Close call

[stagpanther]

Was out helping a hunting friend get ready for the upcoming season--he was doing the Corelokt through his 270 win remmie BDL and was getting wide dispersion on his impacts trying to zero his redfield scope. He invited me to take a few shots to help him out--which of course I gladly accepted. I took several shots and helped him figure out out the zero--then told him to take the next shots to be sure it worked for him. Bang--spot on in the bullseye. As he was getting set to take another shot he asked me if there was something unusual about the brass on the cartridge--I took a look at it and the otherwise shiny new brass had multiple corrosion spots and discoloring in the case head where I'm certain the brass had been compromised from within. The ammo box and cartridges looked new, in fact I was pocketing his spent brass to perhaps re-use. I tossed the brass when I got home.

[akinswi]

Did you tear one down and check the powder? A Case can get discoloration from outside and be just fine

[stagpanther]

Did you tear one down and check the powder? A Case can get discoloration from outside and be just fine

It was the last cartridge in the box; the case head was uniformly tarnished a brown color around the case head and the corrosion spots looked like they had gone through the case and there was a bit of greenish deposits at the edge of the corrosion spots. I told him to keep the cartridge and get in touch with remmie.

[44 AMP]

Any idea how OLD the ammo was? What conditions it was stored in?

The maker is not, and cannot be responsible for things beyond their control.

[Unclenick]

...And I'll add that a lot of surplus ammo I had that went bad typically started with just one cartridge in the box going first. That's because of the random nature of the initiation of deterioration, though it would eventually happen to them all.

One other point: I fired a number of rounds of that deteriorating ammo in a gun with a chrome-moly barrel, and after sitting for a month, I discovered it had a fine layer of rust throughout the bore. The nitric acid from the powder deterioration had caused that, even though the primers were non-corrosive. You may want to advise your friend to do a repeat bore cleaning to check the patches for signs of rust and just to be sure.

[stagpanther]

You may want to advise your friend to do a repeat bore cleaning to check the patches for signs of rust and just to be sure.

Sage advice--will do.

It's true remmie cannot be held accountable for how the ammo was stored--it's just this one cartridge really stood out as all the others I saw looked shiny new. I'm pretty certain the case would have failed had he fired it.

[Unclenick]

You can pull the bullet and dump the powder. See if it looks oily or clumped together or smells acrid, or has red dust that falls out with it. If it is clumped to the point of sticking inside, there's no doubt it used up its stabilizer and started to break down. If you get the powder out easily and it smells good, then the corrosion is likely exterior. I've seen that happen to a single case when someone with high salt perspiration picked it up and put it back, but you usually see fingerprints corroded into it when that is the issue. Assuming you didn't find that, with the powder out, you can either look inside with a borescope or you can fire the primer and then section the case for a look-see. To section, I usually just bore a hole that's a close fit into a 2×4 scrap. Then I use hot melt glue (because it peels off easily) to glue the outside of the case into the hole and then cut the wood and glue and case in half altogether on the bandsaw. When you part the halves. Then you can see what's inside, for sure.

[stagpanther]

I'll see if I can track him down--he's leaving for a hunt imminently, otherwise I'll have to wait till he gets back. I guess I should have taken it, I thought about it.