peened case heads 30-06... Garand the culpret ???

M

Magnum Wheel Man

New member
still going through & organizing my stuff after getting my walk in gun safe room completed...

in this case, I'm going through & sorting 30-06 cases... I opened a 50 cal ammo can full of more than once fired military cases... these came from my FIL... many of them have the edges of the case head peened... I've never run into anything that looks like that in my normal shooting & reloading... FIL had several bolt actions, a semi auto Remington Woodsman Carbine, & a Garand in 30-06... my experience with case abuse with semi autos, has always been case mouths or dented bodies from contact during ejection... but then I thought about the "thumb buster" feature of the Garand & thought perhaps it's from the heavy bolt spring stripping them from the clip & driving them home...

the peening is on the edges of the case head, I'm not seeing sharp edges or the look of ripped brass, like might come from the extractor... any thoughts ???

some cases have 2 peened areas on the case head, but the case looks in all other areas like it's fully serviceable... I can't see any reason not to reload them, other than possible extraction issues ???

BTW... these will go back in the Garand since I'm using commercial brass in my other rifles...
 
So load eight and run them through your Garand. Then you'll know whether or not there's a problem. :)

Or try an empty case in a bolt action, to see if there is an extraction problem.
 
Thanks ART... that was my plan... what I was curious though, was how they got that way... if I buy new brass for use in the Garand, will they become peened, ( I have shot the Garand "some" but not a lot, & never have fired FIL's old Remington woodsman carbine ) so I don't know if one of those rifles has a tendency to peen the case head ??? was hoping someone who shoots either rifle could offer an opinion
 
The "thumb buster" feature is operator failure.
Peened isn't the right word. Peened means whatever gets that way is smaller. You meaning the extractor groove is damaged? That can be either your M1 or the 740/742/750. Gas operated semi's will do that. Isn't something to worry about.
 
actually the case head edge is beveled in an area roughly the size of the bolt offset ( a 3/8" radius from 1/2 way to the primer, to over lap the edge of the base of the case ), so if you look at the groove, the groove is the same diameter, but the bottom of the case is thinner at that edge...

I'm wondering if the bolt hits that spot, on a double stack magazine ( clip in the case of the Garand ) & hammers that spot, which then slides into the bolt face, as the cartridge goes into the chamber ???
 
I need to establish an agreed definition. The case head by my understanding is the area between the case rim and the case body including the extractor groove.

Is the ding in the brass just above or on the bottom of the start of the case body, or in the extraction groove? I own a mini-14 that dings brass just a fraction of an inch above the extractor groove. I have seen the same thing in 308 brass fired in M1A's, and case deformation with my my brothers FAL. A picture would be good.

In the case of the mini-14. full length sizing reduces the depth. Firing forms the dent out, but a new one appears on ejection. I have wondered if this significantly reduces case life, I heave heard not, but haven't read a real study. I have so much raw brass that I have reused but small portion more than once.

I would guess what another poster said, reload a few and see the results. I would shoot a few virgin rounds also.
 
Sounds like whatever "hammering" is occurring is happening on the rear of the case, outside the primer pocket.

If the extraction groove is unaffected, it sounds more cosmetic than harmful. The only other problem I can imagine is if the peened edge has enlarged the diameter of the rearmost part of the case. (Very slightly egg-shaped.)
 
here are a few pictures... all the case heads are round ( at least within a couple .001's"

it's hard to capture the peening ( I'm not very good with the camera ) I'll post a couple single cases & link a group picture, as it's too big... seems when I resize the pictures smaller, they get grainy for some reason... so click 30-06 big at the bottom to see several cases

in the "big" pic, you can see several with the edges peened( most noticeable is one close to the center ) but if you look at them all, by changes in the way the light reflects, you can tell that several are peened the same way...

& again, I'm not as interested if I can reload them, as I am the cause of the peening... if it is the Garand, is something wrong with it, or is that something that the Garand does, & there is no fix for it

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Those look like ejector marks. The bolt picking up a cartridge under normal function should not mark the cases that hard. Look at the ejector on each rifle and see which one matches the shape of the mark. My bet is the Garand.
 
