Proof that not even factory ammo is perfect.

[amathis]

I found this today as I was sorting brass. Once fired Remington 223 brass.





Just another reason I trust my reloads over factory. Quality control apparently missed this one.

[tobnpr]

Factory ammo is far from perfect...
I had a conversation one afternoon with the owner a reloading supply firm that knows the commercial ammo business inside and out.

Real eye opener. Huge variations is powder from different manufacturers (for the same ammo), as well as charges. Unusual to see that in rifle brass, though I have had some pretty crappy 9mm loads with half the case mouth missing.

That's why I handload...

[Vance]

A co worker had bought some remington 357 mag ammo from a local gun shop. When he got home, he opened it up and found one round was loaded in a cracked case. He contacted remington and they wanted the upc code from the box and the defective round. They sent him a pre-paid shipping label for fed ex. He sent them the round and the upc code. Two weeks later he received a full box of 50 rounds from remington to replace the one defective round.

[jepp2]

The only squib I have ever encountered was with a factory loaded 22 Rem Jet. No powder, and the primer lodged the bullet about 1/2" into the barrel.

[Double Naught Spy]

Just another reason I trust my reloads over factory. Quality control apparently missed this one.

How do you know that is once fired brass?

[ClayInTx]

I've had sqibbs with WWB.

[MrDontPlay]

I had some inconsistent Winchester 500 s&w ammo. Even the guy on the next lane heard the difference. One round kicked noticeably harder than the others, which kicked hard enough.

[ripnbst]

I have had many round of WWB that didn't seem the same round to round. As long as the variation isn't too great I don't worry that much. If I was buying "match grade" ammo and that was occurring, yeah, I'd be pretty displeased.

The case in the OP looks pretty bad, was this from a box of surplus military ammo? Can you elaborate more on what kind of ammo this was?

[kraigwy]

I was looking for some factory non +P LSWC 38s. All I could find was some Remington ammo. About 1/3 took two or more hammer hits to get them to go off.

Back in the 70s then DCM furnished ammo for EIC (Leg) matches. For '06 they sent some LC ball ammo.

We had problems from the get go, upon investigation, we found Lake City forgot to put flash holes in the brass. Luckily I was running a sniper school at the time using M1C/Ds and was able to provide the ammo for the match.

[jinxer3006]

I was shooting some factory Winchester .45 Colts in my .454 one day. One round didn't go off. I ran it through again. Still just a click. I took it home and pulled the bullet. Plenty of powder. I grabbed the universal decapper and pushed the "primer" out. Just a cup--no compound or anvil.

[armoredman]

Years ago I had a WinClean 40SW case fragment on ejection, causing some minor damage to my glasses, and spiking the blood pressure.
I contacted Winchester, who sent a call tag for the remainder of the box.
They fired off my remaining rounds, sent me an e-mail saying they found nothing wrong with the ammo, and that was that, not even compensated for the ammo I paid for that they fired.

[tom234]

I've reloaded thousands of rounds and the only .40 S&W Kaboom I had was with Federal factory carry ammo.

[TheGoldenState]

That could have been a fine round turned bad by the user (assuming brass was picked and not yours).

Chambering into the wrong gun and firing often looks like this.

The splitting down the side and semi-bulging is what happened when I shot .40 out of my .45 (yes, it works, if you don't think so, stop and search for thread).

[amathis]

My gut tells me this was bad from the factory. No bulging, no issues other than the split. As I look at the split it appears the brass is folded over not really split. It would appear that there was an issue when they were extruding the brass.

One of these days I'll get around to posting pics of the wrongly chambered brass I have. I have a 40 in a 45. A 380 in a 9mm, and many others.

[Double Naught Spy]

Okay, so you don't know if it is once fired brass or not. You just made up that tidbit from a gut feel.

In other words, you haven't a clue as to the history of the cartridge case but used it as the foundation of your argument against factory ammo.

You don't have proof. You have opinion. Nothing more.

[Mike Irwin]

That probably didn't show up until the case was fired and the brass split from an included flaw or stress point, so QC likely never would have caught it even had they been inspecting cases individually.

Given the shape of the split, it was likely an included flaw in the brass when it was made at the foundry.

I've had that happen with cases before. I call them burn throughs.

[hk33ka1]

A member on another forum complained of new Winchester USA 115gr FMJ 9mm that had different headstamp and different overall lengths. The headstamps unkown to him were due to WCC and Winchester extras being packed together. The lengths since he was not a reloader were not sorted out as he did not pull any to check weight 115gr vs 147gr etc. He got an exchange from the shop and they were going to contact Winchester.

[amathis]

LOL I guess I should have clarified more in my post. I am 99% sure this was bad from the factory. I was sorting through some RP brass that I had personally fired FROM the factory in order to test the velocities. Granted it may have been mixed in with other brass that I have acquired over the years.

