Broken shell=Upper or Ammo problem?

[Hoop]

I was shooting the other day and this happened:



I put it next to another spent case for comparison. The lower half failed to eject, jamming the gun. I figured it was just the ammo, but I've never had a cartridge case blow up like this. Could something be wrong with the upper maybe?

[somecallmetim]

My guess would be that your main indicator would be the word "remanufactured" on the box... either a defective case or one that was "remanufactured" one time too many.

Repeated reloading causes stretching at the case web and can eventually lead to the case head separation that you experienced.

[ocabj]

That's a head separation. I notice those are remanufactured cartridges (commercial reloads). The reused brass was probably stretched out too much and after you fired it, it was enough to cause the separation. I've seen it happen with Black Hills blue box, more frequently in recent months.

These will happen with commercial reloads due in combination of .223 cases fired from loose chambers and being resized back down to a minimum headspace length.

Here's a picture of a case head separation I had with one of my own loads. Brass was reused around 7 to 8 times by this point:

[Hoop]

Here's a picture of a case head separation I had with one of my own loads. Brass was reused around 7 to 8 times by this point:

I reload as well, although not as often lately. I typically toss brass after 3-4 uses.

Makes me wonder how many times it was reloaded before this happened...

[ocabj]

Makes me wonder how many times it was reloaded before this happened...

I may have been only shot once. In the case of LC, lots of the once fired stuff is being shot out of M249 SAWs. These have very loose chambers so the brass gets stretched quite a bit. Then when you resize them down to minimum headspace spec and the brass is shot again, if the brass stretches out again in a longer headspace chamber, then you'll have this problem develop again.

I've had once fired brass where I experienced a head separation like this, while I've had batches of brass live for 9-10 reloads without any separations.

[Gunsrruss]

.223 Brass

All my brass ( IMI ) I bought new from Wideners years ago. They are now on their 5th reload. I have about 3500 I'm cycling through. I don't plan to reload them past 6 reloads. I shoot competition and can't afford a problem. Just trying to be safe.

[ar15barrels]

If the gun was otherwise running good, here is what you get when it extracts the back half and feeds the next cartridge into the chamber...



The bolt will not close completely, so you get a good stoppage.