Just curious: 45 Colt Brass

[Fallon Kid]

Nothing earth shattering just curious. I dumped the trash bucket after match Sunday to bring home. I found 10 or so 45 colt brass and they had a strange groove in them.  I measured the case just below the groove at .475  I measured the groove at .466  The groove appeared to be made by something serrated.

I have seen serration marks on brass about the same place but not as severe as these brass. The inside case is indented so can’t use for reload. They won’t go to waste as I also use 45 Cowboy Special brass so will cut down and use. Not worth losing sleep over but just wondering.

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

Case cannelure.  Intended to help keep bullets from getting pushed into the case by recoil or going through a repeating mechanism.

 

 

 

[Matthew Duncan]

23 minutes ago, Fallon Kid said:

…The inside case is indented so can’t use for reload….

Why can’t they be reload?

[Fallon Kid]

Matthew: I tried to expand and just pushes groove out and when run back through sizer it pushes it in slightly. Afraid it will leave a weak spot like a ‘TEAR OFF HERE’ coupon.  The brass will not be wasted. I’m just trying to figure out what caused it.

 My astrology forecast states I have a few more mistakes to make shooting n’ reloading. LOL   Ask me how I know a 45 Colt will not go in a 44-40 rifle, even though they look really close and identical in appreance.  4/6/24 WB Match. Yep. I did it.  My 44-40 now has a YELLOW cloth strip tied on the level during storage.

[Garrison Joe, SASS #60708]

Because I have had deeply cannelured cases (including the same Winchester 45 Colts) split around the case and leave the ring stuck in a chamber, I relegate these cases to being turned into Cowboy .45 Specials.  These that you pictured look to me like a "stab" tool or a roller-cutter tool was used to indent the case, rather than using a straight-knurl tool like most cannelures are applied.  They seem to be very liable to fracture on the groove.

 

Cannelures have fallen out of favor in the 21st century.  Used to be very popular in some factories' .38 special loads, where the position of the groove indicated the type of load.  I've seen some factory loads that had 2 cannelures at different heights on the case.  Neither of which were at the base of the bullet.

 

I don't reload any case now with a deep cannelure on them.   A few .45 auto cases with very shallow cannelures I continue to shoot (like a big batch of Federal military production date stamped from 2006 and 2007).

 

good luck,  GJ

[Fallon Kid]

Larson E/Garrison

Thank you so much for the information. Makes sense and I understand reason for cannelure. I have observed this cannelure for several years and have asked locally but never put the question on SASS. Glad I did, knowing the answer is always answered because the people here ‘know because they do’

These cases were more pronounced than I had ever seen before and wanted to understand reason and not speculate anymore. I assumed it was unique to a die or crimp process. Again , Thank You both. Every question I have ever put up has always been answered and I trust the answer.

And I don’t understand why a bullet would fall into a case when it is sitting on 40 grains of 3fff.   LOL

[Equanimous Phil]

The shells you posted look like MagTech to me, would be CBC head stamped. The cannelure is less deep than Winchester's. MagTech brass is all what I shoot and reload in .45 Colt because I bought a couple tousands factory ammo when I started this game and MagTech was the only affordable brand over here (Switzerland) for Cowboy ammo. I never had an issue so far with the cannelure shooting rather steady loads compared to others (6.0 grn of VV N320 under a 250 grn bullet in my rifles). While I quite dislike CBC brass in 9mm for their narrow primer pocket I encountered no seating issues with the large primers in .45 Colt.

[Major Hazzard, SASS #23254]

14 hours ago, Matthew Duncan said:

Why can’t they be reload?

I've been reloading .38, .357, .45 Colt cannelured cases, nickel and brass, on a regular basis over 40 years.  I never once had a case failure attributable to a cannelure.  

[Griff]

As stated above, a case cannelure to keep bullets from collapsing into the case.  I've shot, reloaded, many hundreds of these cases without any problems what-so-ever.  The cannelure slowly gets pressed out as the case is expanded thru combustion then resized.  If using full power loads, I can see them becoming increasingly weaker at the cannelure... but for cowboy action, highly unlikely.  At least, IME.  I lose most of my cases from either mouth splits, or longitudinal splits in the body from the repeated expansion in the seemingly max chamber sizes in cowboy rifles.   

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

The bullet never goes below the groove.  If the bullet passes the groove, you've set it too deep into the case.

 

Depending on what powder you use, it will just come up to the groove, but never pass it, cuz that's where the bullet will be,

[Assassin]

I've had and seen multiple cases separate at the cannelure. Cannelured brass only gets shot out of pistols. Use crappy brass in your rifle and you might have a crappy match.

[Garrison Joe, SASS #60708]

Ditto that.  Had to clear an annular split .38 spl case BROKEN AT THE CANNELURE  from a 73 in a major match that cost wife-at-time a buckle.  Now I carry case extractors.  

may it never happen to you!   GJ

[Go West]

I had several .38 cases with the cannelure that separated in my rifle. Got lucky with one and got it out myself. The other was removed by a local gunsmith as I had no case extractor. I threw out all of my cases with those grooves. No fun at a match. 

[Sedalia Dave]

A properly sized squib rod and a pure lead round ball will remove annularly split cases. 

[Equanimous Phil]

6 hours ago, Go West said:

I had several .38 cases with the cannelure that separated in my rifle. Got lucky with one and got it out myself. The other was removed by a local gunsmith as I had no case extractor.

 

5 hours ago, Sedalia Dave said:

A properly sized squib rod and a pure lead round ball will remove annularly split cases. 

 

I was told to keep a screw and a plastic wall plug of the right size for my brass in my gun curt to remove broken cases from the rifle chamber. Never hat to use it (yet... )

[watab kid]

that might work ....not sure till i try it and i have nothing stuck at the moment