Case failure, what causes this??

[Aszerigan]

?

Using .223WSSM in a .243WSSM. That was a dumb mistake - thumbs down to him.... not you.

 

[HuntMeister]

I have no fired & unsized brass from this rifle but tomorrow I think I may be getting together with Dad to try some development loads for it and I will get a measurement. At this point I am inclined to think it was some bad brass considering it never has done this before. Like I said, it has +200 rounds thru it and some of them were pretty stout charges we did for some Antelope hunting. I will report my findings...

 

[chipdog4]

Chipdog:
Winchester replaced a bag of 100 22-250 brass for me. They were splitting the necks on every case I shot. Two different powders, broke down the loads and weighed the charges to assure they were correct. The only problem was having to break down the cases and ship them back. They were nice enough to give a me a $10 coupon to offset some of the frustration. Not bought Win. Brasse since.

Wow, they definitely should have replaced those for you.
The ones I had splits on were factory loaded ammo that still shot great and were cheap enough, that I'm not concerned about contacting them.

I did have another neck split on 308, but that piece had fold of brass that went back in the mouth of the case.

 

[Boiled Owl]

I didn't think the $10 coupon was much of a consolation for the PIA endured.
However, the replacement Winchester brass is good (loaded and fired a couple of times w/o any splits). I honestly don't think its an across the board problem, just an occasional QC problem.

 

[HuntMeister]

OK, I was able to find one fired & unsized cartridge case, here are a couple of dimensions plus a shot of Hornady's dimensions. Do I need to post anymore dimensions? Do these dimensions indicate oversized chamber issues or just brittle brass?

 

[45pro]

OK, I was able to find one fired & unsized cartridge case, here are a couple of dimensions plus a shot of Hornady's dimensions. Do I need to post anymore dimensions? Do these dimensions indicate oversized chamber issues or just brittle brass?

From what you posted it looks to me like the neck on the casing is just too small. Thus expanding during firing because of the excess slop in the chamber...Maybe someone with real knowledge will chime in and confirm of deny my thinking...

EDIT: Maybe its just the way the camera angle is but in the second picture it doesn't look like your mic'ing it correctly....

 

[HuntMeister]

45pro, it is the camera angle, I saw that too and re-checked that dimension to be sure.

 

[HuntMeister]

BTT for your thoughts.

 

[Yeah]

Your chamber is fine, the problem is with the brass.

A .286" necked chamber is right there in the normal range for a 243 whatever. Splits like you were seeing would have to come from a neck that was far oversize, or some problems in the shoulder. Your fired shoulder and taper both look normal.

 

[HuntMeister]

Your chamber is fine, the problem is with the brass.

A .286" necked chamber is right there in the normal range for a 243 whatever. Splits like you were seeing would have to come from a neck that was far oversize, or some problems in the shoulder. Your fired shoulder and taper both look normal.

Thank you for the reply!

 

[billybob44]

Same with me Owl..

Chipdog:
Winchester replaced a bag of 100 22-250 brass for me. They were splitting the necks on every case I shot. Two different powders, broke down the loads and weighed the charges to assure they were correct. The only problem was having to break down the cases and ship them back. They were nice enough to give a me a $10 coupon to offset some of the frustration. Not bought Win. Brasse since.

I had the same happen with Winchester .44 Magnum new brass. Loaded 100-shot 20-25 with splits. Inspected new loads+found 30-35 more splits-dis-assembled the new loads-sent to Win.+they sent me 4-50count bags of new brass. It took them awhile(6-8months), but they did send me twice the amount that I bought.Bill.

 

[billybob44]

Using .223WSSM in a .243WSSM. That was a dumb mistake - thumbs down to him.... not you.

Andrew, you probably would say the same thing about putting those YELLOW shotgun shells in a 12ga. chamber!! Bill..

 

[fireball168]

My business is largely based on WSSM cartridges.

The last batch of 25 WSSM brass I ordered to form into 30 OSSM/358 BFG-WSSM, I scrapped 8% of on a visual inspection right out of the bag.

Another 1% was scrapped on inspection after the annealing process.

Here are some of the more entertaining pieces, right out of the bag.

I'm waiting until I've got 500 to send back them this time, perhaps I haven't been bold enough in illustrating the lack of QC thus far.

The ones that look "questionable" will show the failure the OP has shown, usually on the 2nd-4th firing in a loosey goosey SAAMI chamber(exacerbates the brass concern).

 

[03A3]

That's pitiful. Don't they even look at this stuff before they ship it out? They can't be.

 

[Yeah]

Insane pictures.

You'd think as long as the WSSMs have been on the market they'd have figured out the forming process, but a 9% cull rate says they haven't.