De-milled Brass Sanity Check

[Tired Retired]

Need some opinions on reloading safety...

First, I have been reloading for 25 years, mostly straight-walled pistol and carbine. I do only batch reloading (vice progressive) for safety over production numbers. Over the years I have re-used brass from my own commerial cartridges, from once fired military, from range, gifts and gunshow purchases. However, I have come across something new to me...

I recently ordered a bunch of demilled .30 carbine brass. The brass is from a lot of Lake City 44. Its non-fired (as evidenced by the clean primer pockets). I tumbled it, sized it, de-lubed it and did an initial inspection of it to get rid of the bent lips, bulged cases and the like. However when I started to bell the case mouths, I had 11 of the 1st 500 I was processing split down the middle of the case. The splits are straight down the case sides from the top to the half-way mark. I did not detect any visible defects in these cases during my initial visible inspection. It looks like the cases were brittle.

Now, I realize that these cases are 64 years old. I have other WWII surplus brass that I have cycled through multiple reloads and I have never seen any of it split like this.

My question is this - with a 2.2% failure rate from being brittle, do I assume that this entire lot is brittle and possibly damaging to a War Baby?

Has anyone else experienced this?

Information

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[Matt Anthony]

I would toss the entire lot, it's not worth having a case rupture while shooting. Also, this is a good lesson for others, watch dates on military cases and be forewarned that older brass age hardens. Corrosive military ammo before 1952 can also cause an enormous amount of headaches unless you know what to do after firing it. Better to demill and reprime which is alot easier than cleaning the salts from your rifle!

[William T. Watts]

I agree with Matt, I wouldn't take a chance on this lot of brass. The fact that your uncomfortable with the splits is enough reason to toss them, It's a given there will be more cases to fail! William

[musketshooter]

The cracks you described are a result of deteriorated power in the cases weakening the structure fo the brass. You can't detect the problem unless the cases are put under stress. I expect that the reason these were pulled down was the powder and perhaps the primers were deterioriated beyond salvage. Scrap brass brings about 65 cents a pound.

[MEHavey]

I guess I don't understand that, since the split as described is from the case mouth to halfway down the side (effectively the area sealed by the seated bullet).

[Tired Retired]

All of those are good points and I have not wasted any valuable primers in these cases yet. Matt, this was .30 Carb so that it was never corrosive, but I do understand your point. Plus I have used alot of WWII surplus in the past and never had this problem reloading those cases that I fired.

MEH, you are right in that the split was from the top down about half the length of the case - the bullet area. The split was a straight line and was caused when I belled the cases. I did think of the area possibly being stressed by the previous bullet, but there was absolutely no resistance to cracking once I pushed down on the press handle and the casing engaged the bell on the die.

I have one option in that I may load up about 25 rounds of it and the put it through an old Universal carbine I have in the back of the safe.

Next Question - I know very little about the de-milling process... is there any chemicals or other steps in the de-mill that may damage the cases?

[MEHavey]

Dare I bring up annealing...?

[Swede]

Dare I bring up annealing...?

I was thinking the same thing. I would try it before throwing it all away.

[Tired Retired]

I went back on re-inspected the split cases closer. The metal has a "grainy" appearance. The majority of the others seem more smooth and "normal". I am going to load up about 25 rds and shhoot it out of an old Universal I have stuck in the back of the safe. I will the look at any treads in numbers on the spent cases. At worse, I may do a little extra wear on the Universal. At best, if I can salvage 500 out of the 1000 cases I will have 500 more for reloading than I had last month.