FAILURE OF NORMA 6mm PPC BRASS

L

llogan7708

Guest
Last Sunday, I had two of the Norma 6mm PPC brass I loaded split in half horizontally. A total of four cases failed. And as always seems to be the case, the last one failed on the first shot of the fifth round of the BR Points Match in Austin, TX. Two split completely apart, and two had big horizontal cracks in them. I do not load hot when using N-133. My gun shoots quite well with 25.4gr of powder and a 68gr Watson bullet.

I contacted Norma, and found out that the cases we had just purchased one week prior, were at least six years old. These cases were made before Norma stopped making the PPC brass for a couple of years. So, I sent two samples to the Norma lab for them to look at, and hopefully replace a couple of hundred pieces of brass.

My question.....has anyone who reads these threads, ever had something like this happen? I have a .269 neck, so I was fired up to use this brass because I wouldn't have to trim the neck. Any ideas, anyone??
 
I have never had a split neck or case with 4 different 6PPC rifles using Norma, Lapua or Sako brass. Many loads approaching 3300 fps. Were these cases fireformed? Did you check dimensions of brass before and after shooting? Did you check headspace of brass before and after? It sounds like case separation due to excessive headspace of brass. Did you FL size them and maybe set the shoulder back too far?
 
Les is an experienced bench rest shooter. I doubt that this case separation had anything to do with his loading technique or fire forming practices. I observed the cases in question, and the separation didn't indicate the normal result of a head space problem. It will be interesting to see what Norma's response will be.

Virg
 
Well, obviously this is NOT the new Norma Brass.

I can't believe that a vendor would be so unethical, or stupid, to fill an order for Norma 6PPC Brass with brass that had been laying on the shelf for 6 years.

It's not the same stuff.

Who did you buy it from??.........jackie
 
Charles E said:
Now if I can only find someone in North Carolina who's going by vehicle...

(Jerry, is Jeff Summers going?)
Click to expand...

To the Cactus? No. He's going to the Shamrock though and so am I. If Lou could get the powder to Tony, Wayne or one of those guys who will be at both??

Edit-if anyone going to the Cactus and the Shamrock will bring it to Dublin, I can bring the 2015 to East Tennessee
 
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Dana, I have 300 of the new cases, bought them in November from Brunos. That dot is indeed a . not an *. Or at least on the cases I have it is.
 
It seems like this thread wandered a long way off tract of the fractured brass question. Les, you said the splits occurred at the end of the last relay? Did your barrel loosen enough to increase the chamber headspace? My questions will go a long way to help solve the problem. If you have Go-NoGo gages, you can determine chamber HS issues. Or measure fired Norma brass with case HS gages and compare to others fired in your gun. Even poor quality brass should not split if it fits chamber correctly.
 
@ Jackie....This brass was purchased from Lester Bruno. I would like to believe that he had no idea this brass was that old. Will you be at the Tomball match at the end of this month? If so, I'll bring the two cases with me for you to look at.

And, thanks everyone for your replies and ideas.

Les
 
The barrel was tight and I had about .003 headspace available. These had been fire formed, and failed on the second shooting. The shoulder was bumped about .0015", but again, they had already been fire formed and only neck sized for the second firing. I am going to try and load a picture on here.View attachment 12335
 
A little tip for those who are unsuccessful in their attempts to us the on site provisions for attaching picture files to a post. You can open a FREE Photobucket account, upload images from you computer, and when you put your mouse pointer on an image that you have uploaded, it will show several types of links that are associated with that picture. Left clicking on the IMG code link will copy it, at which point you can paste it into your message composition frame. When someone looks at your post, the picture will appear, like this.
Visalia10-18-09fiveshotunlim010.jpg
 
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