Nothing like having a range session plagued by FTF issues. I was working my way through a bunch of .223 I loaded probably 20+ years ago. Most of the FTF resulted in the bullet pushed into the case, with most showing neck cracks. I spot checked a handful of rounds, and a few I was able to spin the bullet in the case, and open up a crack with some sideways pressure on the bullet. Sorted through the last 300 rounds or so, and what’s pictured below are the results. I’ll de-prime the cases, but due to several different powders, I cannot save that.

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Below is a typical failure. Majority seems to be CJ93 (Chinese garbage from back in the day), but also LC, and WCC were represented.

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Ammo has been stored in an ammo can inside the house.

They don't really split just sitting there?

Scharch roll sized cases?

Scrap brass in my area is 1.75 a pound or you can give it to someone who wants to make 300BO

They can split just sitting there. I have had it happen to a batch of reloads that were not even a year old. You can feel if the neck is split when seating a bullet just by the difference in the handle feel so they were not split when loaded. I chalked it up to the new decapping rod I had installed in the sizing die and got rid of it. It was 10 or so case necks that had split out of around 250 rounds. I only reload my own fired cases once, so it happened on the first reload of the brass.

Brass was a mix of once fired by me, once fired by friends, and range pick-ups.  Brass was tumbled in walnut media, resized with RCBS case lube and Lee dies, tumbled clean again, then reloaded.  It was then put in the ammo can.  I've read a few threads from people with the same experiences, but never seen a definitive answer as to the cause.  I'm just gonna scrap the brass, as I've got 223 coming outta my ears.

This is how age hardening of cartridge brass was first identified.  

Cartridges taken out of military storage were all split.  A metallurgical study was initiated and the results came to be known as age hardening.

I really need to (re)find the reference work describing all that.  


I've been seeing this in a bunch of WINCHESTER 223 cases I stored.  Makes me really wonder whether long term storage is a really a viable approach.

On the other hand, I have and shoot some 30-06 mil-surp ammo that is 50 years old with no problems.  

Is this a quality issue for commercial brass?

Age hardening is absolutely wild to me. Also hear it’s the thing for the sheet-lead used to make organ pipes.

I have had some brass shrink 1-2thou in the neck sitting on the shelf a couple years. Oddly, it was annealed, then type S die sized with no expander/decapper. My fired necks are .344, with a .333 bushing, so the last movement of the material was compression. Common wisdom being if anything it would expand 1-2thou, as common “springback”. I have not tried seating anything in them yet.

Another thread reminded me of trying to pull a batch of bullets to use the components elsewhere. The loads had sat for a year. I hadn’t realized yet how terrible the RCBS lube is to remove. Those dang things were basically glued in! The lube that I failed to completely remove (water based) caused corrosion between the otherwise clean (once fired) brass and bullet.

As to the Title… this week I pulled out some LC factory that was loaded into new Brownells-tan-follower mags over 7 years ago. I wanted to gather, without sorting a quantity with which to test 77gr bullets. All four mags worth fired 100%. I printed a 3” 10 shot group prone with a hasty sling. Not saying I’m a great shooter, but if the lot was crap… ya’ll know how this works… Pretty sure I had test fired that lot in another rifle before oh so carefully packing it away. ETA: my concern through the firing was the magazine springs having failed. They all appear just fine after a flawless performance.

Thanks for the post.  I too sometimes experience brass issues with age, and haven't really figured it all out yet.  

I will say, the Chinese Norinco CJ brass is pure trash to the reloader.  so not surprised that gave you problems.

FWIW
Age Hardening and Stress Corrosion Cracking (Season Cracking) are different issues. Carry on.

I've fired my grandfathers reloads that were 40 years old with no ill effects.. does any of this have too do with the resizing lube, temperature, humidity when it was reloaded?

I want say I have seen it in surplus 8mm Mauser Turk flavor iirc.   A few cracked still in the bandoleer and a lot more or most cracked at firing.

I have probably even older brass, .30 Government that is heavy as hell and still reloads nicely.  Those 7 or 8 casings I got with the Krag are much heavier than the ones i bought around 2008.  IIRC the new stuff is Remington and the old handful was UMC when UMC was still UMC.

Likely the difference is in the alloy itself.

With otherwise quality brass, I wonder if it really comes down to such minutia as if the base material for the cases cases was produced in the summer or winter where the factory might go from hell to vaguely inhabitable.

Anyway, of that lot of LC I mentioned above, I sized them as I just have been traditionally sizing 5.56, good camover, which made -8thou on the headspace from this chamber.

