what say you?

[lightflight]

270WSM brass. fired and out of the tumbler. notice anything

 

[cwinner]

How many times fired? Looks like a case head separation in your not to distant future....if its once fired looks like a chamber issue.

 

[bigngreen]

It's not uncommon to see but you should make sure it's not from to much head space and you've stretched the poop out of it. Could be plumb fine though!

 

[lightflight]

Federal brass 3rd firing

 

[MudRunner2005]

I'm having the same thing happen in my Federal brass for my 7mmSTW, in about the same place about the 3rd-4th firing.

Either we both have improper headspacing, or bad batches of brass.

 

[lightflight]

I'm leaning towards the brass at this point. I haven't had this problem with any other brass or load.

I am developing a new load with berger 150vlds and thought it was a sign of too much pressure?

Think I'm scrapping the load anyway since the barrels throat is on the short side.

 

[woods]

Could be nothing wrong except the interior dimensions of your die is not small enough to size the case where it is not solid

My 30-06 does it, on some brass more than others

A larger chamber from a new reamer can also be part of the reason

 

[cwinner]

Are you neck or full length sizing? Excessive headspace will cause case stretching for sure, one way to check is to bend a short l into a piece of wire and drag it inside the case against the wall and feel for a change in wall thickness or bite the bullet and split a piece with a hacksaw, if there is no change then don't worry and shoot them till they split.

Is it a raised ridge(doesn't look like it) if it is it could be from an indentation in the chamber left by sloppy cutting.

 

[cwinner]

Could be nothing wrong except the interior dimensions of your die is not small enough to size the case where it is not solid

My 30-06 does it, on some brass more than others

A larger chamber from a new reamer can also be part of the reason

Nice pic, what I was talking about....we were replying at the same time

 

[lightflight]

Are you neck or full length sizing? Excessive headspace will cause case stretching for sure, one way to check is to bend a short l into a piece of wire and drag it inside the case against the wall and feel for a change in wall thickness or bite the bullet and split a piece with a hacksaw, if there is no change then don't worry and shoot them till they split.

Is it a raised ridge(doesn't look like it) if it is it could be from an indentation in the chamber left by sloppy cutting.

Its a factory barrel and this hasn't been a problem with any other loads of mine or factory loads. Could head space still be an issue?

Its just raised up enough to feel with a fingernail.

I will also gut a case just to see. Thanks for the pics woods.

 

[bigngreen]

To check your head space just put tape on the back of a sized case, each piece is .002 put it on till your bolt won't close and it will give you an idea.

Honestly I think you've just gotten the brass filled out to the chamber, if you look at the reamer specs on that case you'll see that you have a few thou of room, the case body blows out while the case head may move a thou or less, when you size it back down the die sizes the body but does not touch the case head area. That is the issue some run into with belted cases is you can's size that little bit down without special dies because the belt screws ya.
The WSM tends to be more pronounced than a lot of cases because the case head is heavy duty but the body needs FL sized regularly if not every firing.

One firing from head separation will have a dark line and it will have about a .010 thinning in that area don't ask how I know!!

 

[Greyfox]

I have had this happen with a few of my rifles over the years in various calibers including my 270WSM. I had it happen with 270WSM Winchester brass that was nickel plated, but it didn 't occur with unplated Winchester brass cases. I also had one lot of Lapua brass do this in my 308, when I used a different lot it didn't occur. I wrote it off as poor QC of the hardness or thickness, but I'm not positive. Headspace measurements with new, fired, and FL sized seemed OK. In every case, brass with that ring eventually cracked or separated right where that line is.

 

[MudRunner2005]

Mine stretched until they did this one day at the range....

 

[Joe King]

Just don't resize the case body anymore than you have to to get easy chambering.

I didn't see if you mentioned what type of dies you use, if your using full length dies back em off till you feel resistance to closing your bolt then turn your dies in till that resistance just goes away. At that point you will be working your case as little as possible, and minimize case stretch. My self I use a neck die and a Redding body set to size my case just enough to feel the case when I close the bolt but not enough for the bolt to {fall closed} or have it feel like I'm using effort to close the bolt. The point to that for me is to work my case as little as possible, and maximize case life.