Advice on Winchester brass quirk?

[DenisA]

Hi All,

Apologies if this is a silly question.

I shoot a .300wsm

I've been using Norma brass in the past and due to poor availability, I've gone to Winchester. I've never used it before. These cases have been fired 3 times. When inspecting them after a clean tonight, I noticed a dead straight line that runs the length of the case. On this one case the line will catch my finger nail. There are a few other cases that a line can be seen but my finger nail won't feel it.

From what I've read, I understood that brass shells were formed up from a brass button. These lines look like some kind of seam??

I've never seen anything like this with Norma, Lapua or Federal.

There's only one on each case, so it's not an impression from the chamber.

No line can be seen from inside the case.

What is this line?

Is this typical of Winchester brass?

Should I be concerned that my nail catches this particular line?

Thanks.....

[Steve N]

Denis could it be a scratch from ejection? Perhaps a tiny piece of crap that the case is sliding over when being pulled out?

[Barry Davies]

More likely to be from your die -- a rust spot maybe. Easily checked, simply run a case through again and see if another scratch appears.

[DenisA]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies.

It's definitely not a scratch. The line runs from the head all the way over the shoulder and down the neck. It's dead straight and consistent in depth the whole length.. I've never run the ejector spring in the bolt head, so the case is not being scraped along the side of the chamber or action as it's being extracted.

Under a magnifying glass, on this case, it looks like a cut rather than a scratch. It looks like 2 edges meeting as a seam would.

As I said, other case have a fine line that can be seen but not felt yet.

I' haven't put these cases through a FL die yet. I've only neck sized them. There's no rust in my dies, there clean, well kept and lubed.

[RDavies]

I have a few hundred 300WSM cases here, a including Winchester and none of mine have this scratch. My Winchester brass has all been very good.

[DenisA]

I have a few hundred 300WSM cases here, a including Winchester and none of mine have this scratch. My Winchester brass has all been very good.

G'day Rod, thanks for your post. There's a lot on the net about them splitting necks but I haven't found anything like this yet. I'll keep looking.

I can't even attribute it to a batch number. I never mix batches as a rule of thumb................. except for this time....
I bought 350 which was all I could scrape up from around the traps at the time and they were all different batch numbers. I mixed them all and weight sorted them into 1gn lots as they varied so much even within the same batch number. Neck concentricity has been fantastic with out turning.

[macguru]

why not cut that one open , clean the inside and see if you can see the seam on the inside. If you can, chuck them away, if its just a few
if not, keep shooting the rest with the line and try again to look inside when one gets worse to see if the seam is all the way thru

[ecomeat]

Denis,
Use your Borescope to look inside the case.......and take a photo or two please and post them here and give us a description of what you see .
Tony

[Seddo]

I would be more worried that your chamber isnt straight!!!

[johnk]

Denis,

Does that chatter seen in the extractor cutout extend all around the case or is it restricted to the width of the anomoly on the body? Is it consistent on all the suspect cases, more to the point?

John

[DenisA]

G'day Seddo, why are you thinking the chamber may not being straight?

G'day John. That chatter looking business is just the reflection of all the LED lights around the magnifying lens that I took the photo through.

[AlanF]

Its not in focus, but the line goes down the shoulder and neck. I think that rules out the die, and probably any scratching. Necks split often - why wouldn't the body split if the brass is bad? It looks similar to the start of case separation, but at right angles. I would do a cross-section cut at the worst point to see if its also happening on the inside.

[macguru]

I agree with the idea that its the beginning of a case split. I have just found a few 260 AI cases that were overworked and they have a seam low down on the case body at right angles to the one in this thread , but it looks very similar and uncannily regular in appearance

andrew

[DenisA]

G'day All,

I have a habit of dragging up old threads.

Concerning the same batch of brass, I started uniforming another weight group this week and found a dodgy case. I think it must be an exaggerated example of why there may be visible lines in some of these case.

You can see faintly the same line running up the body just off centre to the right of the fold in the neck/shoulder.

Any one seen this before? Any idea's why its like this?

[johnk]

Not that specifically but folds in brass during the manufacture process aren't common, but known - and worse. Keith, remember that factory case that had a pressed on inclusion through the head, resulting in severe gas leakage on firing?