Does brass become brittle with age just sitting in a box?

Bill Wynne

Bill Wynne

Active member
I have a friend who asked me to load some bullets for a rifle that he is giving to his son. This rifle is a 25/06 AI and is 40 years old and in very good shape. This rifle was used for hunting only so it was not shot a lot. He gave me 73 pieces of Winchester brass marked 30/06 in 5 boxes. The boxes were marked 20 Center Fire Rifle Cartridge Cases and priced at $3.20 each so they were probably as old as the rifle. I loaded them with his load that was marked on his boxes. This load was modest.

I fired eleven rounds at 100 yards with a group of about 5/8" for the first three that was about 1.5 inches low. I adjusted the sights and fired several more rounds that were not as accurate. There were fliers. When I inspected the fired cases I found three out of the eleven with split necks. I don't think he had reloaded them too many times. These case were tarnished so I had cleaned them up in my case tumbler with walnut hulls before I reloaded them. I don't believe these cases had been reloaded many times.

Question: Does brass harden and become brittle with age?
 
Bill Wynne said:
I have a friend who asked me to load some bullets for a rifle that he is giving to his son. This rifle is a 25/06 AI and is 40 years old and in very good shape. This rifle was used for hunting only so it was not shot a lot. He gave me 73 pieces of Winchester brass marked 30/06 in 5 boxes. The boxes were marked 20 Center Fire Rifle Cartridge Cases and priced at $3.20 each so they were probably as old as the rifle. I loaded them with his load that was marked on his boxes. This load was modest.

I fired eleven rounds at 100 yards with a group of about 5/8" for the first three that was about 1.5 inches low. I adjusted the sights and fired several more rounds that were not as accurate. There were fliers. When I inspected the fired cases I found three out of the eleven with split necks. I don't think he had reloaded them too many times. These case were tarnished so I had cleaned them up in my case tumbler with walnut hulls before I reloaded them. I don't believe these cases had been reloaded many times.

Question: Does brass harden and become brittle with age?
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Smart people will say no but experience says that yes, it will.
 
Bill Wynne said:
I agree Doug. Let me add that these boxes of brass were so old that they had no bar code on them. I have learned to approach a problem like this with an open mind. It could be other factors.
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I've seen the very same thing several times with old brass. Old once fired brass that was stored for many years split necks on most every case, for example. I know that the experts will say that the only way for brass to harden is by working it. I can't tell you the reason, but experience tells me this is just wrong. Same goes for copper. Ever tried working with old copper wire or tubing? Same thing..and it's not by a little bit, but a lot. I had an old roll of copper tubing that had been stored for probably 20 years on top of a parts bin. When new, it worked like butter but 20 years later it was impossible to work with without kinking and was just plain ol' tough to do anything with. Again, I can't explain it but I totally agree that it hardens with age.
 
I can't comment on the "experts" but experience has taught me that brass/copper generally get (brittle? Less ductile?) with age.

IMO smokeless powder ages better than the brass case!

:)

I used to "collect" old ammo found at garage sales and flea markets until I found out that "Collecting" and "buying somebody's old crap ammo" were two different things...... so I've shot up a lot of old ammunition, mainly shotgun and rifle. I haven't found it to be dangerous, just unsuitable for reloading. And, I haven't annealed it because I'm infused with Redneck Logic I figger "whatever went out of the stuff, heat ain't gonna' put it back in" LOL

I have NO CLUE, just have experienced it also....
 
Have a ,222 Rem Mag and was happy to find new 250 ct Nosler Brass.

The old R-P brass was strange.

Anyone want to comment on "cold welding" as in bullet to brass?
 
Back in the days if my youth when we'd file the tip of military .303 brass & hunt with that with our sportrised SMLEs, we'd inevitably find that the necks would split in firing in more than 50% of the brass. That stuff was 20-50 years old.
 
30-06 brass fire formed to 25/06 AI?
Fired and put away dirty?

