40 cal brass question.

Muddydogs · Feb 23, 2019

So here's something I haven't seen in the past. While resizing 40 brass mixed head stamp I have ran across 12 in 3000 cases that are huge all the way up the case. I know a couple cases are CBC brass.

Unsized normal brass.

Big brass.

Bulge is all the way around the case and a lot further up then the dreaded Glock bulge isn't it.

I started it into the sizer die a little before realizing there was a problem.

Here are a couple that weren't as bulged and made it further into the sizer.

So what causes this?

forty_caliber · Feb 23, 2019

Over-size chamber?
.40

eam3clm@att.net · Feb 23, 2019

Were these fired by you, or where they purchased as fired brass. Curious on the gun that fired them.

rg1 · Feb 23, 2019

No clue. Possibly fired in a 45 ACP?

Muddydogs · Feb 23, 2019

Not fired by me, either range pickups or in some purchased brass. Actually by the look of the case I would say they were from a couple thousand pieces I purchased that had been deprimed and tumble cleaned. I ended up mixing some range brass, my brass and the deprimed brass together so I decided to just size and deprime it all before loading. So far I have found about 12 oversized pieces in the lot but I still have another 1500 cases to process.

Muddydogs · Feb 23, 2019

rg1 said:
No clue. Possibly fired in a 45 ACP?

This could be, there big enough to have been.

Walkalong · Feb 24, 2019

.40 tends to do this in a .45 chamber. Same thing 9MM does in a fourty chamber.

ReloaderFred · Feb 24, 2019

A shot in the dark, but perhaps someone tried to shoot them through a .41 AE pistol. There are lots of them out there, but no ammunition......

1KPerDay · Feb 24, 2019

Weird.

SameOle · Feb 24, 2019

I have seen this, case was fired in a 45acp.

Muddydogs · Feb 24, 2019

I ended up finding about 15 in 4000 pieces of brass but I got them sorted out and tossed in the bucket.

schmooey1617 · Feb 24, 2019

Muddydogs said:
So here's something I haven't seen in the past. While resizing 40 brass mixed head stamp I have ran across 12 in 3000 cases that are huge all the way up the case. I know a couple cases are CBC brass.

Unsized normal brass.
View attachment 828025

Big brass.
View attachment 828026

Bulge is all the way around the case and a lot further up then the dreaded Glock bulge isn't it.
View attachment 828027

I started it into the sizer die a little before realizing there was a problem.
View attachment 828028

Here are a couple that weren't as bulged and made it further into the sizer.
View attachment 828029

So what causes this?

Wow, assuming this is range/purchased, once fired brass? I've also run into this, with 9mm, 40S&W, and 45acp brass.
There's individuals out there with guns that have some REAL bad problems.

bbqreloader · Feb 24, 2019

never seen anything like that and i load thousands of them.

schmooey1617 · Feb 24, 2019

ReloaderFred said:
A shot in the dark, but perhaps someone tried to shoot them through a .41 AE pistol. There are lots of them out there, but no ammunition......

Huh, didn't think of that, pretty rare caliber but you may have hit the nail on the head. That sure does look like more than a sloppy chamber. Good thinkin bud.

schmooey1617 · Feb 24, 2019

Walkalong said:
.40 tends to do this in a .45 chamber. Same thing 9MM does in a fourty chamber.

Nothin to say there but WOW !!

Kp321 · Feb 24, 2019

I would think the cases were fired in a High Point. They are famous for generous chambers.

Walkalong · Feb 25, 2019

I am liking ReloaderFred's idea.

The case would look different if fired in a .45 ACP chamber. Seen plenty of those at the range, 9MM in .40 as well.

LiveLife · Feb 25, 2019

Muddydogs said:
I ended up finding about 15 in 4000 pieces of brass but I got them sorted out and tossed in the bucket.

15 out of 4000 is not bad and very good idea to toss them (metal recycling for me, even spent primers which are brass also) as I would consider them overly expanded with thinned case wall.

Muddydogs · Feb 25, 2019

Even if a guy wanted to shoot them they would have to go through a bulge buster die as the sizing die leaves a nice ring around the bottom of the case. I'm sure they would fair sooner then latter and its just not worth it when 40 brass is easy to get.

Now I'm dealing with the Glock bulge in some other cases. Ended up setting up my Lee FCD and the bullet pusher stem from a Lee .401 bullet sizing die to make a bulge buster die. I've hit about 100 pieces of bulged brass in 1500 cases. Got a few 1000 more to go.

schmooey1617 · Feb 25, 2019

Muddydogs said:
Even if a guy wanted to shoot them they would have to go through a bulge buster die as the sizing die leaves a nice ring around the bottom of the case. I'm sure they would fair sooner then latter and its just not worth it when 40 brass is easy to get.

Now I'm dealing with the Glock bulge in some other cases. Ended up setting up my Lee FCD and the bullet pusher stem from a Lee .401 bullet sizing die to make a bulge buster die. I've hit about 100 pieces of bulged brass in 1500 cases. Got a few 1000 more to go.

Would highly agree, if it's only a small handful out of 1000, I don't think I'd even bother with them. I also agree, a likely fail is imminent. Maybe not on the first reloading but most likely 2nd or 3rd.
I DO understand your curiosity about the origins of a case being bulges like that though, I'd really like opinions of the possible origin myself. Kinda surprised they didn't split looking at the huge bulging of them. Wow.

LiveLife · Feb 25, 2019

schmooey1617 said:
Kinda surprised they didn't split looking at the huge bulging of them.

That's the beauty of brass.

I too am amazed at the ability for brass to expand tightly against the barrel chamber to seal the high pressure gas but quickly "spring back" from the chamber wall to be easily extracted only to be resized yet provide malleability to hold the bullet tight and to repeat the cycle over and over.

40 cal brass question.

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