What's wrong with this .44 Brass !!!

[Eat Dirt]

Let me begin by saying " this is Not my Brass "

I was out 'Harvesting ' some brass today and came across some .44 mag Brass / About 20 rounds
Cool.
Then I took a closer look and this what I found ::



Now I don't know who shot them
Or what gun was used / Glad it wasn't mine
Hope nobody had to go to the E.R. after those rounds

[bruce381]

shot in a 45 colt by mistake thats why exspanded and split. one time I shot a Light 41 mag in my 44 did same thing i learned to NOT have more than 1 gun or ammo on bench at the same time

[chknlyps2]

There are huge pine trees near me that have scars that look like that from lightning strikes..... thats what those reminded me of.

Look at the bulges in some of those cases, you wonder what the chamber looks like?

[Eat Dirt]

^^ Bruce : That's a good explanation why they did that ( I didn't think of that one )

But to keep doing it for at least 20 rounds !

[hermosabeach]

I shot a belt of .308 out of a 1919 chambered in 30-06.

I realized the error when I picked up the brass... I wondered where the 45-70 brass came from and I realized that I had blown out the neck and shoulder of the .308

The .44 brass is crazy. I guess that they were not checking there empties

[ar15barrels]

Originally Posted by hermosabeach

I wondered where the 45-70 brass came from and I realized that I had blown out the neck and shoulder of the .308

I found a case like that in a hunting camp one time.

[Eat Dirt]

So............
I guess I won't be putting these on my Brass for sale list

Come on .......I'll split the shipping !

[bruce381]

Originally Posted by Eat Dirt

^^ Bruce : That's a good explanation why they did that ( I didn't think of that one )

But to keep doing it for at least 20 rounds !

Yeah I did not notice till I dumped the 6 empties into my hand reccoil was nil, due to under sized boolit.

[bruce381]

no look again the are split BUT they are also MUCH larger at the base that is cause they were shot in a OVER size IE wrong chamberd gun. This is NOT a regualr split.

[ar15barrels]

Originally Posted by stilly

what SEMI-AUTO 45 colt guns exist? I say semi-auto because I have only seen revolvers in 45 lc.

If I had a gun that trashed brass like that, it would go back to the manufacturer for warranty repairs.
That is neither acceptable or safe behavior from a gun.
I have shot several desert eagles before and none of them trashed cases like yours does!
Your gun has a problem that needs repair.

And as for semi auto vs. revolver, that has nothing to do with the brass splitting shown in the first post of this thread.

Go look in a reloading manual at the case dimensions of 44 mag and 45 colt...

[Eat Dirt]

Originally Posted by stilly

I must have went back to Bee Canyon to chrony some new .44 mag rounds but I put the wrong barrel on my deagle and shot or I forgot to swap back from .50AE to .44mag. Everything must have shot fine but I bet I was kicking myself for doing that.



More puzzling is why I did not pick up these rounds and bring them back home to photograph and then post the picz on Calguns telling people what happens when you shoot .44 mag out of your .50AE barrel in yer Deagle... Hmmm, maybe this really might not be me from the future... nono, that sucks, it must be me. Maybe these were hidden somehow and I forgot to get them?

First :
I found about 20 of the cases that looked like that all in the same spot
Only posted the worst 8
And they were not there the day before

Second:
I did not harvest them from Bee Canyon
I have another spot in Hemet that I Will Not give out !!!!!!!!!!!!

[ar15barrels]

Originally Posted by stilly

would someone that owns a 45 LC really be THAT stupid to put a 44 into it and keep loading them in?

There is no intelligence test to purchase a gun.
Sometimes, I think there should be, but I can only hope that natural selection weeds those people out...

Originally Posted by stilly

a gun that they borrowed or was given to them and they have no respect for it or any intelligence on what to feed it.

This is the most likely cause.

[Eat Dirt]

Originally Posted by stilly

That is fine, I installed a GPS under your van and I have you as one of my DOTS...

Touche', Sir...................

[John Browning]

Originally Posted by stilly

I will tell you with 90% certainty what happened to these cases. I have done this myself about 6 or so times now and I have seen it. It is simply CASE fail. I actually save mine because I think they are cute. Whoever shot these has worn them out to the point of splitting, so they shot weak shells and split them. My deagle has done this to brass but it HATES brass shells. It bites down hard on the rim and PINCHES about 1/4-1/6 of the side and then it jams a round thingy in the back when it kicks it out the gun. Can you get a closer shot of the rims? They were prolly fired from a deagle too I bet... If you can get a good semi-close shot of the faces of the rims that would be a plus. I will get some of mine.

