Brass life

[redhands]

I am starting to see split cases after 3 firings.
Brass is S&B 9mm. Cases bought new as 115gr factory load.
All loads use 4.7 gr unique with 125 gr fmj bullet.
Carbide TC rcbs die.
I was expecting the cases to last a bit longer, does anyone else have a similar experience?

[HackerF15E]

Yes, I'd be surprised to see split cases with that few loads.

[5pins]

I normally lose .45 and 9MM brass before it becomes unusable. Three firings is a pretty short life span.

[RCI1911]

Yeah that is not a normal lifespan. You should be able to get quite a bit more out of it then that. Is the S&B brass thinner then other brands? You might want to compare it to some other major brands for a comparison.

[Univibe]

I'm a careful reloader, but I confess to shooting auto-pistol rounds until the mouth splits. I mostly reload .45, and they seem to last almost forever. Allah alone knows how many times I've reloaded some of my .45s.

I also reload 9mm but not long enough to notice how long they last. But I agree with the above posters; nines should last for many reloadings before they split. Something's not right here.

I have no experience loading S&B in quantity, other than some that have crept into my bucket of .45 cases. They seem no different from any other when I reload them.

[TiroFijo]

In my experience the 9 mm is about the strongest case out there, it lasts forever no matter the maker.

I have reloaded tens of thousands of 9 mm rounds, with components of all brands including S&B (lots of S&B cases used). My friend sells reloaded ammo (LOTS of ammo reloaded by now) and has the same experience.

It seems there is something wrong there.

[redhands]

That's what I thought. I have either gotten someone else's discards mixed in or a batch of hard cases.
Thanks to everyone for the replies.

[KCabbage]

It's most likely the S&B brass. I can't speak for their 9mm brass but I have had several problems with their 6.8 SPC brass. Oversized rims, trouble seating primers, very brittle brass after just a few reloads resulting in the neck tearing off while sizing. The Hornady and SSA brass on the other hand has been fine.

Supposedly S&B is going to drop the 6.8 SPC round and are disappointed they even got involved with it. Now I can see why. Good riddance.

[jtmontana]

That is not normal. Ive reloaded my 45 acp multiple times and still have not seen any cracks. Maybe just a bad batch of brass.

[nineteenkilo]

I'll add a +1 to the 'not-normals'. I don't keep very accurate counts on my handgun brass, but I would guess some of them have been loaded 20 or more times before they get recycled.

[redhands]

Thanks again guys for all the replies. It is one lot of brass and once in awhile I suspect I have picked up someone else's brass. I never noticed hard primer seating or loose pockets. Other than measuring case length and the number of firings I am simply shooting it to endpoint. I was just suprised to see it happen so soon.

[piesandcheese]

I know this thread is fairly old and the original poster will probably miss this post, but for those of you sifting through old threads...

The most common cause of case neck splitting in straight walled cartridges is putting too much flair on the case mouth.

As many of you know, the last step to prepping the brass is to add a slight flair to the mouth of the case with the expander die. If your expander die is set too low, it could be potentially over working the brass and inevitably "work-hardening" the mouth of the case. The idea is to get just slightly enough flair to seat the bullet. Anything more than this will sacrifice the structural integrity of the brass.

When I was new to reloading, I had many split cases due to this issue.

I hope this was helpful :)