25 wssm Factory Brass Cracking

[Jcorb81]

First post here, awesome forum so far from what I can tell. I have 5 boxes of Winchester factory 25 wssm ammo with 120 grain hollow points loaded in it. While sighting the rifle in, " Browning A Bolt" I'm noticing atleast 1 outta every 3 cases seems to be cracking at the neck. I know wssm brass tends to do that after a few reloads but very surprised to see it happen with factory ammo.... Anyone have experience with this? Should I just pull them all, dump the powder and reload them myself? Ty ahead of time.

 

[PddPdd]

If you have an annealer I would try what you proposed including a step for annealing the brass before re-sizing and reloading.

 

[std7mag]

I'll agree, sounds like the brass got hard.
You can work harden it, or it can age harden.
I'd pull the bullets, powder & primer and anneal.

 

[Panhandlin Pat]

I've had this happen with other Winchester ammo, almost like they skipped an annealing step. New factory ammo I saw it in was several years old at least, and it didn't do it while new. I'd shoot it, and anneal afterward.

 

[Huntnpack]

Yup, I've had the same experience.
Even the ones that I thought didn't crack did on subsequent firing. I'd pull em all and anneal.

YMMV.

 

[Jcorb81]

Thank you guys. I had a feeling that's what I needed to do. Now I just gotta figure out this annealing thing. Never done it before haha

 

[Panhandlin Pat]

Thank you guys. I had a feeling that's what I needed to do. Now I just gotta figure out this annealing thing. Never done it before haha

I've used an ep integrations for years. They're pretty affordable compared to other options, and very simple

 

[Mikecr]

The WSSM ammo is disposable. It fires reliably, kills things, mission accomplished.
You will not really be able to fix that brass with annealing.

On the other hand, Win 'Reloading brass' in 25WSSM is pretty good, and you can pick plenty of perfect from it.
I bought a ton of that, measured thousands, never a failure.
I gotta say, given this brass thickness and alloy, If anybody is killing this brass BEFORE blowing up their guns, they have utterly failed in chamber designing and/or reloading departments.