22 Hornet Question

[MWD 800]

I was out tonight and took a few shots with my .22 Hornet. The guy I bought the gun from gave me some of his hand loads when I bought the gun. I fired four off and got looking at the casings. Two are severly cracked. What was this caused by? I know pressure but could improper seating do it as well? I am new to reloading and I don't want to have this happen again when I start mixing up my own recipes.

Heres a picture to show the damage.

22 Hornet Cracked Casings - Small.jpg

Any thoughts would be great,
Joe

[rottie]

Could be the cases had been resized too many times,as well if the shoulder is set back too many times when resizeing this can cause your brass to stretch thus weakening it. This weakened brass can then split.
Do you see any other signs of excess pressur,blown primers,primers pierced that sort of thing?


Ian

[Echo-Gecko]

I would discard the brass you have that looks like it may be old or if you wonder about it
The Hornet is supposedley hard on brass.

Also Lil gun powder from Hodgdon is magic in the hornet.
It supposedley will make your brass last longer too.

[MWD 800]

Originally Posted by rottie

Could be the cases had been resized too many times,as well if the shoulder is set back too many times when resizeing this can cause your brass to stretch thus weakening it. This weakened brass can then split.
Do you see any other signs of excess pressur,blown primers,primers pierced that sort of thing?


Ian

No other signs of excessive pressure.

[Dean2]

The splits are strictly poor reloading practices, unless you have an almost unheard of loose neck in the chambering of your gun, but I would bet heavily against that. Easy way to tell is shooot some factory through it, if they don't split it is the poor reloading job. I would throw out the brass from this guys reloads and start with fresh, preferrably Privi or second choice, Winchester brass. Try to stay away from Remington on Hornet brass.

I shoot 5 Hornets, brass usually last 15+ reloads per case, though I have one gun that has a looser neck and they usually last about 12 or 13 loads, all with with no annealing and neck sizing only. I keep the brass in well marked plastic cases and ALWAYS shoot the same brass out of the same gun.

All 5 shoot exactly the same load, 12.6 grains of Lil"Gun, thrown with a Lyman 55 and not weighed individually, Fed Small Pistol Primer, and a Sierra 40Grain Blitzking set at 1.81 LOA. Worst one groups this at .6 at 100, a couple will do considerably better than that. Good luck with the new gun, it is probably my favourite small caliber. They are a blast to shoot. If you want any other info on the Hornet feel free to PM me.

[junkdude]

Have a hornet and my brass fails exactly the same way. I've had only one with a circumferential crack just below where the bullet is seated. It's almost exclusively caused by work hardening of the neck region due to repeated reloading. Looks like one of the cracks goes a fair ways down, possibly caused by repeated full length sizing. I only neck size far enough to hold the bullet firmly, this seems to extend the case life as I'm not working the entire case. Usually get at least a dozen loads before problems start to show up. I've got some old Dominion brass that has had many many loads and no failures yet. Also hot loads will drastically reduce the case life.

A person could aneal the necks but in my opinion it's not worth the hassle with the hornet.

Inspect cases for hairline cracks and toss the ones that don't look right. I've shot mine untill they crack, no problems; then they retire to the scrap bin. If you are worried about it, just start over with new brass. Nothing wrong with erring on the side of safety.

Good powders in the hornet are 4227, H110 and Lil'Gun.