Hello everyone!
The subject title says it all… There seems to be an extra bit of lead on the upper portion of this cartridge case. There also appears to be a small crack around that lead (maybe from hot lead?)
This cartridge in particular is a copper cased 12mm pinfire, manufactured by “A.J. Dits Et Cie”.
The headstamp (which is hard read, even without my poor photography…) is " DITS * ST GILLES * "
Is it “normal” to find cartridges with this lead overlap, onto the case?
Best Regards,
Dave.
Normal, no
Rare, also no
I think I see a slight dent in the case mouth, at that location, that shaved some lead off the bullet when it was seated. This indicates to me that the case suffered some slight damage during production (perhaps simply dropped on the floor).
It’s not uncommon to see something similar when reloading lead bullets, usually due to insufficient mouth flare prior to seating and/or crimping while seating (usually in the form of a lead ring).
Yeah, I think Tailgunner has the right idea. Here is one by SFM that suffered the same fate.
The soft lead I guess is to blame.
Tailgunner - I Understand what you are saying about the shaved lead, while seating bullets… It makes perfect sense!
Could both lead bullets pictured (both Aaron’s and mine) have been “warm” while being seated into the case? Because “cold” lead would more or less shave off, and not stick to the case (I’m assuming)
Dave
RP
From my reloading experience, it happens with “cold” lead also (and it’s difficult to remove also).
From a practical standpoint, would you want to press “warm” lead into a charge of BP?
Tailgunner - I was thinking about the warm lead and black powder mix (which I figured wouldn’t be a good mix to begin with)… I just had to ask the question and throw it out there.
I was not aware that cold lead would “stick” to a cartridge case, as my cartridge reloading experience is zero.
(I learn something new here atleast once a week!)
Thank you Tailgunner and Aaron!
Best Regards,
Dave.
I was reading a string on loading the 10.4x47 Italian Vetterli (at a Carcano forum I believe). The case dimensions, bore diameter and throat diameter of many 10.4x47 Italian Vetterli rifles seems to indicate the need for reloading the cartridges with heeled bullets. One poster reported that he avoids complications with bullet selection by loading regular .430 cast bullets and jamming them into undersized case mouths which shaves them down to produce a reduced diameter heel (Using cases formed from shortened 8x52 Lebel by PPU). I would imagine the results look like the lead shaving in this post, but would be more extensive. I wonder if such an approach might work with standard .403 lead bullets in the .41 Long Colt.
Rim-Pin: Lead is pretty darned soft stuff until it gets really cold, like dry ice or liquid nitrogen temperatures. I don’t see addition softening being much of a concern at any reasonable temperature during the loading process. Lead for cast bullets is usually alloyed to be harder and produce better castings than the almost pure lead used in swaged (cold forged) bullets. Fairly pure lead can be scraped with a finger nail. I can attest that brass cases can scrape fairly hard cast bullets. Copper cases would be somewhere in between nail and brass in hardness.
Curt