[olddav]

I found a bunch of LC brass that my dad stored years ago, and not wanting to waste it I decided to use it for my M1. After a fair amount of research I chose my powder (H 4895) and decided to use Winchester Large Rifle primers. Loaded up 8 round with 47.5 grains of powder capped them with 150 grain FMJ BT I had laying around. Yesterday I was finally able to get the range. I brought some military rounds with me so I would have a freash reference of how my reloads should sound and feel.
Shot the military rounds first then loaded my reloads, pulled the trigger. Everything seemed fine so I pulled the trigger again, and again. I shot five more rounds and thats when things got a little more interesting. The last round had a strange sound to it, I felt a fair amount of blowback in my face and Smoke was coming out of the closed bolt. Upon inspection I discovered that the eighth round did not chamber and the spent casing ejected. Cleared the rifle and started searching for brass. Of the seven round I reloaded two casings ruptured. One had a crack midway up the side and the other cracked at the base.
What caused this, my assumption is wore out and/or abused brass. This stuff had been stored in an open garage in open buckets for years upon years. I have no idea how many times it had been reloaded before I decided to give it a try. Maybe I'm drawing the wrong conclusion but I will not use any brass that I donot know the history of, at least not in my M1.