Steel case to brass case

[myrifle]

I have a 16” 6.5 Grendel that seems to have a chamber on the large size of spec and in combination to being over gassed I got quite a few split steel cases. I could never see any evidence of a split case by inspecting the chamber. I wondered if the case was splitting as it was extracting and hitting the edge of the receiver or shell deflector. I chalked it up to hot soft steel but never paid much attention. I did notice I rarely got split steel cases in my other AR-15 6.5 Grendel barrels. I have no proof but I suspected the steel cases split after pressures had dropped. All the split cases were longitudinal from the case mouth towards the base in the body of the case. The case split wasn’t very large and just reminded me of a metal fatigue crack.

I might get three to four split cases out of twenty round box out of the 16” barrel. With my other barrels I’d get one or two split cases in eighty to one hundred rounds. I wouldn’t be surprised if split steel cases was more common in over gassed semi autos or when using a suppressor where the dwell time might not be optimal.

Split cases in Wolf/Barnaul steel cases has come up for discussion a few times over the years on this forum. I’ve not seen any reports of damage as a result of a split steel case.

Yes that's what I'm getting from these last two 500 round packs.

I have had a few over the years do it but never this many rounds. Add to that the primer pockets being to deep.

I literally have 10's of thousands of once fired hornady brass.

So just pulling the bullet/powder and putting them into a brass case with a cci450 would salvage a good bit of plinking ammo for ruffly no price to my pocket book.