I bought 1,000 Starline cases a while back. I just took 100 out tonight to prep for some handloads. Sizing went fine, but during the next step where I expand the mouth, I kept buckling the cases.

Has anyone had this issue with Starline 380 brass?

I am using the late model RCBS dies with the stepped expander.

I prepped a bunch of once fired stuff (Winchester, Remington, and CCI) and did not have this issue. The only thing I can think of is the Starline cases are either thinner or softer.

I love Starline by the way, so it hurts my feelings to even complain about this. I tried it with two different lots (I had an older bag of 100) and got the same results.

Anyone?

Mike

Attached Images

Starline 380 Buckling.jpg (151.0 KB, 3 views)

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I just started re-loading for a CW380, and ordered some starline brass. I started with some Lyman .380 dies with the "M" expander die and was having problems with the cases bulging before the mouth of the case was expanded enough to get a bullet seated. I pulled the expander die out of my RCBS 9mm die set and it has worked fine for me, expanding case mouths to accept bullets without difficulty and no crimped or bulged or crinkled cases.. I am how ever suffering from too much crimp for the Kahr, I keep backing off on the crimp die but I had some FTFire / light strikes due to the cartridge seating in the barrel to deep today, other than this learning curve in the .380 I love the little Kahr. It has been completely reliable with factory loads since the first rounds to now......
So, maybe polish the expander plug some?? My 9mm expander die has seen many many thousands of rounds making the expander very smooth. Good luck, seems the .380b is a round that might keep us re-loaders on our toes a little bit more...
james

It is not a problem with the brass. Try adjusting you expander die

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Still Running Against the Wind

I tried that. I backed it out 1/4 turn at a time until it no longer buckled the case. Then I could not start the bullet. The bigger (stepped) portion of the expander had not entered the case at this point and so it had not enlarged the mouth. The "step" is what is putting the pressure on the case to buckle it.

Like I said, Starline is the only brand I am having this issue with.

A pic of the expander plug is attached. The plug on the left is the one I am using. It is the new "stepped" style expander. The plug on the right is the old style (unstepped) expander.

For reference, the diameter of the expander at the stepped portion is .357".

Mike

Attached Images

380 Expanders.jpg (172.4 KB, 9 views)

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We had a thread going about some .357 brass from Starline that was excessively hard to size with extremely tight primer pockets. Other people had similar problems. Starlline is top flight brass, but it seems over the last year they've somewhat lost their grasp on quality control, probably due to the extremely heavy demand. I've never had a problem with it before and was very pleased with it and tried to buy it before any other brand.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

OK, I messed around with this some more. I was able to get a good compromise where the stepped portion enters the mouth about .03" and slightly bulges the case. It is not too bad and still fits in my Wilson Max Pistol Gage (although slightly sticky). I can get a bullet to sit straight on top of the case with this amount of expansion.

I think my LEE Factory Crimp Die will iron out the bulge when I crimp. I will try a few and let you know.

Mike

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NRA Certified Pistol Inst.

Chamfering the inside of the case mouth usually helps with first-time loading by removing the sharp edge and minute burrs left from manufacturing.

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Science plus Art

This ^^^^^

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Still Running Against the Wind

I will try that on the next batch of 100 I do. I completed the initial 100 last night. I think they will be fine once I run them through the FCD. I am pretty sure the carbide ring in that die will iron the bulges out. The way I have the expander set now, it barely bulges the cases, but it still does. Chamfering might allow the "step" to enter the case with less resistance. It is worth a try.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Mike

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I guess I do not understand "bulges"?? You were talking about the expander or flaring die right?

It should flare just a tiny bit to let the bullet start into the case. More than that and you are over flaring and will weaken the case mouth and have more to taper crimp back in.

As OKF stated new brass should be chamfered. I have only bought a few calibers like 45 Colt and sized and chamfered those, Do it on all rifles calibers.

DUH, I finally dawn on me that we are talk 380 brass here.

I have crushed lots of those on sizing them, They are very thin and easy to bugger up.

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Still Running Against the Wind

Buckling slightly, creating a bulge around the case, is the most accurate way to describe it. You can see it in the pictures above. It seems to occur just below the depth that the narrower part of the expander stops inside the case.

I think it is being caused by the downward pressure from the stepped portion of the expander being forced into the top of the case.

Mike

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What about the old plug. Does it do the same thing? It only has to enter the case a tiny way to flair the mouth.

