Cartridge cases brass

By this time, breech loading weapons had been improved by development of the brass cartridge case, the base of which provided a good surface for placing information. At first, only the weapon bore size and/or the manu-... 

Two of the earliest and classic examples of stress corrosion are the seasonal cracking of brass cartridge cases and the caustic embrittlement of riveted steel locomotive steam boilers. Ammunition becomes worthless during the wet seasons, and boilers explode because of cracks that started near the rivets or stressed areas. 

Obturation. A process that seals the breech of a gun and prevents the escape of propint gases at the time of firing. In all modem firearms, light and medium artillen7, it is effected by the momentary expansion of the brass or copper cartridge case... 

MN) D.P. Lindstone, "The Assessment of Explosive Performance by Means of a Cartridge Case Deformation Test", Explosiv-stoffe 17(9), 193—201(1969). Abstracted in Expls Pyrots 3(8), 1970 [Two-gram charges are fired in brass small-arms cartridge cases (cal. 303) and results compared with a cartridge in which a 2-g "standard" was fired]... 

The explosive may also be extruded in the form of a long rod which is then cut into pieces of the required length on a table covered with a copper or brass sheet. The pieces are then put into paper cartridge cases which should be made of paraffined paper. 

As brass was a critical material during WWII, in Europe, the Germans started to use steel an d many cases were manufd from this material(Ref 28a,p Ger 27). As steel proved to be a satisfactory material, steel cases are now made in other countries including US(Refs 8,9,10,11,13, 15,17,21,24a 28). Other metals such as Al and its alloys(Refs 2,3,4 7) or Zn-Cu alloys(Ref 6) have also been tried. The possibility of using sintered iron Cartridges has been investigated at Frankford Arsn, Philadelphia(Ref 20), but further work is required. Plastic cartridge cases are described in Refs 12 27... 

The principal military use of brass was formerly for the manuf of cartridge cases (See Vol 2, pC78-R), but now other materials are used, such as steel, plastics and colloided smokeless proplnts. Another Cu alloy, bronze (Cu 90 Sn 10%) was formerly used for casting gun barrels (Ref 13, p 167), but now steel is used for that purpose. The so-called gilding metal (Cu 90 Zn 10%) has been used as a jacket for lead-alloy bullets (See Vol 2, p B327-R, under Bullets, Metal Jacketed)... 

The first recorded examples of fully self-contained completely metallic cartridges were the pinfire cartridges of the early 1850s. These consisted of a thin copper cartridge case with a striker pin projecting radially from the base end (brass came into general use in the 1870s and replaced copper as the case... 

The vast majority of cartridge cases are made of brass (approximately 70% copper and 30% zinc) but other materials such as steel, coated with either zinc, brass, gilding metal, copper, lacquer or blackened copper nickel-plated brass cupronickel (approximately 80% copper and 20% nickel) gilding metal (approximately 90% copper and 10% zinc) aluminum. Teflon-coated aluminum and plastic are also encountered. 

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