ORIGINAL: bigcountry
Eld, one, your right, but how many times have you ripped a rim off? I have seen it a few times and tried to help getting the brass out. Its sucks. And don't you ever worry about feeling those hot gas's across you face? And lastly, my accuracy goes down with brittle necks.
All that said, your right, my starline brass seems to last 10-12 loads fine, but my same caliber hornady only 3-5 before splits.
I have had a case head come off a couple of times. As you say, this is a PITA!! They were .348 Win. cases and maybe a couple of .303 British. From that I learned to spot incipient head separations BEFOREthehead comesoff. Yes, I DO throw those out BEFORE total case failure occurs!
That shiny, bright, flat-appearing ring is a good clue, and the paperclip trick will allow you to verifythat this failure is happening well before you have to use a broken shell extractor of some kind to get the front part of the case out of the chamber....