One of the first trial loaded up decided to crack jaggedly at about the size of a 380 case. Thankfully the body+forward removed itself from the chamber, it and the case head settling in the ejection port. I was using an empty mag to single feed, it did lock open. This was 22.3gr TAC and a 77gr MatchBurner. Primers and case head-face look good. I fired a set of 22gr, along with the same charges under a 77TMK, and 75 ELDM, all was good.

I called it quits for the day on that one. Definitely didn’t want to risk another separation. I don’t think I went too hard on the powder, while Ramshot data is fairly liberal IME, this was still a start charge, loaded past mag length. Have multiple firings on other LC and basically every other brand, with the same die setup. Granted, all that testing was done with 55gr bullets and 26.2gr TAC. Which I loaded 10 of at the start of that session, and fired first for the day’s shooting as a control, they too were considered quality cartridges.

I've had the same split neck problem for more than 50 years. All brands of brass, usually range pick up. Even once fired Federal which is usually good brass. As near as I can tell its due to alloy and annealing variation. I've got 30-06 brass from 1918 that still works and 5.56 that was made last year and split on the first reload. Salvage the components, scrap the cases and don't let it discourage you.

Where do you draw the line? One percent? Two of sixty?

If I get one failure, after a hundred “good shots”, shit happens. Two critical failures in two hundred, I don’t trust the batch.

When I fired a box and got a case body failure on second firing… had to stop.

If I inspect my ammo before range sessions and any discrepancy is noted I take it apart\analyse why. I don't leave any ammo in a magazine more than the time between range sessions. My 2¢.

I would recommend you keep a few loaded, for various reasons, that might be of great convenience to you during less opportune activities.

Of course I vaguely inspect everything. No, I do not eyeball each cartridge 360*. I take some things for granted with quality factory. My reloads get eyeballed enough every step of the way.

FYI, I have used a lot of the chinese CJ brass and never had any ill effects.  Reloaded many times.

Still have a bunch of vintage CJ stuff stored and just checked it.  All is good.

I used to look for the CJ brass. It was softer and got a few more loads out of it before it was tossed into the scrap bucket. Never had any problems with it. BUt they never sat more than a few months before they were shot.

What I mean is the terminology is wrong from a metallurgical standpoint and this is supposed to be a reloading technical forum.

I am always reluctant to speak up, but if I don’t mention things like this they get worse over time.

In a public forum, it is easy to get into arguments and debates with folks that have zero background but who can talk up a storm. I am retired and don’t mind helping pay it forward from time to time, but I have also learned that a public forum can be a snake pit full of emotion and egos where it can be a waste of my time.

So, for the record…. What we call common cartridge brass, is all alpha phase and does not share much in common with steel when it comes to what laymen call heat treat.

So, where/when does “age harden” come into play? In the context of steel but not in the context of cartridge brass. For example…

Steel in the PH series means it is precipitation hardened by heat treat, and as those little crystal sites precipitate we get an increase in hardness and strength. Think of materials like XXXXPH, for example the very common 17-4PH, those Xs are the specific alloy and the PH means precipitation harden-able. We can heat treat (age harden) these steels, and they harden.

Cartridge brass does not have these precipitation sites, so it is way off base to even mention age hardening or that type of heat treatment or failure mode.

Now, the term Age Harden is just another terminology for precipitation hardening, and it doesn’t apply to alpha brass. Just like the concept that we don’t heat and quench brass to harden it.

Instead, when cartridge brass is heat treated it actually softens. We cold work cartridge brass to harden and strengthen it.

Let’s just talk in generalities for a moment since I would need the OPs ammo in the lab to state with any certainty what caused those failures.

My expert guess from his photos, is a combination of low quality brass and ionic contamination, aka. SCC failure.

A common ammo failure that was called “season cracking” is due to stress corrosion cracking.

That phenomenon is associated with a stress and a (ionic) corrosion attack.

The stress is due to the elastic stress of the stretch over the bullet, but can also be residual stored stress in poorly made brass, but this form of SCC still requires an ion to unzip the crystal lattice. When things like ammonia vapor are present, we have the magic combination.

In the old days of Cavalry Warfare, it wasn’t rare to have the animals and the ammo stored too close together and have a failure caused by vapors from urine attack the ammo resulting in splits. That was named season cracking because of a notion that during the monsoon seasons when ammo and animals were sheltered in common, they saw these failures.

In any case, we can stop guessing about “age hardening”, “quenching”, and other details that might apply to steel… but have nothing to do with alpha phase cartridge brass.

I have seen split necks when I started reloading
I was using bras-so to polish cases. I had some split necks.
Of corse the ammonia was hard on brass. Yes I stoped using  it