Hornady/Frontier brass

J

jaybic

Guest
Hello all,

Its the local dumb kid with yet another question. I have been trying to mimic the performance/speed of Hornady factory rounds for my 22-250. They are 50 grain V-max loaded on Hornady/frontier brass using WLR primers and H4895 loaded to Max book charge. I dont have my recipe or the loading manual in front of me but I think its 35 grains. This is the recipe given me by the Hornady tech line guys to match as close to possible what they are using.

Anyway, these are brand new factory rounds that I shot for the cases and now I reloaded them as above and out of 40 rounds, 20 have been reloaded once and the other 20 twice, or three times max. Upon inspecting the case to reload again, I found 10 that had split necks and on two of them the neck was split on both sides, 180 degrees opposite of each other.

I have been full-lenght resizing and loading to factory OAL to try and clone those rounds and I dont know if its junk brass, to hot or what but I am hoping someone might have some ideas.

Thanks for any insight.

James
 
It sounds to me like the case necks may be borderline too hard, and being oversized as well. Factory chambers are usually too large so that even the thickest necked ammunition will chamber, most sizing dies size the case necks too small just in case there are any overly thin necks, then rely on the expander ball to get the inside of the case necks more or less the correct size. Brass work hardens, and when it gets too hard it breaks/cracks/splits.

Measure the OD of an unsized fired case necks, then measure the unexpanded OD of that case's neck after sizing (remove the decapping stem/neck expander from the die), and the OD of neck after it's been expanded. That will give you an idea of how much the neck is being expanded and reduced and re-expanded with each firing/sizing.

You might want to try some WW or RP brass to see if it lasts any longer. I had a .22-250 a long time ago that would produce head separations on the 3d or 4th firing if cases were FL sized because the rifle's chamber was so large. The FL die reduced the cases to fit a minimum chamber which overworked and hardened them excessively. The only cure - outside of a new barrel - was to neck size the cases. Your problem isn't the same, but might be similar just on the other end of the case.
 
hornady brass

Get some remington WW or other brass to mimic the round. Ihave always found frontier/hornady brass was awful hard, and didnt last more than a couple of reloads. I dont think hornady anneals the brass, they are in the market to sell ammunition, not brass.
 
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