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Kayser · April 9, 2005, 11:27 PM

I finally got around to examining my first set of 50 reloaded rounds, post firing. As I was running them through the resizer, I noticed one round that I picked up had some pretty good scorching on it. Upon further examination I found that it had a hugely enlarged flash hole. Shown here next to a normal round for comparison

Only one round was like this, but I did some more inspection of the remaining rounds and found a bunch that had what looked to be "cupping" on the inside of the flash hole. Sticking a pencil in there, I could definitely feel that these little "craters" seemed to be metal. As if the primer had caused some of the brass in the hole to melt upwards a bit.

Now, this can't be good. Thing is, none of these rounds felt odd at all when firing. The load itself (5.4 gr Unique) felt quite light compared to standard WWB. I'm using WLP primers as specified in the Hornady manual.

What the heck is going on here? Is that huge flash hole just a fluke (keep in mind, this was the first reload on those rounds)? What about the other slightly cupped ones?

April 9, 2005, 11:27 PM	#1
Kayser Senior Member Join Date: May 29, 2002 Location: Illinois :( Posts: 550	Yikes! Huge flash hole after reloading! I finally got around to examining my first set of 50 reloaded rounds, post firing. As I was running them through the resizer, I noticed one round that I picked up had some pretty good scorching on it. Upon further examination I found that it had a hugely enlarged flash hole. Shown here next to a normal round for comparison Only one round was like this, but I did some more inspection of the remaining rounds and found a bunch that had what looked to be "cupping" on the inside of the flash hole. Sticking a pencil in there, I could definitely feel that these little "craters" seemed to be metal. As if the primer had caused some of the brass in the hole to melt upwards a bit. Now, this can't be good. Thing is, none of these rounds felt odd at all when firing. The load itself (5.4 gr Unique) felt quite light compared to standard WWB. I'm using WLP primers as specified in the Hornady manual. What the heck is going on here? Is that huge flash hole just a fluke (keep in mind, this was the first reload on those rounds)? What about the other slightly cupped ones?