Chemicals left from firing may attack the brass over years, if not cleaned before storage?
 
What ever happened, there is a physical reason.

I spoke with an "Expert" at Sierra and his answer was, "Yes, Brass hardens with age". He suggestion was to anneal the brass or throw it away and get some more. So There you have it.

A friend of mine gave me a reasonable explanation as to a reason that I will accept. If the brass was stored in a garage, here in Texas, for several decades, It would become work hardened due to expansion and contraction due to hot days and cold nights. This makes sense to me. Many days in the summers down here it will reach over 120 in a garage and in the winters it will often be in the 20s or below. The cycles would be in the thousands over 40 or 50 years.

It is a proven fact that this brass acts like it is work hardened. This is as good an answer as I can find.

So There!
 
Yes, it was necessary.

antelopedundee said:
Was it really necessary/expedient even then to form .25-06 AI cases from .30-06 cases?
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Mr. Antelope,

Yes, it was necessary. When I said this was a 25/06 AI I was trying not to confuse anyone any more than necessary. It was and extended version of the 25/06 AI. Same shoulder but the case was pushed out a little to get the most out of an '06 case. This was made my a local gunsmith in San Angelo, Texas, George Curry and called the 250 Curry Magnum. He started this in the early 1950s. It was a fine cartridge in it's day and it still is today. With a 100 grain bullet, it is a very fast and very flat shooting cartridge that is very close to the .257 Weatherby. In that day, military brass was all over the place but money was not. What we did was neck down a 30/06 case in two stages to 270 and then onto .257. We had a the 270 part touching the front of the chamber for head space. Sometimes we actually used 270 Winchester brass. You must remember that back in those days even a 25/06 was a wildcat. If someone wanted something like that today they would simply go with a 25/06 AI and use 25/06 brass. Today there are so many more standard chamberings on the market than there were back then but are we any smarter.

Concho Bill
 
Bill Wynne said:
I spoke with an "Expert" at Sierra and his answer was, "Yes, Brass hardens with age". He suggestion was to anneal the brass or throw it away and get some more. So There you have it.

A friend of mine gave me a reasonable explanation as to a reason that I will accept. If the brass was stored in a garage, here in Texas, for several decades, It would become work hardened due to expansion and contraction due to hot days and cold nights. This makes sense to me. Many days in the summers down here it will reach over 120 in a garage and in the winters it will often be in the 20s or below. The cycles would be in the thousands over 40 or 50 years.

It is a proven fact that this brass acts like it is work hardened. This is as good an answer as I can find.

So There!
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That's perty steenkin brilliant
 
Bill Wynne said:
Mr. Antelope,

Yes, it was necessary. When I said this was a 25/06 AI I was trying not to confuse anyone any more than necessary. It was and extended version of the 25/06 AI. Same shoulder but the case was pushed out a little to get the most out of an '06 case. This was made my a local gunsmith in San Angelo, Texas, George Curry and called the 250 Curry Magnum. He started this in the early 1950s. It was a fine cartridge in it's day and it still is today. With a 100 grain bullet, it is a very fast and very flat shooting cartridge that is very close to the .257 Weatherby. In that day, military brass was all over the place but money was not. What we did was neck down a 30/06 case in two stages to 270 and then onto .257. We had a the 270 part touching the front of the chamber for head space. Sometimes we actually used 270 Winchester brass. You must remember that back in those days even a 25/06 was a wildcat. If someone wanted something like that today they would simply go with a 25/06 AI and use 25/06 brass. Today there are so many more standard chamberings on the market than there were back then but are we any smarter.

Concho Bill
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I wasn't very hip about some of this stuff lo those many years ago so I figured if you had a 123 AI then you sorta had a 123 as well. Too bad some of those things weren't based on the .270 Win which would have saved the task of shortening it by .050 to match the .30-06 brass. The .270 is better suited to being necked down than the 06 is. The .25-.280 Rem AI would be about a wash as far as your Curry goes.
 
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