Making Live Ammo From Blank Brass

[Shasta]

I'm looking for some experienced advice here. I was gifted about 150 rounds of unfired .45-70 blanks that were originally intended for military line-throwing guns. The headstamp is WCC 56 over 45 M32. I was able to find out that these are Winchester Cartridge Company from 1956, loaded with smokeless powder and a non-corrosive primer. The guy that gave them to me claimed they were from the movie set of a Rooster Cogburn movie.

In searching the net, I have found that some are of the opinion that blank brass is not safe to reload as live ammo, while others claim they have done so without problems. Since this is the forum I frequent the most, I was wondering what the consensus of opinion was among the guys I am more familiar with. Does anyone here have experience using blank brass? How about just an opinion? It sure looks like good brass to me!

Shasta

[GunnyMack]

I highly doubt that Winchester would go to the effort of making 'special'brass just for blanks.
I'd shoot of few , then check wall thickness to compare against a case you HAVE reloaded. I suppose you could also fire a blank and weigh it against a fired case that you have used.

[flatnose]

I tried that back in 2000 or 2001. I can not remember the company that was selling the 45-70 line throwing brass, but I bought 200 or so. I loaded them with 405 grn bullets and 34 grns of IMR4198. I fired 10 of them, and all split to about 2/3rds the case length. They went into the trash bin.

[wm]

I might be entirely wrong here but …… (notice that never has stopped before when it comes to throwing an idea out there for debate) …… but you might want to check and see what those line throwing blanks are worth to cartridge collectors before doing anything else. I know some of those obscure and hard to find specialty cartridges can sometimes be very sought after by collectors and go for surprising amounts of money. Could be selling a dozen of those would pay for a bag of virgin brass cartridges.

I suspect this is as good a place as any to research any potential value. http://cartridgecollectors.org/ For example I found this discussion …… https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t ... tion/23858

By the way some neat PDFs of old ammo and firearm catalogs which can provide some interesting research information. http://cartridgecollectors.org/ammunition-catalogs


Wm.

[hayabusa]

I have only used 7.62x51 Military blanks. Used them for 44 mag (auto mag) for use in 44 mag and to make 308 winchester brass for a Remington 742 semi auto 308 Win. I made 40 or so for each ctg. They could not have worked any better. Loaded 44 g. IMR 3031 under a Speer 150 g. round nose. That is my standard load for the 308. Shot many rounds in practice amd quite a few Deer. Never had a case split. Maybe I was lucky.

[Sixgun]

Mmmmm..that's an interesting one....WCC is the Western Cartridge Company. Anything Winchester will be WRA. Safe to use?....like any brass, weigh it against other modern ones..solid head? I can't see the manufacturer using "cheap" brass for blanks, especially ones for the military.

What I don't know, is that if they were fired with blank powder, that may have weakened the brass, but I'm no chemist. You say they are new.....hell, I'd shoot em on the 4 th and buy good stuff for shooting.

What I would do is check em out under a glass and look to see if the surface is grainy. Load up a few with 9 or ten gr. of Unique with any bullet and then give it a look see after shooting. I sure would not use them for any heavy loads under any circumstance.

My bet is that they will be fine...annealing might also help as they are old.----6

No experience other than shooting lots of '06 blanks and I just trashed em in the recycle bucket. Good ones are too easy to come by.

[Hawkeye2]

I haven't checked lately but the last couple of listings I have seen for line throwing blanks suggest you consider selling them and using the $$ to buy new brass and other supplies.

[marlinman93]

I've reloaded blanks before with bullets and never had an issue as long as the brass wasn't crimped blanks. If they used a wad of cork or wax over the powder they're fine. If they are crimped over the powder they get work hardened from moving the brass that much and will split necks later.

[Blaine]

If I understood you correctly, these are fully loaded blanks. If you don't know the powder and load, why would you want to put a bullet in front of them and fire it? Who knows what sort of pressure you would be dealing with?

[Shasta]

If I understood you correctly, these are fully loaded blanks. If you don't know the powder and load, why would you want to put a bullet in front of them and fire it? Who knows what sort of pressure you would be dealing with?

That is not my intention, but I really did not make myself clear. The powder used in blanks is much too fast burning to be used with a projectile. My intention would be to fire them as a blank, then reuse the brass to load live ammo. But.... I had not considered that they may be more valuable as a collector item, so that is probably the best way to go for me.

Thanks to those who were kind enough to offer advice!


Shasta

[Griff]

I don't about these particular blanks... but, whenever I've made my own blank brass from regular brass, I've drilled out the flash hole to allow the primer to back out and get reset flush with the case head... otherwise the case doesn't have enough inertia to do this without a larger flash hole. If the flash hole is the same size as std. 45-70 brass, and it weighs the same... all you can do, is beg a friend to "...hold my beer and watch this!"