Blazer Brass Stain Mystery

[Erock46]

Went up into the hills today to run a few rounds through my new M&P Shield 9mm. A 'few' turned out to be 50 rounds of 124gr Aguilar and 50 rounds of 124gr Blazers. When I got home, I was inspecting the empty brass and noticed a very odd stains on a couple of blazer cases - nothing on the Aguilar's. I have attached a photo and am wondering if you were any of you ammo wizards out there could identify what's going on with this particular stain. Stain is very regular around the whole case.

Read More

 

[Member 5605]

Assuming you have pulled barrel and looked at chamber to verify it doesn't have the HK style flutes..?

This is interesting.

 

[Oregon13]

I have seen blazer do this in my Sig. It's less streaky and more of a complete black stain though. I can try and take some pictures tonight, if need be.

I always wondered if it was normal or not. But, my reloads do it as well, although not nearly as bad. It all comes off in the polisher, and the brass looks fine afterwards, so I didn't put too much thought into it.

Maybe it's just dirty ammo. Does anybody know what powder they use?

 

[The Courier]

I have a bunch that look like that after being fired through an MP5 clone. Its weird because they don't clean up very well even after tumbling for an hour or two, they are still usable but I'd like to know what causes this unique streaking.

 

[drstrangelove]

Those are marks made by a fluted chamber... HK P7 or MP5. Maybe they weren't your brass, or perhaps Blazer is using recycled brass?

 

[Erock46]

All 50 Blazer rounds were bright and shiny out of the box. The M&P Shield's barrel has 5 lands and grooves and the stains don't seem to match the spacing of them - the chamber is smooth. None of the 50 Aguila rounds showed any stains and I shot all them first. Only two out of the Blazer box had the stain. I don't even know if they consecutively fired rounds - maybe they were first ones fired out of the box or maybe...

 

[thorborg]

bar codes used to track their use.

 

[Erock46]

hmmm... Don't think so. They haven't come out with a rotary/cylindrical barcode scanner yet. However I did try spinning the case very quickly with a drill motor in front of my barcode scanner to see if that would work. Some indecipherable Chinese characters kept coming up … Oh well.

 

[nammac]

hmmm... Don't think so. They haven't come out with a rotary/cylindrical barcode scanner yet. However I did try spinning the case very quickly with a drill motor in front of my barcode scanner to see if that would work. Some indecipherable Chinese characters kept coming up … Oh well.

That's because they are multi-byte characters, as opposed to the normal two byte characters...

Perhaps it was Chinese brass these particular rounds were manufactured from...

 

[Erock46]

Zounds! I just remembered I have an old Flash Gordon decoder ring! It could just work! My tablet in series with the decoder ring into Google translator! If that doesn't work, I'll just use some Brasso on the cases and move on.

 

[billdeserthills]

I remember using the original Blazer ammo in my Desert Eagle one time, the slide locked up in the closed position and wouldn't open until the rangemaster placed the gun in a rubber-jawed vise and gave it a whack. I tried again and it happened several more times, only thing that cured it was to throw all the Blazer ammo into the trash

 

[AMProducts]

Interesting... As Dyj said, looks exactly like an H&K fluted chamber, however subtly I'm wondering if it's fluted brass.

It is possible, and I'm thinking my way through the math at the moment, that if the case was run through the taper and plug process in a hard state, and maybe there was some extra form to the die, you could create a very slightly fluted case. I would really have to get my science on to determine if this is what happened, but it does seem highly possible.

The last 10 years have just been amazing as far as ammunition technology, and I don't think most people realize some of the really cool things that are happening, that are flying under the radar. Impact extrusion, redrawing, better tools, new priming compounds (non-toxic), new powders, solid copper, copper alloy, and injection molded bullets, There's just so much cool stuff.

 

[Erock46]

I'm still fondling the idea that it may be some sort of blowback.

 

[AMProducts]

I'm still fondling the idea that it may be some sort of blowback.

Well... it kinda is, fluting allows gasses to come around the mouth of the case this prevents the case from forming to the chamber as much as it would without it, and prevents the case from sticking.

 

[Erock46]

Well, I pulled the barrel to check for fluting in the chamber...nada.

 

[Goosebrown]

Poor mans HK.

 

[Kid@Heart]

hmmm... Don't think so. They haven't come out with a rotary/cylindrical barcode scanner yet. However I did try spinning the case very quickly with a drill motor in front of my barcode scanner to see if that would work. Some indecipherable Chinese characters kept coming up … Oh well.

You have to spin them backwards.

 

[AMProducts]

Well, I pulled the barrel to check for fluting in the chamber...nada.

I think the brass is the fluted part.

 

[Erock46]

Well, the metallurgical aspects of ammo brass is beyond my knowledge. I am still puzzled why only two rounds out of 50 would show the stains.

 

[Bon Sauvage]

Only two rounds out of fifty really like you.