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Beware of Tarnished Brass...

n/an/a Member Posts: 168,427 ✭
edited March 2011 in Perry Shooter Competition Shooting and Reloading Forum
This may be common knowledge for some of you, but it's a lesson learned for me. I haven't reloaded for 357 in several years and I had quite a bit of old brass. Some of it had some tarnish on it, so I threw it in the tumbler, reloaded it and went out and shot it.

I had one case that cracked all the way around an old tarnished spot. It wasn't a split but a circular crack around the the discolored spot on the case. I really don't know how many times this brass had been reloaded but the tarnish evidently weakened the case. This was a light load too.

Anyone here ever experience the same thing?
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Comments

  • shoff14shoff14 Member Posts: 11,994 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    The oxidation that brass encounters causes the brass to become brittle. This is what you experienced. The surface of the brass does not have the toughness and ductility that it once had causing the failure you seen.

    Similar oxidation takes place on aluminum and copper.
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  • JustjumpJustjump Member Posts: 644 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I've seen this happen faster on brass I have annealed. Mostly on 30-06 i'm pushing out to straight wall. It seems to lose flexability and never will clean up completly.
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