Chamfer the brass, you may want to take tome wet dry paper check the expander in a drill and just polish it a little. No major metal removal!. I would also try a little spray lube on the brass,

Other than that I would call RCBS and perhaps send them some of the new brass and the plug and have them fix it or exchange it,

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Still Running Against the Wind

I load .380 on a Dillon press using Dillon dies, and occasionally have had .380 range pickup brass buckle when the powder funnel tries to flare them. I haven't tried any "new" brass.

You may not want to do it but one solution to your issue is to use a tiny bit of case lube on the neck of the case.

I clean my brass with stainless steel pins and have found that exceedingly clean brass tends "stick" to a flaring plug like it's been Chinese Handcuffed. So I've starting taking my RCBS Case lube pad and pressing the pad on top of a tray of cases. Just a little dab makes a world of difference. BTW, because of this step I now wait until after my cases are sized and flared before cleaning them. I also now saze the cases AFTER that application of a tiny bit of lube to the neck of my handgun cases, it makes sizing and flaring a LOT easier on the arm.

I had a problem with new Starline brass sticking on the expander die. The press was noticeably difficult to operate on the backstroke where the die is pulled out from the case.
My fix was to tumble/polish the new brass first and it solved the problem. I guessed that there was some residue left inside the case from the manufacturing process.
George

I had the same problem with new Starline .45LC Brass,It was EXTREMELY hard to work the press when removing the brass from the expander Die.The only thing that fixed it was lubing the inside lip of the case....What a PITA!

Starline even mentions this problem on their website,Why not fix the problem if You know about it? No other new Brass does this! Their quality control has been slipping along with most other Gun related manufacturers due to the buying frenzy.They are just pumping out Product as fast as possible with little concern for quality.

My understanding is that Starline brass is SO clean that it increases friction to the point that problems develop. The fix is quite simple - just tumble in used tumbling media for an hour or so.

It works for me...

FWIW
Dale53

It is wrong to suggest that Starline brass isn't maintaining quality. I encountered this problem over 20 yrs. ago with brand new Starline 40 S&W brass. The brass would stick on the Dillon expander/powder drop funnel HARD! The solution is very straight forward once you understand what's going on. I use Hornady One-Shot spray lube very lightly to lube the inside of the case mouths. The lube doesn''t affect powder or bullet and the crimp still holds. After one usage, the brass seems to have been worked enough that the problem is gone.

I repeat...this is not a quality issue. If anything it's the very high quality that causes the difficulty. The brass is super clean and possibly a little harder than others. The pay-off is the brass will give you many, many reloads.

Hornady One-Shot is your friend.

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

Have not had any issues with Starline bought about a year or two ago. I use Redding steel dies.... or my Lee hand loader kit.
Make sure the mouth has no burrs.
Does it happen with both type expanders?
As was stated .....send some cases to RCBS.
There's a reason they call it a ...pluck test ...as opposed to a ...push in a bit test.
Nothing should be sub-par with hand loads.
You'll figure it out.
Let us know please.
I load Hornady 115gr FMJ and XTP.

I do not have, and have never heard of, any problems with any Starline brass I've ever bought and used.

However, I do not load for the .380. But I don't think it's the brass.

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But then, what do I know?

I have Starline brass in 9mm, 38 SPL, 45 ACP, 45 Colt, and 44 Magnum as well... and I have never had a problem with their brass either... until now.

I also did not have the buckling issue with the other brands of once fired 380 brass.

Mike

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Here is the solution I found that fixed my case buckling with .380's, I am really new to reloading them and had many problems with buckling or bulging the bases of the tiny cases. After switching from my .380 "M" die to by 9mm RCBS expander i crunched fewer cases and then I read somewhere that the actual seating depths of .380 bullets in not much more than .25"and the expander plug for a 9mm is much longer than that.. I polished the end of the expander plug after tapering it with coarse to fine grit w/d sand paper. So now there is less force on the case because of less area being expanded and also a very slick surface on the expander. Maybe this picture will help:

The M die on top is has a much longer area that expands the case compared to the lower modified RCBS expander which actually works. The M die is now doing duty as my 9mm expander and works fine in that role without buckling cases.
james

Thanks for the info. It looks like your RCBS expander is the older style without the "step." Is this the case?

