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Cartridge Cases

📌 Cartridge cases are usually made of brass, a composition of 70% copper and 30% zinc.

📌Less commonly, they are made of steel or aluminum.

📌 Zinc andplastic materials have been used experimentally.

📌 Brass, plastic, and paper are used for shot-shell tubes.

📌 The main function of the cartridge case is to expand and seal the chamber against rearward escape of gases when the cartridge is fired. When a brass cartridge is fired in a weapon, the gas pressure produced by the burning of the propellant expands the case tightly against the walls of the chamber. If the brass is tempered to the correct hardness, it will spring back to approximately its original dimensions and make the case easy to extract. If the brass is too soft, it will not spring back and will make extraction difficult. If the brass is too hard, brittle, it will crack.

👉 There are three general shapes for cartridge cases: 🕵️‍♂️ Straight, 🕵️‍♂️ Bottleneck, 🕵️‍♂️ and, Tapered.

Almost all pistol cartridges are straight, whereas almost all rifle cartridges are bottle-necked. The bottle-neck design permits more powder to be packed in a shorter, fatter cartridge than would be possible in a straight cartridge, where the lumen is approximately the diameter of the bullet. Cartridges with tapered cases are virtually obsolete.