I picked of a few boxes of Ranier plated 125gn HP and 148gn DEWC. The HP bullets load fine, but the 148gn DEWC is driving me nuts. About 20% of the cases are deforming. I'm using a Lee die set. Am I doing something wrong or are these bullets just oversize?

what kind of cases are you using?
I have that problem with military cases!!

I had the problem a while back. Can't remember which one but it was an off brand.
Nothing wrong with the lee dies
It's the brass

All of the deformed cases have a CBC headstamp. The other cases are Federal, and had no issues. That said, I've reloaded just about every other .357 bullet in I have in those CBC cases (Lead, Hornady, Ranier 125gn HP, etc) and had no problems.

It was CBC head stamp I ended up throwing all of them away in the scrap pile.

That's a solution I can live with.

I picked up a few boxes of primed 38 cases from Midway. They have R - P headstamp. Hopefully they hold up. So far so good.

Too bad you have to throw any component away, brass is scarce and expensive. Nowadays even .38 special stuff.

Save the CBC brass for RN or SWC bullets, just don't load DEWC in CBC brass.

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S&WHF 366

This link may be useful.

http://cartridgecollectors.org/?page=headstampcodes#R

CBC = Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos, Brazil


R-P = Remington Products. They will give you many, many reloads.

R-P= Remington-Peters. It's the stamp Remington has used on their brass since they absorbed Peters and stopped using REM-UMC.

Thank you for the clarification.

I use military brass (including CBC) for all jacketed and soft lead (swaged) bullets with no problems.
Lead bullets for any given caliber are usually .001" over nominal size for that same caliber. That extra .001", in a hard cast bullet (and plated too, it seems), will deform the military cases which have a heavier case construction. The swaged bullets will "resize" when stuffed into that brass, so I only use them for plinking. But they actually shoot really well too.

Yeah, that's the plan. I'm only out 17 cases and some grief from my wife ("What the hell was all that banging!" yeah that would be the bullet puller).

Unfortunately I wasn't smart enough to look at the headstamps as the crumpled cases were piling up. I only lost those cases though. The bullets came out clean (plating intact) so I just put them in R-P cases.

When I was loading the same bullet, it became obvious, that some cases are too thick to seat a DEWC deeply into the case.

Winchester cases, especially the nickel plus p, would be hard to seat and would not chamber.

Remington cases were the best allowing the bullet to be seated flush with the mouth of the case.

You will need to sort and use only those cases which have the thinner side walls. Save the other cases for regular style bullets.

BLM

It also looks like you maybe crimping the bullet too much causing the case to collapse, those will stay tight with a taper crimp, not the light roll crimp you are putting on them. Have you pulled one apart? Are you cutting through the copper plating?

Chris

Every now and then you will run into over sized bullets or tight brass and get "Over stuffed " loads that look ugly...........
but if they chamber, I shoot the loads and take notes to correct the problem on the next loading if the case survives.

As mentioned, probably Brazil heavy side walls, but they should work with all lead bullets that can be "Shaped" a little in the dies while loading, if on the soft side.

Hate to see new brass tossed out..................

I was following Ranier instructions which call specific for a roll crimp. That said, the case lengths in that lot varied enough so some got more of a crimp than others. I realized I could 'feel' the crimp at the end of the stroke on the press so for a taper crimp I just stopped a hair short.

The copper plating was not cut. I pulled the bullets and re-used them. I could tell by the resistance that the cases were crushing during the seating stroke.

Another thing someone pointed out was trying to better align the WC before seating. This was tricky and many were slightly 'cocked' as they went in the press. I should probably flare more.

In any case. I appreciate all the feedback. I now understand what's going on and can avoid wasting brass in the future.

Interesting note. On my last batch I had many 'stuffed ugly' rounds that would fit in the cylinder, but just barely. So, I resized the entire loaded round and they dropped right in. However, the resized loaded DEWC shot about 100fps slower than the ugly fat ones. Go figure.

Yeah, I did get my "fat" military rounds to work after running them through a LEE FCD.
And though I didn't have a noticeable drop in accuracy, I'm sure that they fit the barrel differently after they were resized and that would probably affect MV.

While prepping a load of .45 ACP range brass, both mine and donations from others, I ran across a couple of split cases. I checked all of them with a magnifying glass (more for the old eyes than anything) and found several more--all CBC head stamps.

Whether they were my cases or someone else's I can't say, but they didn't look abused or overused. I sorted out the 15-20 CBCs in the lot and tossed them into the scrap can. Never had this with any other brand and don't bother with CBC anymore.

The Lee "flaring" die is not the best die. Others with more expander plug work better.

Speaking of 38 Spcl. brass & full wadcutters, here's something I saw sometime ago (probably here but I'm not sure?) & saved as a FYI:

Wadcutter brass has a longer straight untapered case wall than the standard case. This allows the deep seated wadcutter bullet to not hit the thicker wall of the case toward the case head. This can cause the loaded case to bulge and the bullet to be damaged. This also gives an even case tension on the entire length of the bullets. Wadcutter brass can be distinguished from regular brass by the double cannelure ring.

Winchester used special brass for their match wadcutter loads that were thin-walled from the case mouth to the first cannelure. This brass is especially desirable if you use double end wadcutters (DEWC).

All my vintage WW brass from the USAF pistol team days is like this.

Like already said, R-P are Remington brass (Remington-Peters) and they are just fine when loading .38 Special ammo. I have been using the same 1200 pieces for over 8 years not and not one has failed.

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SWCA #3437

I never had a problem reloading Magtech brass (CBC) but I can't remember if I ever tried to load full wadcutters in Magtech brass either.