Mike

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I would second the previous suggestion that you tumble the new brass for a while in some old media. Had similar problems some years ago with their brass, and the tumbling solved the problem. Their quality is top notch.
Dave
SWCA #2778

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mr mom
Fire Chief, Retired

Looks like a die problem; not a brass problem.

Not the solution you were probably looking for, but try a set of Lee dies and see if your problem goes away.

I have run into the same issues using the new RCBS step die in .380 in general, with various brass. IMO 380 brass is always finicky to work with, and I also think the new step die is finicky to work with. I seem to manage with adjusting the die to flare the case mouth to the minimum.

lube the mouth of the case. see if the forces won't take preference to expanding rather than buckling.

What I think is happening is that the cases are factory new. Theres no work hardening to the walls from a prior firing to force preference to expansion. do it with lube.

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it just needs more voltage

Mike, must be older (like me) as there is no step..

james

This...had some new Starline 45acp last year and it didn't buckle but it was sticky. I chamfered a few but got tired of that quickly and just threw them in the vibratory cleaner with some cob and cabelas polish for an hour. It worked great. Like Scooter I also polish brass after cleaning because it can be sticky when too clean. Even in a carbide die.

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Trucks and guns.

For what it's worth I had the same issue with 38 S&W cases.
Turned out the RCBS die was the culprit.

OK. So I followed two of the suggestions you all provided. I tumbled the cases before I sized/expanded them using corn cob treated with a 50/50 mix of Nu-Finish car polish and mineral spirits. They had a nice slick feel to them inside and out. I also polished the expander plug (see attachment below).

I am still getting the slight buckle in the cases. The bottom line is... I can't get the stepped portion of the expander into the cases without buckling them.

I have ordered a Redding brand expander die. When it arrives (it is on back-order), I will try it and report back.

Mike

Attached Images

380_Exp.jpg (154.3 KB, 4 views)

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I have not read all of this thread but have you tried calling Star-Line?

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USN Retired/VN VET
M&P X5

No I haven't. I have tried two different lots that were made years apart with the same results. Which means they have been making their 380 brass this way for some time now.

Many of the posts above are adamant that the dies are at fault and not the brass. I really don't know what to think. If the Redding die does not fix the problem, I might let Starline know of the issue I am having.

Mike

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Some of us have had real issues within the last year of it being thick and HARD with extremely tight primer pockets. So it COULD be the cases.

Starline was about the best there could be, but QC seems to have gone bad.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I believe it's been said; you don't have the problem with once fired brass, but you do have it with the Starline. Have you been able to load any of the Starline, fire it, then try it again? Or do they all buckle?

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But then, what do I know?

They all buckle, but I have been able to minimize it by only pushing the "step" into the case just barely. It makes it a challenge to seat the bullet though. I used a LEE FCD after seating the bullet and the carbide sizing ring ironed out the slight bulges enough for them to function.

The batch that I ran through the tumbler and used the polished expander on were once fired. They looked perfect again after sizing, but they still buckled slightly the second time around.

Mike

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Glad it worked for you. For the .357 I had to use a fair amount of case lube with a carbide sizer and could barely get them sized with a LOT of effort. Then came the priming.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

A little gizmo I like to use in handgun reloading is Lee's Universal Case Expander...now it says expander but what it does is put a gentle flare on the case mouth...it doesn't extend into the case to create the bulge shown in your photo (in my terminology, a case buckle is when it folds up or crumples into itself) . Its easy to adjust the flare, there is no step.
Actually if the round chambers , the bulge will not harm anything. Thicker walled brass shows this "bulge" compared with thinner walled brass. I have shot a gazillion 45 acp's that showed this bulge , military brass was notorious for this, with no harm done.
If they feed , fire and eject.. don't worry about it.\, it's OK.
Gary

Just a thought: Have you measured the case length? Max is .680. It just may be that yours are a hair longer and the correctly set expander die is going in far enough to bulge 'em. Good suggesztion to call Starline and find out what their min/max is for the .380 case. As you know .380 head spaces on the case mouth ( like a .45acp) so if they are too long you'll probably have problems chambering or ejecting them.

The problem (as I see it) is that the thickening of the case wall begins higher, allowing the radius at the end of the exp. plug to bulge the case when the belling section enters. I had the same problem with .44 Russian cases, and solved it by grinding a taper onto the end of the plug to shorten the expanding length by about .060" or thereabouts. No problems since, and the plug still performs perfectly with .44 Special.
Hope this helps.

