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I have a piece of brass from a few years ago where there was a definite ridge in the area just above the extractor groove, where brass had flowed, forming a rim-like protrusion around the case:
If you were to run your fingernail along the case wall, you would hit an unmistakeable ridge. I pulled this piece of brass from the population and set it aside. Today, I decided to section it to see if my culling was necessary.
I put on my safety glasses, mounted it in my vice, and proceeded to cut it with a thin cutting wheel. Being a human and prone to error, I soon learned that this piece of brass that I thought had a dead primer, in fact had a live primer. Imagine my surprise when the blast impacted my face, and a voice whispered to me, "Good thing you had your glasses on...you were prepared."
I have a friend, now passed away, who had a fragment fly into his eye while working inside a Russian ZIL truck with the small arms repair module area on back. The Russian hospitals weren't so great to him, and he lived his remaining days with a patch over that destroyed eye. Please wear eye protection when dealing with primers, cutting tools, or anything that could be potentially dangerous to your eyesight. I added another notch of hearing loss to my existing tinnitus, but my eyes are fine because I wore safety glasses. I could have kept this story to myself, but if it persuades just one person to make changes to their safety procedures, I'll be happy.
After that wake-up call, I got this:
From this endeavor, I concluded that the ridge probably wasn't a big issue and I could have used this piece again as long as it would have chambered and extracted ok. I could be wrong, as God and you all know.
Here is some of the brass I recently ran through the vibratory polisher. The band is higher up on the case wall, so I'm going to section one of these as well:
My biggest concern is the potential for case head separation.
If you were to run your fingernail along the case wall, you would hit an unmistakeable ridge. I pulled this piece of brass from the population and set it aside. Today, I decided to section it to see if my culling was necessary.
I put on my safety glasses, mounted it in my vice, and proceeded to cut it with a thin cutting wheel. Being a human and prone to error, I soon learned that this piece of brass that I thought had a dead primer, in fact had a live primer. Imagine my surprise when the blast impacted my face, and a voice whispered to me, "Good thing you had your glasses on...you were prepared."
I have a friend, now passed away, who had a fragment fly into his eye while working inside a Russian ZIL truck with the small arms repair module area on back. The Russian hospitals weren't so great to him, and he lived his remaining days with a patch over that destroyed eye. Please wear eye protection when dealing with primers, cutting tools, or anything that could be potentially dangerous to your eyesight. I added another notch of hearing loss to my existing tinnitus, but my eyes are fine because I wore safety glasses. I could have kept this story to myself, but if it persuades just one person to make changes to their safety procedures, I'll be happy.
After that wake-up call, I got this:
From this endeavor, I concluded that the ridge probably wasn't a big issue and I could have used this piece again as long as it would have chambered and extracted ok. I could be wrong, as God and you all know.
Here is some of the brass I recently ran through the vibratory polisher. The band is higher up on the case wall, so I'm going to section one of these as well:
My biggest concern is the potential for case head separation.
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