Use of 'balloon head' cases

[PJ Hardtack]

Yesterday, a guest shooter had a balloon head Dominion .45 Colt case come apart in the chamber of his Winchester clone rifle. Load was 30 grs FFFg and a 200 gr bullet.
This was old brass, reloaded several times. He is new to CAS and thought it was cool to use this brass in his Remington '75. Not any more .....
We were remiss in not noticing that he wasn't wearing safety glasses at the time. His face and eyes were shot full of gas. No permanent damage, and after washing out his eyes, he came back to finish the match.

I've had balloon head Dominion .455 brass separate while reloading it. It isn't difficult to pull the head off if a case isn't well lubed.

[Flint]

Balloon head cases were the standard, sort of, in the early cartridge days, both rimfire by necessity, and centerfire before the switch to solid head cases.  The weak rim is the reason chambers were recessed for the rim, as 22 rimfires are today.

To fire a baloon head case in a non recessed cylinder is dangerous, as the shooter above found out.  As the case is old, it should be loaded black powder only, and lightly.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Balloon head cases were the standard, sort of, in the early cartridge days, both rimfire by necessity, and centerfire before the switch to solid head cases.  The weak rim is the reason chambers were recessed for the rim, as 22 rimfires are today.

To fire a baloon head case in a non recessed cylinder is dangerous, as the shooter above found out.  As the case is old, it should be loaded black powder only, and lightly.

Howdy

I disagree.

I believe you are confusing Balloon Head cases with folded rim Benet Primed cases.

The case on the left in this photo is a balloon head case. On the right is a modern case. Yes, there is substantially less metal in a Balloon Head case, but they were used by manufacturers for many years, without the need for recessed chambers. My Colts do not have recessed chambers, neither do any of my S&W 38s, many of which are old enough to have been made in the Balloon Head cartridge era.





This next photo shows several folded rim Benet Primed cases. First off, notice the cases are made of copper, not brass. Copper is softer and weaker than cartridge brass. Looking at the sectioned round you can see the folded rim construction. Rounds such as these were very prone to case head separation, particularly early Govt 45-70 rounds.





Balloon Head cases can be fully loaded with Black Powder, there is no reason to down load them. They were made for many years without any problems.

If somebody had a problem with an old Balloon Head case I would lay it up to the fact that the case was old and probably work hardened. I would not blame the Balloon Head design.

[PJ Hardtack]

We're all geniuses after the fact, but the post mortem finding was that the brass was a) old, b) several times reloaded with BP.
It was the last rd fired in a 10 shot string, if that has any bearing.

The case that separated for me in the sizing die was from a batch only fired with light smokeless loads in my Tranter with non-recessed chambers. They had been loaded only once or twice before.

There was a reason makers got away from balloon headed cases.

[pony express]

If theyre old enough, they may have been origionally loaded with the corrosive primers (or maybe refered to a "mercuric"...not sure the exact terminology.) I have read that that can make brass brittle, especially if not cleaned immediately.

I have a few balloon head .45 Colt cases, have had a couple of them split at the neck or in the body. Also have some balloon 45-70 cases, military 1950's dated. Origionally line throwing blanks. I expect from the date, they were probably origionally loaded with non corrosive primers.

[Dick Dastardly]

Howdy Driftwood,

Wasn't the rim, or near lack of it, the reason rifles were not chambered in 45 Colt?  I'm thinkn' that the balloon head may have been a problem with rifle extractors.  That, and copper hulls.

DD-MDA

[Tuolumne Lawman]

Early copper cases with the Benet' cup primer were folded head, not balloon head.  I suspect that the number of times reloaded had as much or more to do with the failure.  I have seen this kind of separation in non-balloon head cases as well.  I had some old balloon head .45 Colt cases.  I loaded them with 40 grain holy black and a old style 255 grain bullet.  I shot them in a Henry Nettleton Single Action Army. WOW!!!!!  Case heads stayed intact, but good lord, did they buck and roar!

[Shotgun Franklin]

I doubt that the old balloon type cases were intended to be reloaded as many times as we reload ours now.
I have been surprised that a case maker hasn't made a run of balloon head cases for the BP to use. The price would be higher but I'd bet there would be a market for a small, in relative terms, run.
I wonder if it would be possible to have a modern case cut to duplicate a balloon head case? Or is the folded case stronger because it was folded? I have no clue myself.