Larry

Just updating everyone on this issue. I bought a Redding case expander and polished it to a mirror finish. I tumbled the brass in untreated corn cob treated with a 50/50 mix of Nu Finish car polish and low-odor mineral spirits. This gave the cases a slippery feel.

I am still having issues with the Starline cases buckling. New or once fired, it does not matter. Since I am not having the same issue with other brands, I am convinced it is an attribute of the Starline cases. They are thicker/thinner, harder/softer. I don't know, but something is different about them.

I am able to still use them by entering the case mouth with the stepped portion of the expander just a tiny bit, which only buckles the case a tiny bit. It is not enough to hurt anything and they feed and function perfectly.

Getting a bullet started in the case mouth is a real challenge at this setting, but it can be done.

Thanks for all of your help in troubleshooting this. This forum is great.

Mike

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I only buy new revolver brass to reload and haven't had any problems with Starline 38, 357 and 44 mag brass.

It's kinda laughable to me to reload 380 because it's so tiny but I do and use range brass to reload because I'm not able to recover 100% of my brass at the indoor range I shoot at.

Interesting thread though. Maybe annealing the new cases might help.

Just loaded 100 rounds of .380 with new Starline .380 brass. Didn't have any issues at all with the brass. It did have snug primer pockets with CCI 500 primers but all primers seated fine. Dies used were RCBS and Hornady. I use Hornady's seater die because it's sliding alignment sleeve makes seating the small bullets straighter in the case. I 1st sized the new brass then expanded with the RCBS expander die. No problems at all. All 100 cases loaded and no problems with brass or dies. I only run the expander die down until it barely and I mean barely flares the case mouth. Rounds were loaded with Hornady 90 gr. XTP's. I have no answers to your problems as I can't imagine what's happening but I suspect from your pics of the stepped expander that you're running the expander too deep into the case. The step is fully entering the case by the brass coloration on the second step then hitting the flare portion. That seems too much overworking on the case mouth. I'd prefer an expander without the step. This is the 1st time using any Starline new brass.

Do you have the old style expander that just flares, or the newer style with the "step?"

Mike

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I like the idea of RCB's stepped expander but I had a problem with it. The step caused a ridge inside the case (9mm) that would shave lead when seating a cast or coated bullet. This ridge is clearly visible in the op's original post, especially the case on the right. A little polishing on the edge of the step fixed it.

Good luck, you may of worked through the problem. I think the answer/technique is buried above. With 'belling' the case mouth, it always comes down to 'just barely enough', not to much or to little.

The polishing of your expander plug, or a tiny bit of lube every few cases should help. My Starline 380 brass is older, but never a problem. I use Lee and RCBS dies.

I load a lot of 380ACP and have never experienced this issue. I have several different brands of brass. One thing I am not clear on...if slightly more than barely touching the case with the expander ball causes a bulge, how do you ever get a bullet seated to depth without totally crushing or folding up the case???? I mean, it sure seems like to me that the act of seating a bullet 1/4" deep is way more pressure on the case than hitting it with an expander several thousandths.
One of the issues I have had, and I know a lot of guys complain about this is that it seems like many size dies take the case walls down too far. I have this problem more so with 9mm but see it on the 380 also. Then I get what looks like a bulge in the case where the bullet is setting. Well, it's actually on size with the bullet there and the rest of the case side is undersized, making it look like a bulge. I was just wondering if this is the case and the brass is getting sized down too much, then expanding would require much more pressure to possibly buckle that case like it's doing????
If it is brand new brass, what happens if you don't resize it and just flair and seat the bullet???? If Starline is such high quality, why are you resizing before it's ever been fired??? I mean, it is brand new brass right??? They are not manufacturing it to "already fired" specs, it's new. Why not just try to load a few and see if they work without resizing??? It's not like you are setting a shoulder for headspace, check length and go.
Edit: I have been reloading for very near 40 years and have never yet polished expanders or lubed case mouths so they could be expanded. It gets to a point where unless you are loading some kind of high accuracy super benchrest quality ammo if you have to do too many extra steps than yeah, buy it new...how much improvement does reloading give the 380????

The cases are actually bulging. I know because they get tight in the Wilson cartridge gauge.

Everything I have ever heard or read says I should size new brass. You are the first person to ever suggest I may not need to.

I am not trying to improve my 380 rounds over factory. I just want to be able to practice cheaply. 380 is nearly as much as 45 ACP in most places.

Mike

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