6.5 cases

tikka2506

Well-Known Member
I was out today with a fellow stalker friend for a bit of range time, he had put a few rounds down then went to cycle another round and found that his cases had split into two pieces. We got the larger part out of the chamber easily, load another round, bang....fine. Loaded another, same again round in two bits. This was the third time these Norma cases had been reloaded, no pressure signs and cases in good condition. Rifle... 6.5x55 in a Blaser R8.
Any ideas, bad brass????

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I was out today with a fellow stalker friend for a bit of range time, he had put a few rounds down then went to cycle another round and found that his cases had split into two pieces. We got the larger part out of the chamber easily, load another round, bang....fine. Loaded another, same again round in two bits. This was the third time these Norma cases had been reloaded, no pressure signs and cases in good condition. Rifle... 6.5x55 in a Blaser R8.
Any ideas, bad brass????

Same symptoms as this ..........?

Split 30-06 cases what's the cause likely to be?!
 
headspace and/or
overly sized in a FL die shoulders pushed back too far

how do you know they were third time reloads? can you be sure?
most of my norma brass is well over 6 or 7 times reloads
 
Wowsers, that's scary!
Hopefully it has just been caused by excessive full length sizing of the brass.
 
A friend of mine using his Blaser 30-06 and Lapua brass had case splitting after very few firings. This particular problem was cured by backing off full length die until brass dimensions were only marginally less than chamber dimension. This allowed the bolt to close normally yet didn't over work the brass. Case life is much longer.
 
A friend of mine using his Blaser 30-06 and Lapua brass had case splitting after very few firings. This particular problem was cured by backing off full length die until brass dimensions were only marginally less than chamber dimension. This allowed the bolt to close normally yet didn't over work the brass. Case life is much longer.

+1 on this. I was getting 3 loads out of my cases (R93 .270) Mike Norris (and Andy) suggested this might be the problem and he was right. Now I just resize as little as possible and all is good.
 
headspace and/or
overly sized in a FL die shoulders pushed back too far

how do you know they were third time reloads?
can you be sure?
most of my norma brass is well over 6 or 7 times reloads


Look for the hacksaw mark on the head...:doh:
 
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I would suggest having the rifle examined by a proper gunsmith as something is amiss.

The only time I have seen this happen was with a very poor chamber. A re-barrel was the cure. In that case the rifle had been re-lined some time in the distant past and the liner had gone out of spec in the chamber. This is why my Model 1903 Schoenauer has a new Stery barrel fitted. It was getting case head separation on FIRST firing of expensive RWS ammunition. Luckily they extracted but one could just flip the head of the case off with a flick of the thumb.

What happens when the forward part of the case does not extract?

As I say something is not right here so get it checked out.
 
Look for the hacksaw mark on the head...:doh:
now now!

we have all bought "once fired" brass and then wondered why it fails or has work hardening ....
I know I have!

some of my 300WM brass shows distinct rings above the belt indicating thinning in the brass right where they seperate
I proved a point when I separated some myself just last week!

 
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