Inspect your brass!

[r3dn3ck]

I've been having trouble with neck splitting on range pick-up brass (from a particular brand within the lot). I'm guessing that since it appears to be surplus of some sort that the brass wasn't properly annealed and that would be a good reason to reject the lot and thus, we find it on the surplus market. I've had probably 10 out of 200 that I've been necking up to 6mm from .223 split on me right at the transition from shoulder to neck and it carries right up the neck to the mouth. I've begun segregating that brand of brass from my inventory and discarding them so I don't ever have to deal with it.

EDIT: yeah, I could anneal the cases but I'm lazy and don't want to when I can just as easily just pick up better brass on my next range trip.

[NotEnufGarage]

One area where a single stage press is preferable to a progressive.

[SixPointEight]

If I miss a split case before it goes into the press with a charge/primer/bullet, I usually find it as soon as I pull that lever. There's a very apparent difference between good and bad cases. Of course, I'm on a single-stage press, not some fancy rig running hundreds of rounds an hour.

This. I sort my brass by caliber by hand. It gets looked over then. They it gets deprimed and tumbled by hand. Any splits I miss are obvious during loading. The case mouth flare doesn't feel right and/or the bullet seats WAY too easily.

[mif_slim]

I check mines before and after loading. Better to be safe then sorry!

[sammy]

I might be in the miniority here but the cases do not get checked untiill they are loaded. The re-sizing, belling, crimp is hard on the brass and can start a crack that was not there. When I do get a loaded cracked case it does not chamber check most of the time. My method is chamber check, feel the primer and roll the round to check for case failures. Never had a problem in 3 years.

[Cowboy T]

This is one advantage to cleaning your brass to "shiny". It's somewhat easier to see the smaller splits and cracks, and every bit helps.

If it's brass from an "unknown" source, I do inspect each and every case from that lot. Yes, it takes time, but then I know if the cases are OK. However, if you end up loading a split case, remember that the only thing the case does is act like a gasket to prevent reverse-direction gas flow. It's not like case head separation (fortunately).

I've had cases split during their trip through the resizing die. It's pretty easy to see, even on the "fancy progressive", because the case does a 360-degree turn through the movement of the shell plate. You end up seeing all sides. If you see a split case, just set that one aside for pulling apart later on, and keep steppin'. Yes, this is getting close to 400 rounds/hour, without rushing. It's all about paying attention to what you're doing at all times during the reloading process.