Years ago when I got started into reloading I bought a Lyman case gauge and started to crank out hundreds of Lake City 308 brass. I put several hundred rounds through my Remington 700 without any problems. One day at the range I had a case head separation and alarm bells started going off in my head. I did some research and bought a RCBS precision mic gauge. Found out I was pushing the head-space back 12 thousandths for a head-space of 1.618. Is there anyway to salvage this brass?
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Under sized 308 brass
- Thread starter Mojo Daddy
- Start date
Once the brass is sized, you are stuck with it at that size until it is fired. .012 is quite a bump. The best thing you can do is to anneal the brass you have sized. By doing this, you soften the brass so that when the case expands, it will do so at the weak point at the shoulder/body junction, and will less likely impart that expansion down the body towards the head. As an alternative to scrapping the brass, that is what I would do, and I feel confident that it will be ok. Just make sure you are wearing glasses when you shoot all this oversized brass just as a precaution.
Depends how many times they've been fired like that.
If they haven't been fired, the 2 fire forming techniques that can be used to lengthen them are loading the bullet out to hit the lands and expanding the neck up before sizing it back down to create a new shoulder. There are no bullet fire forming techniques as well.
If they've been fired, you should check the cases for thinning in the area you had the separation. Do a search for an explanation of how to do this using a piece of wire to feel for a groove forming in the case. You can also cut a few cases in half lengthwise to check. If they've been fired a couple times, you may need to discard them. If you keep trimming records, there might be clues there as well. If you do measure them, but haven't had to trim them, they're probably in good shape.
How quickly the cases stretch will depend on a bunch of things like the actual headspace on the rifle, how smooth the chamber is, if you leave lube on the cases,......
As the previous post says. Anneal the neck, polish the inside with 0000 steel wool on a bore brush. Lube the inside and expand to .35 cal. or so (K&M makes a mandrel sizer for about $17). Size back to .308 to create a "false shoulder" at the correct headspace. That will hold the base against the bolt face enough to resist the firing pin strike. Do check for thinning on those you have already fired. You don't want gas in your face.