BTW, when this happens the Deagle will spit on your hand and you will get a slight burn in a rice size spot, and sometimes it will hit you in the face. At least that is the worst that has happened to me. I say brass fail after many reloadings and prolly shot from an auto if it has the same bite marks on it that mine have. I have a shirt that was all nylon, now it has small dots all over from getting spit on by the deagle.

If you say deagle, you lose all credibility. Your gun has a serious problem and is in need of major repair. The only way a case splits like that is a massively out of spec chamber.

[John Browning]

Originally Posted by stilly

My DE is in the shop. Please keep in mind that the full story is that the DE has shot over 1600 rounds and most of this brass just gets reloaded, so really this brass could be on loading number 6-8 IIRC and this has only happened to about 8-10 shells out of the few hundred that I have kept recycling.

I thought nothing of it because I have also seen this happen with a 7.62x25 tokarev. Matter of fact, old surplus ammo (yugo) being shot out of another tokarev yielded these same results (well, mostly just split cases) and I saved a few once cause I thought they were cool. It was not my gun and I thought that maybe the ammo was just loaded hot, it IS a 7.62x25 round. That is the round that gets loaded because it has something to prove. Anyways, I have yet to see this kind of shell come out of MY gun, but I am thinking that maybe the other guy whose brass I found that had many splits was just shooting hot. OR maybe it could be that their gun is jacked like you say, either way I am confident that my DE is okay and in spec, but I have asked them to check it out.

When cases split, they NEVER do it the way that is shown in your picture. They usually split at the case mouth and along the neck from the stresses of expansion and resizing or split horizontally as the case wall thins out from the expansion. This is why you can re-anneal cases and have them last longer.

The only way a case splits like that is from being fired in a chamber that is way out of SAAMI spec.

This is case fatigue



This is neck fatigue



And this is a chamber that is much too large



You should look into cerro-safe casting the chamber and finding out what the deal is. I'm not sure of the particulars of the gas system on a Desert Eagle, but you have a problem with yours.

[cali-man]

I have at least 2.5K through my DE in 44 mag and have never split a case like that. That is with max charges using H110. My 50AE brass usually only last 2-3 firings due to the neck splitting when slightly belling them.

[Wrangler John]

Those splits can be the result of over sizing with a single ring die carbide die, then expanding short and applying a heavy crimp. The bullet will produce a quite noticeable bulge in the case and split upon firing. Usually it takes more than one firing to split the case, depending on the brass age, hardness and manufacturer. This is often caused by a reloader that is attempting to remove the case bulge from the head area after firing with a carbide die. Carbide dies are only for neck sizing down to where the base of the bullet sits. Even straight wall revolver cases have a slight taper to the case body, and running a carbide die to the base will remove that taper. Just sizing a little too much below the bullet base can lead to the problem.

If the expander stem does not expand the brass to where the bullet base is seated, the brass will be stressed at the bullet heel, which is why the case splits from that point downward to the thicker brass near the head. The cases appear to have been fired in a larger chamber because once the brass split it lost the ability to spring back into shape after firing. This is especially noticeable in cases fired in revolvers with maximum diameter chambers.

Redding sells a dual ring titanium carbide die that corrects this problem: http://redding-reloading.com/index.p...g-carbide-dies

I have experienced this problem, which is why I discontinued use of carbide dies for certain revolver cartridges in favor of standard full length dies. The splits are not the result of high pressure or being fired in the wrong chamber, but are the result of over sizing and under or short expanding, that resulted in over working the brass, leading to failure. While the problem exists primarily with carbide dies, it can also occur with steel dies where chamber and die dimensions do not agree.

The picture of the split necks on bottle necked cartridges can be due to a few other factors other than metal fatigue. Older lots of military ammunition can fail with split necks due to age hardened bullet sealer, and galvanic neck to bullet welding by ionic displacement. We often forget that dissimilar metals can be subject to cold welding from a chemical reaction between them. When I decided to pull apart several hundreds of rounds to scrap the brass, it was found that some bullets couldn't be pulled using a collet or inertia puller. Remembering the cold welding factor, I found that by seating the bullets deeper until I heard a loud 'snap' signifying the bullets had broken loose, afterwards the bullets pulled readily. While this ammo dated to the 1980's, the process begins as soon as the ammo is loaded.