Dented Brass

[roy reali]

I was out shooting the other day and found some brass. I found about one hundred pieces of .223 cases, mostly Remington and Federal. They looked once fired, but most of them had a strange dent in them.

It is a small dent located right below the shoulder. All the cases with this dent have it in the same location and they look alike. It is a shallow mark and looks as though it was caused by something striking the case.

I'll try to post a photo ASAP.

Any ideas?

Are these cases safe to reload?

[jmorris]

It happens as they bang against something while ejecting. Load them up and shoot them out of something that throws them free without hitting anything and it will be like the dent was never there.

[Rifleman1776]

Go ahead, clean, inspect for splits. If OK, load and shoot the dents will pop out.

[reloader28]

My mini 14 dents cases. The thing throws the cases so far (30-35yds) that unless I shooting somewhere pretty open, I cant find the cases anyway. Load them up. Unless they are severely dented, they shoot fine and form to the chamber again.

[KMO]

My mini 14 dents cases. The thing throws the cases so far (30-35yds) that unless I shooting somewhere pretty open, I cant find the cases anyway.

My Mini-14 was doing the same thing...the dented brass ending up in the next county and the underside of my scope getting dinged up. I swapped out the factory gas port bushing with a bushing with a reduced size orifice, down to .041" diameter. That took care of it...no more dents & dings...brass about 8 feet away. It's an easy fix...

[RGR3/75]

i've concluded that the dent comes from the bolt assembly nicking the brass as it's chambering the next round. we just put the brass we don't shoot back on stripper clips and reload them the next day. i haven't had any problems with them. sometimes they come this way out of the box. it could just be a manufacturing error though

[Smokey Joe]

Roy Reali--My SKS dents up cases like no other firearm I've ever seen! Every single case it ejects has a dent in the body.

When I reload these, I re-use every case that (1) doesn't have a crease at the bottom of the dent, and (2) has no damage to the case shoulder, on which the 7.62x39 case headspaces.

Done hundreds using the above guide. No problems. As the above posters have said, the dents get smoothed against the chamber wall when the reloaded case is fired.

It's no different from fire-forming cases, which wildcatters have been doing, I guess, as long as there have been brass centerfire cases to wildcat. (For example, firing regular .35 Whelen cases in a .35 Whelen AI chamber--the case gets re-formed to the slightly larger chamber.) The wildcatters have no problem with doing this.

[ronl]

Must have been fired from an H&K. A Daewoo K-2 will beat up brass pretty badly too. Still, the cases are fine to reload.

[DiscoRacing]

Yes you can safely reload them... less you want to send them to me and Ill reload them

[rude robert]

Ar 15 will dent them too

[DANNY-L]

My mini 14 did the same thing until I did modifications, I reloaded the dented cases and fired them ,the dents were gone completely.

[Xfire68]

My Walther .380 beats the crud out of my hard to find brass and even though I think it will shorten the life a bit it's still good enough to reload and shoot.

Just be sure to check for cracks as I am sure we all try to do!

[cheezhed]

Could have been fired from a AK in that chambering,my son has a saiga in that caliber and the cases hit the sheetmetal cover and dents the daylights out of them.