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25 WSSM reload case split; any ideas why?
22hipower
Member Posts: 619 ✭✭✭✭
Winchester 25 WSSM brass; new bulk or possibly fired once. Rifle is Winchester Model 70 Coyote; near new. Load is 120 grain Speer Boat Tail in front of 43 grains of H414 with Winchester large rifle primer. Hodgdon website gives starting load of 42 gains with max of 44.7. Loaded these last fall and sighted the rifle in and the load shoots fine; roughly an inch at 100 yards. Shot it again today and noticed that five of seven rounds had a split in the neck and/or in the shoulder to the neck. Checked several empties fired last year and they were split too. Quite a bit of carbon on the neck and shoulder; other than that the cases look fine. Any thoughts on what would cause this? Thanks in advance.
Comments
The usual reason for split necks on bottleneck cases is hardened brass, either from work hardening or lack of annealing at the factory. I've run into this problem with Winchester in the past with both shotgun shells and cartridge case. They either neglect the annealing step or they leave it out intentionally to save money, who knows?
The first time it happened was with a brand new case of AA Trap shells. The brass was split when I opened some of the boxes or it split on firing and ejection. I called the Winchester rep who stopped by on one of his trips. He took the whole case back to the factory and sent me a new case and a coupon for another free case.
The rifle cartridge case incident didn't go nearly as well since it took place more recently and Winchester has forgotten about customer service. I sent several bags of brass back to the factory with the split cases separated out so they didn't have to sort them. Their contention was that I had 'mishandled' the brass and the fault was mine. So I'm 1 for 2 with Winchester on brass.
I would call customer service and ask if they have any reports and if they don't file a complaint about the quality. Be factual but firm. For the price of brass these days, it darn well ought to be PERFECT!
Best.
It's my guess that the manufacturer has reduced the number of annealings to reduce manufacturing costs.
I would neck anneal any unloaded brass you have in that caliber and would go so far as to unload and pop primers of loaded ammo.
Neck anneal those also.
Given the price of brass these days, I'd look for free replacements.
Years ago, Remington replaced my split 45LC brass with new loaded ammo.
Maybe it's a lot thing!?
I keep hearing the same thing, however; I have 25WSSM brass that has been fired 5 times without annealing.
Maybe it's a lot thing!?
Same here, but I've also had brass go two times and either splits or I know I better anneal it or lose it after the next firing.
FWIW, I've also had brand new brass I've had to chuck because there is a formed split in the case and sometimes case.