.40 Casehead Separation

[sidnal]

Yesterday I had my first case failure. The casehead separated. There was a bit of a heat blast and then the gun was out of battery (case was still in the chamber, head on the ground). Fortunately there was no damage (gun or me!). I've been ignoring the case type for a long time, this was my first bad experience.

I load using a 550B w/ Dillon dies...5.05grn of N320 & 180 grn Delta bullets. Shoot with a Para 1640. Some people recommend the lee dies since they size further down.

I'll be tossing all of the nickel cases stamped "F C" (old Federal) from now on and any other "off brands". It's a pain sorting through them, but worth it not to blow a stage. The forum documents which cases are best, but I have a question:

Has anyone ever had a case failure that actually blew up a gun? Fortunately the bullet went out the front and the casehead out the back this time!

Thanks for the input,

Sidnal

[Matt Cheely]

Local shooter had a case blow out on his .40 two or three weeks ago. It didn't separate, but did release everything downwards through a tear in the case. I was laughing at the situation because it appeared to just be a "speed unload" from his magazine. After realizing that there was too much smoke for there not to be a bigger problem you could see where the gun had just barely come out of battery upon firing, and let the case vent downwards. Other than a busted basepad, and a small cut on his face, everything was good.

Edited November 7, 2005 by hksniperman

[HI5-O]

What gun did you fire it in? We use to have lots of problems with the FC cases in our Glock 22's. Mostly blew out the extractor, never had one destroy a gun.

No problems with the Federal stamped cases.

barry

[Squishy]

Back in the early days of 40 s&w for USPSA the only once fired brass I could find was F C nickel. Had nothing but problems with the brass. Went thru 2 extractors before I found out thru the diffrent channels that F C nickel had defects causing case head seprations and the rims would collapse. I won't use any brass that has F C on the headstamp. My .02 cents worth.

[blackdragon]

It has been our experience with nickel brass, It gets harder with the "Plating " process.

Ivan

[sidnal]

What gun did you fire it in? We use to have lots of problems with the FC cases in our Glock 22's. Mostly blew out the extractor, never had one destroy a gun.

No problems with the Federal stamped cases.

barry

I was using a Para 1640...I'll be tossing aall fo the fc's! The para is a pretty sturdy gun, so there was no damage. Definately a good reason to have good eye protection!

[Harmon]

Yesterday I had my first case failure. The casehead separated. There was a bit of a heat blast and then the gun was out of battery (case was still in the chamber, head on the ground). Fortunately there was no damage (gun or me!). I've been ignoring the case type for a long time, this was my first bad experience.

I load using a 550B w/ Dillon dies...5.05grn of N320 & 180 grn Delta bullets. Shoot with a Para 1640. Some people recommend the lee dies since they size further down.

I'll be tossing all of the nickel cases stamped "F C" (old Federal) from now on and any other "off brands". It's a pain sorting through them, but worth it not to blow a stage. The forum documents which cases are best, but I have a question:

Has anyone ever had a case failure that actually blew up a gun? Fortunately the bullet went out the front and the casehead out the back this time!

Thanks for the input,

Sidnal

looks like your getting a touch of primer flow...i dont get that much primer shear when i load major 38 supers..with pistol primers

was it really a bad case, or a good dose of bullet setback? do your other primers look like this? i ran some major titegroup 40s through a buddies para without any flow or primer shear...that gun does not have an extended firing pin in it FWIW.

[DougCarden]

After looking at your primer I am wondering what your OAL was? 5.5 VV320 sounds like a rather warm load, even at 1.200 + OAL. What does your load chrono at? The primer says that your load is too hot, and it is not a good barometer for pressure. Good luck, DougC

[L9X25]

Doug,

He said 5.05 not 5.5grs

The only gun that I have even seen destroyed by a case separation was a Bul M5. The case vented downward and the resulting gasses, heat and pressure melted, deformed and delaminated the "grip" portion of the gun and rendered it unusable. Externally, there was not that much damage visible, but many of the dimensions had changed and the trigger would not move. I would guess that the frame was not worth messing with.

