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Joined: 18 Feb 2014 Posts: 30 Location: New Zealand

Good evening from New Zealand.

A friend of mine swears that there is no way I should be reloading non-compression formed cases. He sites the example of a ruptured barrel he witnessed which apparently had been caused by a reloaded straight walled 2 piece coming apart: ie instead of the crimp opening the straight wall migrated from the metal base avec wad and shot, went through the forcing cone but upon getting to the choke the pressure blew the side out of the barrel - fortunately opposite side to his face and eyes.

So I am thinking that the extra grip that high brass has got on the straight wall might make the above horror scenario less likely- especially if resized.

I'm pretty sure some of you guys reload ALOT more in a year than I will in a lifetime so what is the combined wisdom out there on this. Has anyone heard of or experienced this issue. I'm selfishly interested Cheddite performance because that is what I reload. I can get them in hi or low and have been opting for hi brass for this reason.

Do I need to be concerned?

Cheers

Kiwicharlin

Member Joined: 06 Oct 2007 Posts: 2346 Location: West MI

Glad your bud didn't get injured. Yes, once;

Many moons ago when shooting 20ga handloads, if i remember right they were 3" Rem hulls, through a BPS Upland Special one shell came apart in the manner your describing and got lodged halfway up the barrel. Difference, the crimp did open and no barrel failure or injury just a weird sounding shot and no bird. I attributed it to my laziness in that the shells fire-forming to the gun not "needing" re-sizing. Every reloaded shell (thousands & none compression formed) since has been re-sized and no funky ammo/hull issues since.

BTW; it's another reason I tout the bene's of the BPS platform, after owning one in 20 & 10, they are built like tanks. A bud ran over his with his 2500, knocked the junk off, good to go.

I'm pretty sure if you follow normal reloading guidelines and use sound shoot-able shotguns you will be plenty safe.

Google " cut shells ". I know people who have done this with no adverse affects. How ever I wouldn't do it or recommend it. I do think that there was a failure of some kind to your friends shotgun.