Old Federal Rimfire Case Fail

[whatsupdoc]

About a year ago I found an old single box of Federal Power flight ammo so I used it up in my P226 rimfire.
I had a case head fail and chalked it up to a freak, a bad case, whatever.

A few days ago I find the rest of the brick and did some plinking with an JW15 and sure enough the cases are failing in exactly the same place
as the pistol, around 3 or 4 failed cases in 50.

So is it defective manufacturing, brass hardening with age, storage conditions or all of the above.

 

[Badshot308]

About a year ago I found an old single box of Federal Power flight ammo so I used it up in my P226 rimfire.
I had a case head fail and chalked it up to a freak, a bad case, whatever.

A few days ago I find the rest of the brick and did some plinking with an JW15 and sure enough the cases are failing in exactly the same place
as the pistol, around 3 or 4 failed cases in 50.

So is it defective manufacturing, brass hardening with age, storage conditions or all of the above.





View attachment 7660337

Probably something defective with the ammo. The only time I've ever had a case rupture with a .22lr was about 40 years ago with Federal ammo. That ammo was brand new at the time of the failure. The ammo and boxes you're showing look like they've been stored OK as far as exposure to moisture. No signs of corrosion or water damage. Do you know if this ammo was stored in a place where it could have been subjected to cycles of extreme temperature changes over a period of many years? Those conditions where the brass expands and contracts over many cycles supposedly can cause hardening. Or so the internet says...

 

[ZG47A]

Bottom end Federal ammo, that has been stored for quite a while, sometimes has that issue BUT typically when used in a generous sporting rifle chamber. The NZ Army bought some Federal Champion 40? grain (red lettering on a white box) and kept it a bit too long before selling it off. I used it without issues but some people complained about it.
Old steel case RWS ammo can be fired all right in a Brno/CZ bolt-action or any other quality bolt-action rifle but not in a JW15 with a chamber at the wrong end of the probability curve OR in a self-loading rifle.