I annealed all my .25-21 and .25-25 Bertram brass as far down towards the heads as I dared, so have not gotten the immediate percentage of splits you have. Learned my lesson from my first box of Bertram .43 Spanish, where 8 of the 20 body-split on the first firing. But the body splits on the long .25s do show up, one by one, as the cases continue to be fired. The .25-25's always split well down into the body, so I can't trim them to .25-21. You may have noticed that the rims go all the way from undersized to oversized, with many of them being elliptical or egg-shaped so they only go into the shell holder one way, or not, or slip out of it. The .25-25 shell lengths especially would delight a Diversity Facilitator, with none of them, IME, being the standard length, but all of them being different lengths short of that. The .25-21s at least don't seem to have this fault. I heard that some problems occur when extreme deep draws are made on small diameter shells or tubes, which is why Bertram never tried to make .22-15-60 Stevens CF shells. On the other hand, the US ammunition companies could make the shells over a century ago, so the excuse hardly washes. Bertram's stuff is very weird; maybe the QC department is on a part-time or "temp" basis. I have 20 Bertram .405 cases that I reformed to .35 Winchester. I got them cheap, since they had a hideous scaling pattern on the outside of the shells, looking like the brass was peeling away in a hundred places. At the price, I figured one shot each would still put me ahead. Those cases have outlasted a box of Bell basic cases, full length sizing both after every firing. A bunch of Bertram .40-90 SS cases, annealed and jealously watched after each firing, have held up well, although the lengths do vary. But buying Bertram's product is throwing darts at a board, for sure. Rocky Mtn. Cartridge's stuff has the virtue of being the right dimensions, but being lathe-turned, it does not handle resizing very well.
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