To test this feature, visit your live site.

Inspect your fired brass!

Hawkeye alluded to this a little bit on the last live stream.

Your fired brass can tell you a lot about how your weapon and ammo is functioning.

There's a problem here. See if you can figure out what it is. No, this is not from my any of my guns, and it's not a glock or glock clone. And if I find the person who fired this, I'll stop them immediately.

In the first picture, you can see all the cases are identically egg-shaped, and I lined them all up with the flat side facing to the left.

This next picture is a side view of the cases in the same orientation. You can clearly see a dent in each casing in the same place, oriented 90 degrees from the flat side on the case.

Here is a close up of one of the cases showing the dent. It's not very clear in the picture, but they all also have a fairly noticable "bulge" at the base.

Finally, here is a picture of the base. You can clearly see a mark from the extractor right next to the 9. They all have this mark, and it's oriented 90 degrees clockwise from the dent. Along with the other signs, this really tells the story.

Let me know what you think!

4 comments

Comments (4)

Hawkeye

Aug 23, 2023

•

I never understood using hot loads. I spent more time reloading loads that I could count on to be consistent and controlable. What ever happen to courtesy to fellow shooters? I would never stand shooting with my brass hitting other next to me, I just wouldn't do that.

Ancient Order

Aug 24, 2023

•

Replying to

Yep. I have an opinion about somebody who reloads +P+ especially in 9mm. But I'll keep that opinion to myself.

I always load for consistency and accuracy, and I've found that RARELY is that achieved at maximum load. Sometimes in rifle, but almost never in pistol.

It seems there's a lot more idiots out at the ranges these days. I'm really wanting to get a place where I can have my own range, which usually coincides with deer, hogs, quail, grouse and other assorted game animals wandering about.

Hawkeye

Aug 21, 2023

•

First photo, it looked like some brass pickedup from a range that has been walked on.

I use to pickup brass at the range to reload that looked like that, they resized ok but you couldn't reload them over and over because the reshaping of the brass made them weak and thin and would split.

The dot on the side of the brass is a big problem. Even after resizing, the dot would still be there. It is a very weak spot that can blow out when reloaded and fired again. This could split and damage a barrel or cilinder on a revolver.

I never reloaded brass like those, plus on reloads I never load them hot.

Another mthing to check on reloads would be the brass length. When shot and reloaded brass stretches and will need to be trimed. I found brass shot in my AR15 was the most finicky about what ammo the would run without any jamming.

I can only guess but it could be ether the extractor or injector causeing the problem but I can only guess.

Ancient Order

Aug 22, 2023

•

Replying to

Nope. It wasn't walked on. I always use the farthest right unused lane and I sweep the area clean before shooting so there's only my brass to pick up. And I only use Starline brass, which makes it easier to sort.

These cases came flying over from about 3 lanes down and mixed in with my fired brass. The lanes in between were empty. It was starting to piss me off because several of his cases hit me or flew onto my bench while shooting. I sweep between shooting sessions and asked him if he wanted his brass. Nope. I think he was shooting a Sig.

The first thing I noticed is these are reloads. Winchester doesn't seal their primers with red fingernail polish, which was done pretty sloppy as you can see the paint overbrushed then wiped off.

The second thing is these loads were extremely hot. You shouldn't see case bulge in a "normal" 9mm, even a Glock, unless it has a really shitty barrel. 10mm Glock, yes, bulge is sometimes normal. Also, the primer shows extreme overpressure and flowed into the firing pin channel.

The brass flying past my face from 10 feet away was also a pretty good indicator of too hot a load.

This extreme pressure caused the fired case to radically start coming out of the chamber too early hitting the ejector on the side of the case instead of the base, and also slammed into the extractor causing that groove in the base. Something in the geomety of the slide and recoil timing also flattened the mouth of the case, but I'm not sure where it hit.

Beware of knuckleheads out there. Sometimes you don't know when somebody is doing something stupid in your vicinity. This guy could have easily had a catastrophic failure, injuring himself and/or others.