Defect in new factory brass

[Osprey78]

I needed some new brass and none of the local stores have any unprimed, bagged brass. So I bought a box of Winchester 180 gr Power Max Bonded for the 300 Win Mag. I am going to use 200 grain PT's when I reload, but thought these were alright to shoot esp to just shoot them off, have some fun and end up with some brass. I usually prefer the grey box stuff, but this was all they had.

I go to the range and shoot them all. They shot decently for factory brass. I start the cleaning/prepping process tonight and holy crack in the neck Batman! :shock:



I wish I would have paid more attention to the brass at the range to figure out which one it may have been, but figuring that this was brand new brass, right out of the factory box, I didn't think I needed to. This is the first time I have had this happen in 100's of pcs of brass. Anyone else have this happen? I was pretty surprised.

 

[Oldtrader3]

Not good! I have had the same problem with R-P brass also.[

 

[PJGunner]

Quite a few years back now, probably around 1978/88 as I recall I bought 200 rounds of Remington .308 Win. brass and loaded up my pet load for my Remington M660. A few months later I took a box to the range to get the rifle ready for a deer hunt and holes were appearing all over the target. I happened to look at one of shells and the neck was split, similar to the one in the OP's picture but going all the way to the opening of the neck. This was brand new brass, not someone's claimed once fired. I decided to call it a day when inspecting the shells still in the box and about half that was left in the box were split. When I got home I checked out the rest of that batch of ammo and sure enough there were more cracked necks. I pulled the bullets from the cracked brass, salvaged the powder and deprimed the cases. One the brass that hadn't cracked I pulled the bullets, dumped the powder, deprimed the cases and annealed the necks. I reloaded them and they worked just fine until after about 6 or 7 reloads I finally scrapped them.
Methinks they missed a step in the annealing process back at the plant.
Left me a bit leery of Remington brass after that but it hasn't happened since.
Paul B.

 

[gerry]

I have seen it with brand new Hornady cases and also with well used brass of other makes, the later was just the brass being worn out. Had they been annealed they would have lasted longer.

 

[Osprey78]

I think I will anneal the remaining 19 cases from this lot...just to be sure.

 

[hubcap]

I had a 20 ea box of 30:30 do the same thing back in the late 90,s. That was Winchester factory ammo. It happens. Necks all split.

 

[nosler06]

Well a few years back I sent 97 New Winchester cases that I had bought and only reloaded once back to Winchester. Of course they were unable to ship the brass to me, but sent coupons that I was able to with your help of course get new replacement brass. After much research it appeared that they basically had missed the annealing line and headed straight for the boxup and ship out line. No anneal means hard necks and cracks galore.