Roadkill Brass

[bullseye308]

A friend called to tell me someone had lost a bunch of brass on the road not far from me and I should go check it out. Knowing the brass hound I am he thought of me. Apparently someone was transporting a 55 gallon drum of brass and it spilled going down an off ramp. When I got there it had been swept to the shoulder and lots had been run over, but plenty was still good.

I did find some stuff I have never seen in my 30+ years of reloading and some of it leads me to think it was a gun manufacturer or possibly a commercial reloader with some setup issues occasionally. What I found was mostly 223 with 9, 38, 40, and 45 next in qty in that order. Also a few 224 valk, 308, 380, 9mm mak, 44 spl, 38-40, 6spc, 6creed, and 5.7 but only 6-10 of each except 380. I got about a 5 gallon bucket full total and couldn’t physically pick up any more and after sorting about 40% is usable.

Some of the weird stuff I found was 38 cases with depriming holes through the side of the case, 223 crunched down to 9mm length, 2 9mm cases crunched together on top of each other, but what has me the most worried is a bunch of 223 with the primers seated so deeply that I don’t know how they fired and I’m not able to deprime them. Anyway here are a few pick to better explain this.


223 deep seated primers appears to be crimped after seating. ?

9mm deep seated primers

223 very deep seated primer

223 smashed.

2 9mm cases

9mm deep seated primer

223 very deeply seated primers

223 no idea what happened

223 pregnant?

 

[Nature Boy]

You have quite a mystery there.

 

[JFrank]

Some one didn't want those to get re loaded

 

[bluejay75]

Looks like rejects from a brass processing place. Seen some like that in batches I got back from a processor. Looks like brass was swaged without the primer being punched out. A person would catch it. A machine or automated system would not.

 

[Rule3]

But by all means, save all the LC brass as that was the best year ever!

 

[Varminterror]

Dollars to doughnuts, those are “screw ups” from a brass processor.

The deep seated primers were swaged without decapping. I will say with direct experience - this will happen when you have an ammobot set up on a Dillon with a decap and swage process, but you walk away to do ANYTHING ELSE FOR ANY AMOUNT OF TIME and then your decapping pin breaks while your back is turned. When I had multiple machines going, I would put multiple decapping dies into one cycle, universal decap first, then size and decap, and then have a decapping die ahead of the first swage in the SECOND machine. Just to be sure that wouldn’t happen.

My guess on the pregnant brass and the one above it, as well as the smashed cases, they had a pistol tool head in place and expanded the hell out of the case, then on the pregnant case, they tried to recover the one by forcing it back into a sizer, betting the case said “no” firmly when they got it down that far.

So you found a bunch of process error culls from a brass processor.

 

[bullseye308]

Looks like rejects from a brass processing place. Seen some like that in batches I got back from a processor. Looks like brass was swaged without the primer being punched out. A person would catch it. A machine or automated system would not.

That makes sense, I wasn’t aware of the amount of force they had. But dang, it must be a lot.

 

[bullseye308]

But by all means, save all the LC brass as that was the best year ever!

I save every piece of brass that is reusable, and I sort out the LC223 for my bolt in batches by year.

 

[bullseye308]

Dollars to doughnuts, those are “screw ups” from a brass processor.

The deep seated primers were swaged without decapping. I will say with direct experience - this will happen when you have an ammobot set up on a Dillon with a decap and swage process, but you walk away to do ANYTHING ELSE FOR ANY AMOUNT OF TIME and then your decapping pin breaks while your back is turned. When I had multiple machines going, I would put multiple decapping dies into one cycle, universal decap first, then size and decap, and then have a decapping die ahead of the first swage in the SECOND machine. Just to be sure that wouldn’t happen.

My guess on the pregnant brass and the one above it, as well as the smashed cases, they had a pistol tool head in place and expanded the hell out of the case, then on the pregnant case, they tried to recover the one by forcing it back into a sizer, betting the case said “no” firmly when they got it down that far.

So you found a bunch of process error culls from a brass processor.

Definitely makes for some interesting conversation pieces. I do believe you guys are right and it was a brass processer, don’t know why that didn’t occur to me.

 

[Laphroaig]

Scrap shell casings are going for $1.75 to $2.00/lb. A mostly full 5 gallon bucket might pull in $100. Jus' sayin'...

 

[Skeptic13]

I agree looks like a bunch of brass that need to go to recycle.

 

[bullseye308]

I picked out quite a bit of good looking brass that I will be inspecting very thoroughly and anything suspect will go to the scrap bucket. Maybe at some point I’ll melt down all the brass and primers and make something cool.

 

[Swampman]

Poltergeists...?

 

[lightman]

It looks like stuff from a ballistics lab where they were testing pressure.

 

[KeithK]

Sure is the strangest looking brass I have ever seen, would be interesting if you ever find the reason or cause.

Keith

 

[bullseye308]

Poltergeists...?

I hope not, we already have ghosts here, don’t need any more.

It looks like stuff from a ballistics lab where they were testing pressure.

That’s for sure, some of it is looking like it was torture tested for info it didn’t have.

Sure is the strangest looking brass I have ever seen, would be interesting if you ever find the reason or cause.

Keith

I would really like to and maybe see where those “scientific” tests were done. It’s always nice to find another Reloader to shoot the horned cows with locally.

 

[Swampman]

...some of it is looking like it was torture tested for info it didn’t have...

 

[PWC]

Might be worthwhile to take a rake, flat shovel, broom and bucket, back to the hi-way. Sell the bad nrass, you'll walk away with more $ than when you arrived.

 

[bullseye308]

I had planned on it but my back, neck, knees, and shoulders said not to.

 

[Rule3]

I save every piece of brass that is reusable, and I sort out the LC223 for my bolt in batches by year.

I was kidding/sarcastic.as there have been recent threads about LC and as you mention those "special" years!

 

[bullseye308]

I was kidding/sarcastic.as there have been recent threads about LC and as you mention those "special" years!

I kinda figured that. I was waiting on someone to mention how special they were because you could seat 2 primers in them for more better ignition or super duper longer range shooting. You know, there are some wise acres here.

 

[EricBu]

Automated presses that aren't monitored quite as closely as they should be, weren't quite set up correctly, and not using any of the check/stop equipment for primers/swaging etc, and brass sorting that isn't complete. Some of those are cases that were inside other cases and mashed into the sizing die, some of those were swaged without depriming. Some even look like they went through the priming station without being decapped. I would say what you found is the remnants of some *sshole who heard he could make money right now selling reloads, and cobbled some equipment together without really knowing what he was doing. Probably taking his bucket of shame off to the recycler. Hate to be the poor SOB who buys his "finished" product.

 

[Mark_Mark]

I would have lined the truck of my Prius with tarp and not stop shoveling till I got it all!!!

 

[Nature Boy]

Dollars to doughnuts, those are “screw ups” from a brass processor.

makes perfect sense, particularly the pushed in primers, exactly what would happen if you tried to swage brass with a primer still in it

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

I had planned on it but my back, neck, knees, and shoulders said not to.

Listen to them. They know of what they speak.

There's always a shop vac' and a car to AC transformer. Vacuum it up into buckets.