Greetings All,

Returning to loading after a long hiatus (1981 to present - how time flies) I have found these many pages in the KCA Forum to be most helpful. I was taken by the suggested load as referenced ButlersRangers, 110grain RN over 26gr of IMR-4198 = `2000fps. I loaded a small number as a test and was satisfied my rifle seemed happy.

Now I am loading the rest of the box of bullets in my collection of old brass. Turning to a box, ~50 rnds, of headstamp “WRA Co. .30 ARMY” all was well until it wasn’t. The photo will show the cause of my concern. I pulled this round out of the press and the first thought was, “it reminds me of a zoot suit!” Granted, there may not be many left who will understand the  so I will say - flared shoulders.

This particular round measures 0.433” while the SPEER reference dia. is 0.4190 as is the Sierra. After three more cases exhibited similar but not as drastic deformation I thought I might need to clean out the case necks to ease the bullet home. Meanwhile the other part of my brain mulled over the implications. Should I try to chamber these rounds and fire form? But would the case fail, leaving me with a real mess - at least? Perhaps I should break them down, save the powder and bullet and try to pop the primer at the range followed by full length resizing the case.

Or is there another explanation I haven’t considered? I am not sure I want to force chamber these four rounds. That seems too risky. I hope there is value in mentioning this as it may be an issue another might encounter. Are there reports of cases being too soft in the shoulder area?

I await further information and thank you in advance if you have a perspective.

Hi Parashooter,

Thank you for the information. For clarification, the seating die loaded about 75 rounds with no problems and was not adjusted to crimp. I will, however confirm the proper set up per your suggestion.

Had not considered a full length sizing after removing the primer pin from the die. It makes sense as you tell it and if necessary I will follow your direction.

As I hope to equal Paul’s number of reloads per case I hate to toss a case unless there is a dangerous situation. I have a small number (<10) with cracks forward of the shoulder over the years since I first started shooting this rifle in 1976. I recently broke down and bought 400 WW new brass. My thinking - we never know when the well will go dry.

In addition to all the good points brought up by 'parashooter' and 'whig', your Brass, stamped "WRA Co. - .30 ARMY", is very old and likely has gotten brittle with age, (unless the necks have been annealed).

Personally, I don't risk reloading brass from the 1930's & 1940's.
(I'm Scottish, but, new .30-40 brass is available. Using brass older than me seems like false economy).

When I recently made 'reduced' .30-40 loads with the 110 grain RN projectiles, I noticed a bit more resistance to the bullet base entering the case-mouth, then I find with the heavier projectiles, I normally use.
(The brass used in my 110 grain 'reduced loads' was trimmed, de-burred, and pretty 'fresh').

Possibly, with 'stiffer' old brass, this resistance may have contributed to your partial case collapse.

I imagine 'flaring' the case mouth a bit would help the flat based 110 grain projectiles more easily enter old case necks.
Annealing, trimming, de-burring, and having the 'crimp' out-of-play should eliminate other potential bullet seating issues.

Heck, I would think with a buckled case neck, it could hamper easy bullet seating and make a ring of resistance greater than it should be, like a strong crimp, and create a higher pressure when the bullet is trying to exit with powder pressure building behind it.

Also, the bullet may be seated deeper than it should with the shortened neck and create a smaller case volume for the powder and therefore higher pressure.

I don't think the pressures would be significantly increased but my comment was that I don't like to increase risk in any way when I'm dealing with reloading and shooting. There's enough inherent risk with shooting, especially 120+ old firearms, that we should be prudent to be as safe as possible.

Any increased pressures beyond normal with a possibly damaged case potentially increases risk in my book.

Anything wrong with my reasoning? I always like to learn from any erroneous logic!

I wouldn't bother because of the age of the brass, but, if 'RicKrager' wants to experiment with this brass, he could pull the bullets and salvage the powder.

The (primed) partially collapsed cases could be 'fire-formed' with a suitable pistol-powder load and paper towel wadding.

Once 'fire-formed', the case necks could be annealed, trimmed, and neck-sized, to ready them for 'reduced-load' use.

I want to thank you all for your perspectives on this item. also thanks to clansman butlersrangers - I admit I tend to be frugal with the brass. Perhaps the old WRA should retire. At this time in life I can afford new WW brass. That was not always true.

For a more complete picture I offer the following:
Case prep. For most of my primed brass, they were sitting primed since about 1980. That suggests sized, trimmed and de-burred at the neck (in and out) as that I did back then. They were not cleaned. Now to the present - they were wiped outside, then after successfully loading about 75 and experiencing the case collapse and the first of your replies I brushed out the necks and neck sized and loaded until I ran out of IMR-4198 (bought pre-1980).

With my dial caliper I had checked case length and loaded length. LOA was to butlersrangers suggested 2.760”. This dimension continued to be checked every few rounds due to concern over the few that showed slight bulging at the shoulder. I also, following parashooters’s comment, checked the seating die for crimp as he suggested. There seemed to be resistance with and empty case and the die was backed out a bit, one case loaded and LOA checked. I set the seater down a little to achieve 2.760”. Once convinced the rounds were within spec I loaded our the last of the 4198.

Future loading once past the lot of primed cases will include clean if not new, necksize, trim, chamfer, prime, load. With 500 more 110Gr. and several hundred more up to 180Gr RN, I will need more brass soon.

Thanks again to each of you for your input. My old shooter thanks you -

Zoots.  I remember having to ask an old friend what the heck a Zoot suit was.  That would have been back in the 60s.  He was a WWII vet that knew everything.  Well, almost everything.  I have an old file trim die that would fix your collapsed shoulder, no disassembly of the rounds needed.  It's the die I use to push the shoulder back on .303 British I sometimes shoot in my Krag.  It's also a good way to make sure you don't have any overlength cases to cause the problem.  Now I remember how the subject of Zoot Suits came up.  It was the plaid "leisure suit" jacket that I got my junior year, so the question to him would have been in the early 70s.

Nice price on W-W brass, 'Culpeper'.