sgb

It's a first for me.

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bmcgilvray

It is a case head separation. Such failures generally result from fatigued brass that has been reloaded several times and combined with excessive head space.

Brass cases used in one of my SMLE .303 rifles are only good for about three loadings and then will begin to exhibit stretching. Continued reloading of the cases will result in a separation such as this. I've also had a couple of old antique Winchester lever action rifles whose actions were springy and would also give problems with stretched cases and separations.

It was convenient that the subsequent round extracted the case body. A handy trick for removal of a case body stuck in a chamber from a head separation such as this is to utilize a bronze cleaning brush significantly larger than the diameter of the chamber. Pushed into the case, the bronze wire bristles grab the inside case walls and when the brush is withdrawn the ruptured case will come with it.

BAC

Interesting failure. Definitely saving those pictures for reference, so thanks for sharing.


-B

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spwz99

Was it US military surplus or foreign ammo?

edr9x23super

that was definitely reloaded ammo of some kind having a case head separation; it happens on occasion, personally it has never happened to me, but every once in a while somebody at a match will bring one to show everybody.....

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Tom G

I've seen 30/6 break at the base but that was a case that was reloaded too many times. The 5.56 is one of a kind. That's a wild picture.

Knuckledrager

I have had brand new Federal M193 ball do that very thing. The case failed at the annealing line and the remainder stuck in a properly dimensioned 5.56 chamber. A spent whole casing was fed into it by allowing the BCG to come forward under spring power. The broken shell was then extracted with the mortar method. It does happen and seems to be happening more and more with M193. I expect that we will be hearing of more incidents given the increasing numbers of .223 chambers that are appearing in the AR platforms.

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sgtD

I was shooting two weeks ago and something similar happened to me with 5.56 ammo.

The rifle fired fine and then the bolt hung up. I looked to find the front half of the case sticking upright from the action in front of the bolt. Never found the back half, but it must have ejected like it was supposed to.

Had the front half remained lodged in the chamber, it would have ended in the same result as your photo. Luckily for me it had extracted and was not lodged, so no broken shell extractor was needed.

I was firing some reloads that I bought at a gun show. They were made with LC brass by a local manufacturer, who I have dealt with a lot and who has an excellent reputation. This is the first time I had fired any of his rifle loads. I'm sure the case must have been stressed too much previously or something that caused it to break in half when fired.

Edit: I just went down and dug the case out of the trash can. Here is a really bad cell phone picture of it.

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A1C Lickey

I've got a round just like that on my kitchen counter waiting for me to find my camera. I think it was WWB, I know it was fired in a 5.56 chamber. It's ripped off right at where the annealing ends. The round before it (the one that got ripped in half) fired fine and I never did find the back half of the brass. What really gets me is that the bullet is now setback a little and wiggles just a bit. Also one side of the brass has a long scratch running the length of the case from the half brass down (if that makes any sense). I'll try to post pics as soon as I find my camera.

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cvhoss

I believe this is a much more accurate description of what is happening in the OP's photos. I would NOT describe what I see in the OP's photo as case/head separation. Head separation would normally occur right at the juncture of head and case, not half way down the case length and is almost always attributable to excessive headspace and repeated full length resizing. This separation does appear to have occurred at just about the exact point that you would normally see the annealing line.

Hoss

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