what the hey.......?

[buck460XVR]

went to the range today with my youngest and had a blast. Shot up a brick of rimfire, Coupla hundred .357 and a hundred rounds of .460. On the last cylinder of shells outta the X-Frame, one of empties comes out in two pieces. It was from a batch of 60 "reduced recoil" loads with 29 grns of 2400 pushin a 250grn. XTP. Large rifle primer. This is the starting load from the new Speer manual and was one of over 100 shells of the same loading. I have found that compared to the factory loaded 200's it is much more accurate with a tad less recoil.....but still enough push to remind you what you're shootin'.

Common sense says to much pressure, but again it is supposed to be a mild target load and again it's a starting load. No other signs of pressure. Extraction was as easy as the factory loads I took along for comparison. Primers were flatened less than factory loads.(don't know how well you can see it in the enclosed pics.) and no other shells showed any signs of cracks/breaks/pressure. Could not tell there was a problem till extraction as all shots sounded and shot the same.....there were five holes in a six inch circle @ 50 yards with open sight's. This was the second time reloading this same load in casings that were factory loaded Hornady's shot from the same revolver.......or fired a total of 3 times. Casing shot out already? If so should I throw the others like them away....or could it just be one bad case?  Since this is 2400, I know I can't back off much lower and since the load worked so well other than this one casing I'm hoping to continue to use it. Is it just the cheap Hornady casings? The 40 shells I had loaded heavier with H110 and 240 gr. XTP mags also shot well and showed no signs of excess pressure, but were near not as pleasant to shoot. I was hoping the 2400 load was gonna be my "go to" range load and had even consider moving up a little in load because the recoil was so pleasant.......now I'm perplexed and cornfused.


In both pics, the casing on the left is the reload that split and the other is a factory load shot the same day in the same gun.

[Luckyducker]

It sounds like you have your ducks in a row as far as the loading, and I believe by looking at the spent casings that it was a fluke caused by a faulty casing.  I wouldn't throw the whole lot away because of one seperation, but would check a random sample of others from this bunch with a "hooked" paper clip to see if they exhibit a stress line at the same place as this one split.  If you feel a line of seperation starting in some of the others I think you should toss them.  If indeed the others are in the process of case failure I wonder if the factory loads are the culprit.

[LaOtto222]

I agree with luckyducker. Check your cases for signs of separation both internal and externally. It sounds like you just had a bad case. If you find several more, I would chuck the whole bunch. I have not had experience with Hornady cases, but I know they are more expensive than Winchester or Remington cases. I just bought 100 Hornady cases to try in my 44 Mag, you are making me a little nervous here.

[Catfish]

You might want to check the diameters of the chambers in your cylinder. The only times I`ve seen what you have is when a chamber was over sized and the brass was over worked weaking it where the chamber was over sized. You can check by micing your fired cases and compairing their diameter to unfired rounds. Or it could have been a bad case.

[yooper77]

The 460 S&W magnum just like the 454 Casull work off of very high pressure, so reloading once fired factory cases can have a short life even if you reduce loads.

Hopefully you will be able to get some more reloads out of your brass.

I always purchase new 454 Casull brass and reload for accuracy and try not to max out the powder in my 12" T/C Encore.  If I do load my 454 Casull at max pressure, then after I trim them to 45 Colt length and use them in my Ruger Blackhawk.

The new Starline 454 Casull brass I have bought, all have measured shorter that printed trim length in all my reloading manuals.

I just bought 500 pieces of Magtech 454 Casull brass and hopefully this brass is more uniform and longer.

yooper77