[Fairshake]

I have a few hundred 44WCF balloon head cases in Winchester and R-P brands. I load them and shoot them for fun and not in matches with not a single problem.
The Winchester are the older of the two with the R-P cases most likely being produced in the fifties.
I have shot these with 37 grain loads with good results.
The problem that some had with these cases is as was posted by pony express, they were loaded with corrosive primers.
I can't believe that a entire group of people in a SASS posse did not see that the shooter had no glasses on. That means that the entire group needs a refresher course in range safety.
We look at every one as we are preparing to raise the flag and say the pledge to our flag to see if they have glasses and ear protection. Every member is a range safety officer and may point any infractions out to the RO before this person comes to the line.
It would be impossible to pass any group I've ever shot with and not be called for hot wearing glasses.
I've shot SASS for the past 5 years and many other matches since 1970 and have never seen a shooter on the line with a loaded gun with no glasses.
The ballon head case was the least of his problems.

[Fox Creek Kid]

The old fired brass is weak because of the priming compounds in the Old Days which were death on brass. Fulminate of mercury being the big offender as it reacts with the BP residue and becames as salt if I remember correctly.

[Grapeshot]

The old fired brass is weak because of the priming compounds in the Old Days which were death on brass. Fulminate of mercury being the big offender as it reacts with the BP residue and becames as salt if I remember correctly.

Actually, the Mercury alloys with the brass as it is fired.  Fulminate of Mercury produces minute quantities of mercury as it detonates and this combines with the brass, or copper, and causes the cartridge to become brittle and unsuitable for reloading.

[Buzzard II]

Tell him to call Starline and order some good brass and stop playing around with the old ballon cases.  Leave the balloon cases for the collectors. 

[Earl Brasse]

Could just be the brass was just old, & unhappy.

I am shooting .41 LC & have some Win. from the '70s' "White Box" run that split after the 1st firing halfway or more down the side.
(this is starting with factory loaded ammo.)  These are not balloon head.

My fail rate is  about 5% of cases every time I reload. (BP)

I also had some old Rem. Kleanbore .303 British from perfect boxes that split 40% + on initial firing.

(on the flip side I have other old brass from unknown origins that just keeps going.)

Most folks seem to shoot brass until it splits rather than pick "X" number of firing & toss it out.

[Trailrider]

It is interesting that some CIL Dominion brass made into the 1960's were balloon or at least semi-ballon head. I have .43 Mauser brass that was semi-balloon head. Never had a problem with it, but it is what it is. (BTW, CIL Dominion .30-06 brass I bought in the '60's is NOT balloon or semi, and is the best brass in that cartridge I have ever shot and reloaded. Hardeness and case capacity somewhere between Winchester and Remington and and with more case capacity than military TW54!)

I would suspect the problem with the brass in question is work and age hardening. Brass is work-hardened every time you full length resize it. Age will also harden brass. The fact that we can use brass that is 40-60 years old without problems is due to proper annealing during manufacture, and not overworking the brass.

So far as "corrosive" primers having anything to do with embrittement of the brass is concerned, it is a non-issue. Corrosive primers use a potassium chlorate compound. On firing, the potassium chlorate becomes potassium chloride, which is very much like table salt (sodium chloride). Left in the bore of the gun, the chloride combines with moisture in the air and rusts the bore. But it does NOT affect the brass. You do want to clean the brass in a water-based medium so that on subsequent firings any remaining salts don't get into the barrel.

OTOH, as was posted, the old mercuric primers chemically combine with the copper in the brass causing embrittlement of the cartridge case, which can lead to split cases, head separations, etc. This is NOT the same problem experienced by troops during the Indian Wars campaigns with head separations, failures to extract, etc. The problem there was that the cases manufactured by the Army until the mid-1880's were NOT brass but "copper" (actually gilding metal, similar to modern-day bullet jacket material). That alloy doesn't have any springiness to it. When the chambers of the rifles/carbines became fouled with BP residue, tje cases would stick, and the sharp extractprs of the Trapdoor Springfields woud tear through the soft folded head rims of the cases. Sometimes the troop could pry the case out with his knife...given the time do do so!    After Custer, the Army finally started issuing section ramrods and buttplates and stocks that could hold them for the cavalry carbines. Infantry, of course, had regular ramrods for their Long Toms. Also issued were broken shell extractors, which were fine...if you had the time to use them in a firefight. The Army finally got around to making externally primed, brass cartridge cases in the 1880's, just about when most of the Indian Wars campagns had ended!