Leo

Edited December 8, 2005 by L9X25

[Carlos]

I toss all Federal that only has the initials: "FC" - or I use it for .40 Minor.

Agree on the primer flow - what was the OAL? W/ that amount of powder, it should be 1.200"

Also, ditch the Dillon crimp die and use the Lee Factory Crimp Die. For me, it puts more tension on the case wall & holds the bullet in place better (did the bullet set back on the case above? No way to tell now).

Also ditch the Dillon sizing die in favor of the Lee sizing die.

[sidnal]

A friend noted that there was more conversation on this topic. After the separation I ditched all of the FC cases that weren't loaded. As luck would have it I had 150 FCs already loaded. Since I'm cheap I burned them on the plate racks and left them on the ground! When I poked around under my loading bench I was suprised to find almost 5000 rounds of clean Winchester nickle brass....much better stuff. Except for knowing the potential of a separation, I had no ill effects. Just noted some heat and a funny recoil during the separation. My eyes did get large and round when I understood what happened!

Right now I'm using 5.05 of vvn320 loaded to 1.175. I don't know what the chrono says, but they were 168.5 power factor with 5.1 of VVN320 & loaded to 1.195. At one point I was having feed problems with the Para so I lowered the length to 1.175 and then dropped to 5.05grn. to try to be safer. Have probably shot 2000 rounds with this load, but haven't chrono'd it. It feels "barely major". I'm 200 rounds from running out of n320 and will swith to TiteGroup. Didn't want to mess w/ the chrono until I switched powders...soon Its time to work up a new load. Turned out that the gun problem wasn't related to the oal.

I've noticed the primer flow issue. With my para 1640 this has been consistent between 2 firing pins, factory ammo, minor reloads and major. I've settled into what may be a false sense of security, but every case that goes into the gun looks this way. Use WSM primsers.

I ordered the EGW undersized die. Plan to take eveyones advice and buy the Lee factory crimp die too.

Thanks everyone for the input. Landis (sidnal)

[Carlos]

Thank you for the update & I am confident that w/ the changes you have made, there will be no further problems like the one pictured above.

You wrote: "Right now I'm using 5.05 of vvn320 loaded to 1.175. I don't know what the chrono says, but they were 168.5 power factor with 5.1 of VVN320 & loaded to 1.195. At one point I was having feed problems with the Para so I lowered the length to 1.175 and then dropped to 5.05grn. to try to be safer. "

Understood. Sometimes the Para has been known to run better w/ a shorter OAL than would be optimal/functional in an STI.

FYI, I have had no trouble running 320 as short as the required OAL for the CZ brand Standard IPSC .40 pistol: oal max is 1.170 and I load N320 very close to that OAL. I can use as little as 4.7 grns and still meet major (barrel is about 5.75" long - nearly a 6").

[sidnal]

Thank you for the update & I am confident that w/ the changes you have made, there will be no further problems like the one pictured above.

You wrote: "Right now I'm using 5.05 of vvn320 loaded to 1.175. I don't know what the chrono says, but they were 168.5 power factor with 5.1 of VVN320 & loaded to 1.195. At one point I was having feed problems with the Para so I lowered the length to 1.175 and then dropped to 5.05grn. to try to be safer. "

Understood. Sometimes the Para has been known to run better w/ a shorter OAL than would be optimal/functional in an STI.

FYI, I have had no trouble running 320 as short as the required OAL for the CZ brand Standard IPSC .40 pistol: oal max is 1.170 and I load N320 very close to that OAL. I can use as little as 4.7 grns and still meet major (barrel is about 5.75" long - nearly a 6").

Hey Carlos:

Maybe I'm more major than I thought if the cz goes major @ 4.7 @6" & 1.170. Right now I have 745 rounds through my Para without cleaning it...wanted to see if it is running okay. About ready to run out of N320. After shooting with it for a year I hope I'm not disappointed with the 9 lbs of TiteGroup under my bench. It is cheaper, but supposedly a little dirtier. We'll have to see.

About time to work up a new load, that's always fun(:-).

Thanks for the input. Landis