I didn't give thought to the ejector, as what I'm used to shooting is smaller / short action semi's, & I thought most ejectors went further into the case head ( not just caught the edge like seen on these cases ) ... perhaps that's a combination of the heavier case & longer action ??? I'll have to look at both semi's ejectors & see if it looks like a match...

thanks for the reply
 
Could be the ejector; could be that a "stiff" extractor is hitting it during the forward travel of the bolt.

I guess that I'd take a clean case and let the bolt slam forward; gently extract it and look. If no peening, I'd then fire a round and examine the case head.

If FIL's rifles are gone away, it's all moot. Offhand, it doesn't look like the brass is unusable. That area isn't critical insofar as safety.
 
thanks for the suggestions guys... must be something specifically related to one of these 2 semi autos, as I don't recall seeing brass that looked like this before...

ART... we have both these rifles still, we were not going to let MRS dad's favorite deer rifle or his very nice Garand go anywhere ;)
 
That looks to me to be damage to the case rim not the case
head. In my definition the ejector is just a protrusion that knocks the case clear of the action at the rearmost part of it's travel. The extractor, was I thought, the device that grabs the case rim mechanically and holds it through it's travel before and after firing.

I have only seen anything similar caused by high pressure, on a Mini-14. It was caused by getting mil-surp, Lake City brass w/o the primer crimp removed, mixed in with American Eagle brass, and my ignorance of prepping mil-surp brass. My try at reloading 223-5.56. I didn't know why 8 out of 10 of these pieces of brass would not take a primer, and why the ones that did took much more force to prime. Of coarse I was loading an unusual bullet for me, 69gr boattail.

I experienced a blown primer on one and the next was stuck in the barrel throat w/o a primer and two pieces of the case rim missing. The parts of the rim grabbed by the extractor.

My only question is did your FIL load these? Did he use small base dies? Was this mil-surp brass? I only see one piece of brass in the photos that look like the damage was due to the extractor. Could this be caused by debris or damage to the bolt face? I don't have enough knowledge of the Garand to give more than a guess. I would shoot some virgin cases and see if they are simlarly deformed. You could look closely at the bolt face and extractor for debris or damage. Good luck.
 
these ( pictured ) are LC-63 headstamp, & most have been reloaded several times ( 30-06 & 223 were his highest volume reloads ) FIL has been gone for quite a while now, but this ammo can of brass I opened, I've never loaded... we retain 3 of FIL's 30-06s & I have one that I purchased ( so 4 total ) so I'm separating the brass by brand, one for each gun the 2 bolt rifles & the Remington are getting commercial brass, the Garand I'll shoot milsurp brass... so I haven't decided if I'll keep this stuff, ( as I like matching headstamp brass ) or if I'll end up scrapping it ( I doubt it would sell with the peening on the bases ??? they are kinda ugly, even if fully functional )
 
After looking at pictures of those cases, it looks to me like the edge of the rim's been peened flat at about 30 to 40 degrees. Exactly like semiauto loaded cases from a Garand I was inspecting that had a sticky extractor. Hand closing a bolt on a new round took a lot more force than a couple others I was checking. Slamming home on a new round in firing it, ejected cases had that same flattened rim area about 1/8th to 3/16ths inch long

Removed the bolt, extractor, and its spring and cleaned out the bolt as well as the ejector with naptha on a tooth brush and pipe cleaner. Dried everything, lubed everything with Plastilube, reassembled. Problem went away.
 
Thanks for the reply BART... I'll have to give that a try... ( not sure if the rifle is still doing that, or if it was a problem when FIL 1st got it, & he fixed it after seeing the brass cases ) but I'm suspecting that it was not corrected, since some of the cases have 2 or even 3 peening spots
 
It is hard to tell from the pictures, but those look a bit like the "smeared" headstamps resulting from very high pressures. Are the primer pockets still tight?

If I understand, the cases came from your FIL, but are you sure he fired them? He might have just scrounged the brass somewhere.

Jim
 
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