10mm Casehead Seperation?

[flyinmech]

I was shooting my Colt Delta Elite when, Bang, I felt like sand or pepper was hitting my face after sqeezeing the trigger. After checking for blood and cleaning out my shorts I found the case on the floor that showed a split and blow out around the base. This was a reload and the case was an FC. There was no damage to the magazine or pistol, which says a lot about Colt. I have since fired about 20 rounds of factory ammo with this gun, but wonder what to do about the 800rds that I have of this reload ammo? Has anyone had this happen to them or someone they know?

[Kid Sopris]

If you didn't reload those yourself...DON'T SHOOT THEM. I suspect a High Primer caused an Out of Battery detonation, at least that is the first place I would look. If all others are okay and you Reloaded them, March forward carefully. IF YOU didn't reload them, take them apart or have Fire Department destroy them.

[Waldo Pepper]

There is an old saying that goes like this "you roll your own and don't use others roll) reloaded ammo in todays world of lawyers should never be done as favors for friends or bought at gun shows from unlicensed vendor.

[charlene]

I have a 10mm Colt Double Eagle Mk. II that I have owned for many years and have fired thousands of rounds through. I have had two case head separations during that time, both times with my own reloads using 200 grain lead truncated cone bullets and 5 grains of Win 231. I think at least one of the cases was Federal (FC), and I don't recall what the other case was. Both times I suffered a mild case of "Super-face", with many small slightly bleeding wounds all over my face from the impact of particles of gunpowder, etc. Fortunately I was wearing eye protection on both occasions.

I don't think that the cases were overcharged with powder. I think these incidents of mine resulted from the fact that the cases in question were old and had been previously fired and reloaded by me many times over and were at (or beyond, on at least two occasions) the end of their service lives, at least without annealing, etc. The fact that the barrel does not fully support the case in the area of the feed ramp also contributed to this by leaving a weak spot for the brass to fail, exactly where it did.

Some people regard a chamber that does not fully support the case as a problem. Personally, I do not, at least in an all-steel gun such as a Double Eagle or Delta Elite. I think of this design characteristic almost like a safety valve- when pressure gets too high, it blows out and is vented in a predictable and more or less controlled way. If the case were fully supported, it might hold together longer and reach higher pressure levels before a failure occured, but when such a failure finally did occure, it may well be of a more catastrophic nature, with less predictable results.

I also own a 10mm Glock 20, and after the first failure I decided not to fire any of this batch of ammo in the Glock, not only because you are not supposed to shoot unjacketed lead bullets in the polygonally rifled barrel of the Glock, but also because I figured that the plastic frame would not stand up to the vented high velocity gases of a case head separation nearly as well as forged steel would (and did).

Lessons:

1. Always wear eye protection whenever possible.

2. Virgin brass factory ammo from the "Big Three" REALLY IS the stuff to shoot, if you can afford it.

3. Brass doesn't last forever. Resist the temptation (which us reloaders naturally have) to get "one more loading" out of a piece of brass that long ago paid for itself. Most people reload for semiauto pistols because it is cheaper than always shooting new commercial ammo. The per-round cost savings are at their greatest on the first reloading, and for the most part are fully realized within the first few loadings, with only marginal (and diminishing) savings thereafter.

So, when it comes to saving money by reloading, just remember this saying: "Pigs get fed, Hogs get Super-face!"

(or if you prefer: "Pigs get to shoot, Hogs get shot", etc...)

Are these 800 reloads yours, or were they reloaded by someone else? Do you know anything about them? How many of them have you fired so far?

[Waldo Pepper]

charlene you have one point wrong and that's with polygonal rifling, they shoot lead just fine and have for decades. Glock when I bought my first gun from them had no warnings against lead or reloads, then came the reload warning followed lead now I believe thanks to lawyers and their trying to end civilan gun ownership. The 29 I bought about 5 years ago and was probably a year sitting on the shelf and had no lead warning. The problem with lead in any gun is build up and the came become real dangerous if followed by jacketed bullet.


I have actually shot very few jacketed bullets in my Glocks when plinking. Polygonal rifling came about as improvement in accuracy of 22 caliber match rifle barrels (ever see a jacketed 22 rim-fire other then WMR) and the thing was the rifling didn't squeeze the bullets as tight and deform and slow them down. This type of rifling actually has less problem with lead build up then regular rifling does as it has less drag or friction the conventional rifling.

My S&W revolvers have more leading issues then my Glocks and are harder to remove the lead from then my G20SF or G29SF because of deep standard rifling. Even with the extra work involved cleaning the S&W's these days I shoot them more because I hate picking them up at my age and making my arthritis mad at me, not to mention the bad disks in lower back.

I you use a good Hard Cast bullet and proper burn rate powder you can safely shoot about 250 rounds before switching to jacketed ammo with out cleaning are so some have told me, but I as a rule don't after a 100 rounds switch w/o a quick cleaning in my Glocks, my S&W revolvers, and my old 1006 before I sold it, however was 50 rounds. Now I'm sure I could double both quantities rule I follow by double but I like a wide safety margin.

Now as far as cases goes, if you are going to shoot reloaded ammo never load you stock Glock fired ammo more the 5 reloads because you can't really tell how stressed the lower case meets web section and if your timing isn't perfect you have a blown off bottom of case. Most people do not understand the timing involved in automatics be it 10mm Clock or 22LR Marlin. Timing is done by weight of bolt and strength of recoil springs, and the companies try to hit a middle ground due to all the ammo brands and types. This is why Wolff Spring company comes to mind and does a great service to shooters who know what they are doing, my guns all have at least 3 spring rates available to me, and I tune them for the ammo I shoot at range and then ammo I carry.

PS: I have never ruptured a straight walled pistol case, but have split a couple bottle neck rifle cases over the years from both too hot and over used case.