Beware of Tarnished Brass...

Permanently deleted user

March 07, 2011 16:21

This may be common knowledge for some of you, but it's a lesson learned for me. I haven't reloaded for 357 in several years and I had quite a bit of old brass. Some of it had some tarnish on it, so I threw it in the tumbler, reloaded it and went out and shot it.

I had one case that cracked all the way around an old tarnished spot. It wasn't a split but a circular crack around the the discolored spot on the case. I really don't know how many times this brass had been reloaded but the tarnish evidently weakened the case. This was a light load too.

Anyone here ever experience the same thing?

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  shoff14

  March 07, 2011 16:45

  The oxidation that brass encounters causes the brass to become brittle. This is what you experienced. The surface of the brass does not have the toughness and ductility that it once had causing the failure you seen.
  
  Similar oxidation takes place on aluminum and copper.

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  Justjump

  March 08, 2011 14:30

  I've seen this happen faster on brass I have annealed. Mostly on 30-06 i'm pushing out to straight wall. It seems to lose flexability and never will clean up completly.

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