturers batch) reformed to .17 A-H and about 30 fireformed about 2 weeks later. Not a problem with these. When I fireformed the rest about 4 months later, some had developed neck cracks while in storage and the rest neck split on fireforming. All loaded at same time with same load and batch of components. Temperature was within 5 degrees each time at range.

Had similar experience with a batch of Norma cases several years ago but no accurate notes kept back then. One learns to that!

I also anneal after caseforming as caseforming workhardens brass. I now believe worked brass also workheradens while in storage. this is only explanation I can come up with.

Original 30 cases have been reloaded several times with no problem.

So I suggest you anneal after case forming and fire them off first time as soon as possible.

Hope this helps!

Thank you for this tip. It seems like it might be an interesting experiment. I'm glad I didn't run the other 100 cases of 458 through when I did the first 50!

Todd

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Shoot well, and hit hard.

Arild.
(And YES, I'm a NRA member!)

Sorry, but I haven't experienced this problem either. I've used both Remington and Winchester brass too.

All my Winchester brass has that annealed look, I was told that's normal.

Your load is very mild, so I wouldn't suspect any problems there. Perhaps it's just a bad batch of brass?

Before I went to the trouble of annealing, unless your already set up for that, I'd buy another lot of brass from a different vendor.

BTW, I just ordered two boxes of North Fork 370gr bullets to try out.

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Brian

I'd anneal the rest of the cases after you size them down to 416 before you fireform them.

I'd anneal the ones you've already fireformed as well.

Brass does age harden as well as work harden.

Don

As I was tyring to go to sleep last night, I finally remembered where I had heard of this before -- I think it was MacD who had two boxes of loaded 416 Rigby, for about 15 years, and all the casenecks split from the brass hardening with age. Guess you learn something every day.

Thanks again,
Todd

As I recall, I lost some cases going down with 458 because they developed a ridge inside at the shoulder neck junction that needed inside neck reaming or the case necks would split and I suspect that may be your problem...Also it is a money savor to invest in a set of case forming dies if one is using 458 cases and intends to stay with that caliber.

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Thanks for your suggestions. I've loaded up some rounds on 338 cases this morning, and will be out to the range shortly to try them. I do like the Taylor, but I think I'll probably have it reamed out to 416 Rem before heading south of the Equator with it. Of course I have a few years before reaching that point, to play with the Taylor.

Todd

It now boils down to the only difference in men and boys is the cost of the mens toys
but that ain't all bad!!

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com