Brass expansion (Spring back)

[Bearcatrp]

Has some reloads from a few years back I was shooting recently. 200 gr Hornady ELD X out of my bolt gun. Was having some issues with them so also brought a new batch to shoot. The older pills had the purplish tip that Hornady had to change to a solid red tip. The newer loads were shooting great. Plus ran about 50 fps faster than the older bullet with same load. Figured Hornady made a change to the bullet besides the tip. Decided to take the older ones apart. I used a rcbs puller that locks onto the bullet. To my surprise, most of the bullets pulled super easy, very little force to remove while a couple I had to grunt to remove. Was surprised. I normally don’t crimp for bolt action rifles. Anyone experienced something like this? I usually find this expansion one just bagged up prepared brass that’s been sitting a few years but not on loaded ammo. Just thought this was a little odd. The brass was Hornady match brass, 3rd firing.

[Rip Van Winkle]

If you're confidant that all the brass is 3x fired, you may want to measure case wall thickness. If that checks out annealing may be the next step.

[crbutler]

Lots of things can do it…

Part of why I am not a big Hornady fan is their penchant for changing things and not telling folks.

As to why you noticed what you did-
Any signs of corrosion?
As Rip said, any neck size issues?
Did the powder look decent?
Brass hardness (annealing) can be an issue. Supposedly (meaning I read it somewhere, not that I’ve documented it) aging brass can change in its hardness. 3 times fired doesn’t account for it like age.
I’ve never really noticed a change in size (‘spring back’) once something has been resized except for OAL changes with significant load compression.

[Bearcatrp]

No corrosion. They all seem fine. The powder was stuck together and black. Powder is Reloader 17. When I reload, I go through every aspect. Full resize. Trim to length. Primer pockets cleaned. I tumble clean with the pins so they are almost like new. I don't care to anneal. I toss them first sign of any issue but usually get 4 to 5 shots out of them. I rarely take apart loaded rounds but had a gut feeling on these reloads so I took them apart. Going to start over with Lapua brass and see what happens. Have never had issues with this brass.

[crbutler]

It may be that you are using the pin tumbling. The brass gets so clean and you can get "cold welding" between the bullet jacket and the case neck, especially if they sit a while. (again from reading, I don't do the pin cleaning)

After I anneal cases, I do need to use a graphite lube to neck size the cases or else I get some very sticky necks... from the folks who made the annealer, they stated that you need to use a graphite lube because all of the carbon has been burned off and they will stick in the dies a bit if you don't... (you do resize after annealing, so that is a big difference... if you resize then clean, I could see how what happened to you might happen...)

I do get huge SD increases in cases that I don't lube the necks after annealing, and I assume that can happen with pin cleaning as well.

BTW, why do you clean the primer pockets if you are SS pin cleaning, I thought that was part of what the SS pins did?

[Bearcatrp]

The pins dont get as clean as the rest of the brass. Plus I have a tool to insure the pockets are level. Went to the range friday. All of my reloads with Hornady brass popped the primers. I stopped at 6 shots. The loads are still accurate though. Going to break out my lapua brass and replace these loads and see what the hell is going on. May just trash all of my hornady brass I have for 308, which is about 2000 pieces. Can't trust them. Think I will load up some federal brass too to see how those go. Glad I loaded only 60 rounds.

[crbutler]

By popped the primers, you mean what?

There have been some fairly well documented issues with some lots of Winchester primers, so I don’t know that I would label it cases or bullets.

Lot to lot changes with powder also can be issues.

What cartridge are you dealing with? .308?

[Bearcatrp]

308. CCI primers. RL17 powder. Primers blown out. Recovered all of them. No cratering. Has to be the brass. Did a batch this morning with Lapua brass. Have run this load for a few years without issues. Only 0.4 gr over max. 200 gr Hornady ELD X pills. Hope to get to the range this week to see how it goes this time. I know my load is accurate. Use my RCBS powder dispenser I bought last year. I verify each load with my gem pro.

[crbutler]

Ok.

It may well be the brass, but if you have been using an over max load you are probably running over 65kPSI.

The Lyman manual I have does have PSI printed in it, and top loads are generally right at 60,000 PSI. Notably, it does not have RL 17 data. The 200 ELD bullet data I saw was in hornady’s manual, and their loads are a bit hotter than Nosler or Speer’s- the two others I checked.

Shooting repeated max loads is very hard on the brass, and I would think (if you are hand priming) you would notice loose primer pockets.

I’ve had Lapua brass develop loose pockets with 2 firings of max loads of high intensity rounds, and agree it’s very good stuff- you may just be asking too much of your brass to take that kind of pressure repeatedly.

My issues with hornady brass have been more issues with nonspec dimensions- rims being too thick, etc.

The changes in neck tension to me are different than loose primer pockets.

I’m not claiming your load is unsafe, but rather you are probably hitting a multitude of issues leading to the problem. For sure, the load is unsafe in that combination of components. 6 primer separations in a row shows that for sure.

[Bearcatrp]

Have owned this Hornady brass around 10 years when it was cheap to buy. Wouldn't think it would go bad sitting that long but not sure. I did know some of the primer pockets seemed a little loose when I reloaded these but only a few. Maybe I need to bump it down to just max load. If these Lapua brass do the same thing, then will drop the charge. Heck, when I was shooting 178 ELD-M, used to load a little over 1 gr without issues. Wouldn't think 0.4 would be that bad. Thats like 2 kernals. Guess we will see on next range trip. Thanks for all the replies. Will post back my results.