Listen nobody make fun of me for this question please... Is the brass from a 38+p any thicker or better than my brass marked 38 special? Or are they the same other than the markings. Thanks in advance.

The rumor has always been that +P brass is thicker. Can't prove or disprove it but I have had better luck with "hot" 38's in the +P as opposed to the standard brass as far as pressure signs are concerned.

Starline says that their 38 spl and 38 spl +P is the same except for the head stamp. There are differences in some of the others. I have found that brass from +P rounds is much more suitable and will last longer for 38-44 loads than brass from factory wadcutter loads.

I believe in most cases there is a difference unless you are using Starline

Thanks for the information. Every little bit helps.

The only .38 brass I have found that is enough thicker to matter is the MIL SPEC.

Among Rem, Win, Federal if there is a significant difference in thickness, I haven't found it.

As to which brass is better, that is usually a matter of brass purity and uniformity. AMERC is so non-uniform I discard it immediately. Foreign mil brass is suspect. S&B is mediocre in temper and uniformity but usable for practice.

I load tens of thousands of rounds of .38 for IDPA each year, and I just stick to known quality American brands of brass. The failure mode is mouth splitting, which causes no problems unless you try to reload it again. They all eventually split, if not lost first.

There are two ways to check which is thicker, if it actually is thicker.

Weight comparisons would indicate a difference in thickness somewhere in the brass, whether in the head or in the walls.

The OD of the case mouth can be measured and by subtracting the measured ID, the wall thickness can be determined.

I suppose you could also seat bullets of the same type in different cases and measure the OD, to see if there is any difference in the measurement. Any difference would indicate a difference in thickness.

There are several C260 alloys that are different only in the amount of work hardening as shipped from the factory. Thinner brass can be stronger than thicker brass, if it has been hardened to different specs by the factory.

I don't know if they are thicker or not, but they are interchangeable.

Originally posted by Paul5388

quote:

Weight comparisons would indicate a difference in thickness somewhere in the brass, whether in the head or in the walls.......There are several C260 alloys that are different only in the amount of work hardening as shipped from the factory. Thinner brass can be stronger than thicker brass, if it has been hardened to different specs by the factory.

My limited weight comparison tests indicate that the +P brass is actually lighter than the non +P. Lighter and stronger so yes the alloy is different.

Before we go out and ditch all of our non-plus pee brass we should consider the type of loads we wont to use. For light wadcutter type loads the standard brass may actually be MORE suitable. My tests indicate better ballistic uniformity with low pressure loads loaded in once fired brass from factory wadcutter rounds than the same load assembled using plus-pee brass. Exactly why this would be so I can't say for sure. I feel that it is because the lower pressure rounds will release more uniformly from the softer brass.

While different manufacturers make .38 spl brass of different thicknesses, within the same manufacturer there is no difference between +P and standard brass other than the stamp that's for discriminating type of load only.

With .45 acp on the other hand, the +P will have thicker webbing and slightly less case capacity.