Whatever it is, I in no way attempted to slander or destroy any company. My attempt was to merely point out that we as reloaders have better quality control than factory ammo and that when we sort out brass we catch things like this. If that was taken the wrong way I apologize.

As I pointed out odds are it was an issue in the extruding process. Mike Irwin hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that it happens. They aren't going to catch every issue, but we as reloaders, reloading our own brass can catch things like that,

[Mike Irwin]

"Mike Erwin"

Who's that?


I don't recall ever having a Winchester case do that on me, but I have had quite a few Remington handgun cases do it on firing factory ammo.

Burn through can happen on the first firing, or on the 20th. It just depends on what kind of flaw or stress is locked into the brass.

The cartridge forming process is normally called deep cup drawing from blanks that are punched from sheet brass. I'm not sure that extruding is really the same thing.

[F. Guffey]

It is assumed this case is a Remington (R-P) 223 Remington case??? I do not know, I have had cases that looked like they had splits down? the side, some I paid $4.70 dollars for a bandolier of 70 rounds on stripper clips. And I wondered, so I pulled the bullets and found powder that had caked to the side of ‘some’ a ‘few’ of the case, then I wondered it the caked powder had the effect of a shaped charge. Then I formed 400 30/06 cases to 8mm57 in an effort to get away from the corrosive primers then used the powder and bullets from the Turkish pull down ammo, reduce the powder charge 4 grains and die not have a reoccurrence of the split cases.

Then I wondered, the Turkish ammo ran across the chronograph at 2,900+ fps, then I wondered about the powder, just how fast did this stuff burn and again I wondered about the case, the cases were manufactured after 38 and before 41, and I wondered about how fast the case could expand ‘AND’ how far the case was capable of expanding/stretching, then I wondered how small in diameter was the case and how large the chamber was in diameter, stretching to fill the chamber was not a problem for my formed cases, then I wondered about the annealing, the Turks could have made a few short cuts, the Berdan primed cases could have been one annealing process of short of being ready to fire.

Anyhow, I have an 30cal ammo full of Turkish pulled down cases complete with Berdan primers, they look good, inside and out, I have no interests in determining the part the cases played in the failures, formed 8mm57 cases from 30/06 cases eliminated the problem. Except for cases formed from old ragged out 30/06 cases, the old ragged out cases can not expand fast enough to fill the chamber before splitting.....the necks.

F. Guffey

[arch308]

Anybody who expects perfection in anything human or mechanical is in for a rude awakening. Simply put absolute perfection is unattainable IMO. The human element can't be eliminated and "to err is human....".

[William T. Watts]

Totally agree with Amathis, just finished sorting 2K 22/250 cases with 6 cases with similar folds on the neck and the shoulder. Kinda hard to think ammunition manufactures let something like that out the door, even harder the shooter wouldn't notice as he/she loaded their firearm!! I just pulled my cases out of the recycling container and had to revise my original post, not as bad as I thought but plenty bad enough to recycle. I guess this is a prime example why you inspect cases?? William

[oldguitars]

I'm going to throw this out there and see what you guys think. I know it's an old thread but thought I'd try. I've had just ok
luck with Remington 30-06 Core-Lokt ammo in my 1903 Springfield. It's in great condition, excellent bolt and pin. Have run several boxes of other ammo through it with no problems. Bought some 30-06 Remington from the local Big5 (horrible store). I had 8 failures to fire on the first try, 6 fired on the second and one would never fire. All had excellent pin strikes in the primer. Big5 could not care less and just laughed when I asked to trade out a new box (there were several rounds left unfired, I just gave up, I'm paying for time at the range and would rather be actually firing the rifle....
So I wrote to Remington, they seem like they have a plan for this, we'll see what they do after the weekend. I don't expect an answer from them on Saturday but they did send a response automatically generated, no doubt.
Just wanted to pass this along, very unhappy with Big5 and have learned my lesson. I think I'll try the ball ammo from CMP, seems like it was made for the
1903 anyway. I really should have expected Big5 to not care, they don't need my business anyway and am really looking forward to Remington's reaction and response.
Just needed to vent, seems like a great forum, glad to be here.
BTW, I shot vintage stuff, WW1 and WW2 just about exclusively, have more
fun with the old stuff but get a little twinge in my Visa card when I see some
of the AR's out there...
Best
Bruce

[Mike Irwin]

What you're describing sounds like primers that weren't seated correctly. If they were seated too shallow, the first strike of the firing pin will finish seating them at the bottom of the primer pocket and "arm" them by compressing the anvil against the priming pellet.

The second firing pin strike will then fire the cartridge.

Unfortunately, I've had more problems like this with Remington center fire ammo (rifle and handgun) than any other to the point where I simply don't use it if I can avoid doing so.

[moxie]

Fruitless to spend much time speculating when the provenance of this case is so unclear. To me, the case appears to have been fired in an oversize chamber, or even a .222 Rem or Rem. Mag.