Blak92

After reading some more, I might have been wrong about any one particular year. Look over on the m14 forums. Lots of knowledgeable guys over there. Im only 2 years into reloading, so I very well may be mistaken about one year being particularly bad. BUT, look up case seperation over there and you'll find a fair number of threads on it. Here are some pics from the same batch of twenty I reloaded with 39.5 IMR3031, first reload of this brass. The one is cut in half, you can see the thin spot that I could feel with the paperclip, but it didnt show much in the way of a ring. The bottom one you can clearly see a ring and can feel the dip of the thin spot by dragging the clip from the rim up to the neck. A secong resizing and firing of that shell would have undoubtedly cased a seperation. Three others you could feel dips. Thats 5 out of 20.

No, its not a definite at all that it will happen using MG brass. Im just one of those people that have those kinds of things happen to them all the time, its just my luck. Just glad it was not worse. Looking for a lighter colored band around the casing above the web and feeling the inside with a bent paperclip (for that band, you can actually feel the dip/thinning really well) are a couple of those tricks though. I think LC 2004 brass was the year really well known for having that issue. And its still out there for sale. SBS marked NATO brass has not been good to me in my M1A either. They seem to stick in the chamber and have the rim ripped off after firing. Maybe 3 outs 5 times?

Yup, will do. Ive been lurking for the last month or two gathering info and should have the last few pieces from JP on monday to complete my build. I was waiting on the rain here to subside to start a job and saw this post. Figured I throw my 2 cents in about it.

Be very carefull with once fired military brass. Its mostly machine gun stuff and probably had a sloppy worn out chamber. I had a near case seperation after 1 reload of internet bought MG brass. Certainly had been fired only one time, was still crimped. Search case seperation over on m14forum.com There you can find tricks on how to spot potentially bad brass. After inspecting about 1500 of mine, I tossed about 5-600. Pretty pissed but its better than a face full of gas and metal. You can buy new LC brass under american eagle. Buy a wilson case gauge and drop all that brass in it one at a time before sizing. The ones that wont fit in around the web, or looks like its off centerline, toss em. A small base die will probably only make it worse, thinning that already stressed area even more.