Thread: Ridge in once fired .303 brass

I’ve got a whole bunch of once fired .303 PPU brass with these ridges in the necks. The brass was fired between 3 diff .303s, but mainly a No4 Longbranch. I recently fired some factory S&B rounds through one of the SMLEs and no ridges show. Wondering if anyone has seen this before? [ATTACH]242944

is it a trick of the light or does it continue up body of case????
nope havent seen it before..

In the past I fired some ex mil .303 ,through my no4mk1 ,only to experience multiple head separations.lucky i had a rattail rasp and latterly a .303 case removal tool to remove remainders from chamber .on inspection -a very tiny but bright ring evident on the case in front of flange . inspected remaining stocks -see the ring -round rejected.
In this case personally id get rid of those cases gut feeling ??????some type of metal fatigue.I stand to be corrected of course by those more erudite in the reloading field.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

is it a trick of the light or does it continue up body of case????
nope havent seen it before..

Trick of the light, only on the neck, almost wondering if it’s from the rifling…

This is a better photo

Have a look at the chamber.

Ok soooo I just put one of the non-ridged S&B cases through the collet die on a hunch…. First time with no pressure, second time with the pressure I have applied to the neck size cases. The second time it produced the ridges on the case.
I guess I am applying too much pressure on the ram? And are the cases still good to reload with, if the pressure I apply when neck sizing is in fact the issue?
Pissed off I didn’t think of the ram pressure beforehand

I thought it looked like collet marks but I checked back and you said once fired so figured it had to be from chamber.
Thats fairly normal for a collet die and soft brass

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

I thought it looked like collet marks but I checked back and you said once fired so figured it had to be from chamber.
Thats fairly normal for a collet die and soft brass

Ah ok, new to all this so keen to learn

Have found some articles online re these marka now that I know what to search for, fairly common it would seem

If you inspect your chamber you'll probably find a gouge - caused by flame cutting due to case necks that has split in the past.

Or....And Ive seen this. Someone had a case head snap of and probably hammered a flat screwdriver into the stuck case to get it out, damaging the neck.

Greetings,
The Lee collet dies produce very straight brass but do require brass that is not too hard. Hard brass will spring back after being sized and not provide enough tension to hold the projectile. The fix for this is to anneal the necks every two or three loads. Grinding down the pilot is not desirable and will not be needed if this is done. My .303 cases are sized in a Lee Loader die and the loads kept down so that full length sizing is not needed. Case life can be extremely short if the cases are FL sized with the die down hard on the shell holder.
GPM.

Glad you figured it out mate

Thanks for the input everyone, next task will be to check the chamber area, will post if anything untoward is found

Much better and more precise instructions exist online than the ones included with Lee collet dies. I've found some and printed them out to keep with the dies. Saved me a lot of headaches when I 1st started using them. I think this link will sum it up but I'm not sure they are the same as I've got because my dies are packed away at the moment.
https://bulletin.accurateshooter.com...-sizing-brass/