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Freedom is never free!!
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I wonder how MagTech does it??

38 SPL 148 Grain Lead Wad Cutter -


Product Search Results

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Still Running Against the Wind

I had this same problem a few months ago with a variety of brass. Come to find out, the tumbler media was dirty and left a film of crud on the inside walls. Looking inside the cases it was easy to see, (in hindsight). I properly cleaned the brass again...and voila....the DEWCs seated without bulging.

I inspect the entire case now, inside and out. I am constantly learning things regarding reloading even after all these years.

CBC (AKA MagTech) makes excellent brass. It is probably better than some other brands out there. It may be because it is a heavier wall brass? Also may be some of the bullets have more plating than others?? Impossible to say with measuring.

As mention, do not ditch the brass it is good brass.

Perhaps, (wild idea) try a bit of case lube (like rifles) on the mouth of the case and try seating it??

Most WC bullets are plain old lead alloy, so I am thinking that the friction of the plated bullets may be something??

You say the work in other brands of brass, perhaps it is softer brass, but if those work than just use that brass.

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Still Running Against the Wind

I feel your pain. I really like the looks of the CBC cases but I had problems with them as well, including primer pockets. It is a nice heavy case too bad it is such a pain to work with.

I just loaded a bunch of .38 Special with mixed brass. I was getting slight bulging with military and the old headstamped S&W brass using a LSWC bullet. I did not want to throw the brass out, so I ran the problem cartridges through a Lee FCD.

Thanks for the info. I've never seen that before.

I've found CBC to be fine brass, but I'm not sure I've ever loaded one with a wadcutter bullet. I'm certain I've never loaded one with a plated wadcutter bullet.

I recently bought 1K of the Rainier 148 grain DEWC. I ran them all through a Lee .358 sizer die before I loaded any. They are my new favorite accurate pinking load using 38 special brass loaded to about 20K psi and 357 brass loaded to about 25K psi per Quickload, especially the 357 cases. I use a Lyman M expander die as well as chamfering the inside of the case and never had any problem with any brass including CBC which I also observed has slightly tighter primer pockets.
Also just take the bell out when you crimp.

That sounds like a good thing to try, chamfer the case!

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Still Running Against the Wind

Just curious, was there sometime odd about their size that you decided to resize them?

I usually do this with only lead bullets but had just read an article where someone was complaining about these bullets being oversize.

It was just out of curiosity that I tried to drop a few through the cylinder throats which are reamed to .3585. Most did not drop through but got stuck and had to be pushed out. After sizing they all dropped through.

I don't think they were too large but rather distorted.

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I agree with this. the Lee flare is just a simple end flare. It's very hard to set the DEWC in the press reasonably vertical. They tend to be canted with no mechanical help to seat them straight.

I'm wet tumbling with stainless steel pin media. It does and outstanding job of cleaning brass, including primer pockets. When it's done, I rinse, shake, then spread on a cookie sheet in convection oven at 180' for 15 min.

I think the answer is in that picture, it's different brass with a cannelure ring halfway down the case.

I'm keeping my CBC brass, just using it with other bullets.

Interesting. That sounds pretty conclusive that they are oversize. I mean that's a pretty important caveat to have to resize factory bullets.

It sounds like the bullets without the plating are just right, and plating pushes them to top end of spec or beyond. So, combine a bullet that's very nearly, if not oversize, with a DEWC deep seat design and you have a combination that is very sensitive to case thickness, seat friction, bullet angle etc.

So despite all these issues, the fact remains that the Ranier DEWC I shot were very accurate, especially behind 3.4gr or Titegroup. So, I will use them and probably buy more, but the knowledge in this thread will save a new user a lot of grief.

If I was a betting man, I would say your bullets are "funky".

Millions of 148 gr WC have been loaded in all kinds of brass. I doubt it's the brass. More the bullets.

I do not see where Magtech sells a "special" brass for wad cutters only??

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Still Running Against the Wind

I don't know what empty brass Magtech sells. All my CBC brass is recovered from factory ammo. In my case, the ammo was Magtech 158gr LRN. All I'm saying is that the brass from the LRN box looks different from the brass in the Magtech DEWC pic. My CBC brass has no cannelure ring low on the case like the one in the DEWC product picture.

I think you hit the sweet spot with this bullet.

I started using these for indoor shooting and found them very accurate with the right amount of powder.

The cannelure or crimp on the brass of factory brass is only there to prevent the bullet from sinking to far down the case and causing a major pressure build up.

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Still Running Against the Wind

I hate to rain on Rainier but I quit buying them when I still bought plated and went with either X-Treme or Berry's for plated and stopped having screwy problems. Rainier tends to cost less and I chalked it up as yet another get what you pay for type problem.

And I very much second the use of the Lyman M dies. I missed out on them for a long time telling myself I didn't need them. I just bought two of them. Oops. Now I need them in every caliber I load. Yes, they are that good. Just try one. I just loaded a couple hundred .38's and .357's in the last few days for various test runs. Know how many shaved lead bullets I had? NONE.

That's true. The brass isn't different, they add the cannelure as an extra step to their normal .38 Special brass.

When reloading there is no special care needed either. After a few times of being fired the knurl will iron itself out.

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SWCA #3437

Just for experimentation, took a a 38 spl CBC brass inverted a 158 gr LSWC and seated in all the way down a la wad cutter,
No crimp on brass, just regular CBC. These are .358 diameter MBC bullets.

Not saying to do this although some do, and there is a thread on it.

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Still Running Against the Wind