Having recently acquired a nice M-10 I wanted to start fresh with "new" reloads. I have much ancient .38 Spl brass in various stages of wearing out from over-use, and didn't want to use, so I bought 100 pieces of brand new S^%$#* brass from Midway, so as to start anew. Great looking stuff! Virgin, polished .38 Spl from a premier manufacturer to load up my usual powder puff target loads. I prime with a Forster Co-Ax priming tool, slow as the devil, but a joy to use to seat primers precisely. It's tedious to set up the universal jaws instead of just popping in a shell-holder, but I prefer it's precise feel. After priming all 100 pieces, 7 refused to go in the jaws, which I had set precisely, as usual. I had to loosen the jaws to sloppy loose clearances to make the tool swallow those seven bad pieces. I mic'ed the rim diameters, and sure enough they were 0.001 in. oversized and rim thickness was 0.0005 in. oversize from the "good" brass.

This kind of difficulty is routine for me with torn up brass that's been through an automatic a few times, or range pick-up brass, but it's the very reason I like the Forster tools that let you adjust shell-holder clearance. This is the first stoppage with virgin brass. This stuff would have cratered a progressive.

Is this the downside of a rush to get out ammunition and components to a voracious market? Have any seen new brass with outside tolerances?

I was just loading a bunch of brand new, fresh from the package, never used, never messed with .357 Hornady cases.

I had to set one aside as it would not fit in the shell holder. I rotated it a full 360 degrees and still no go. I haven't measured it to see what is off. I'll probably just cut my losses and toss it. .5% failure rate.

At .001 causing a problem, your equipment tolerances are too tight for me.

It's not like the good old days where they did it a step at a time
and made .20 cents an hour.

Today the ammo is made at "Mock Speed" with these new fan danged machines with the laser lights and bells.

One or two "bad rounds" is no big thing...........
just be glad that you can get supplies.

You guys would not "Bitch" so much if you had to go for
"Major Surgery" and was lucky enough to come out alive !!

50 bad hulls don't mean nothing............
breath in, breath out............
Sorry about that...........
Tripping over Dollars to pick up dimes, sort of does me in.

.38 Spl/.357 Magnum rim dimension tolerances are:

Diameter: .440" - .011"

Thickness: .059" - .012"

If your measured rim dimensions are within these figures then they are within dimensional production tolerances! If you are setting the shell holder so it won't accept cases within these dimensions the problem lies with you, not the cases!

What you are doing is complaining that a manufactured product isn't held to "Zero tolerance" simply because you think it should be. Isn't going to happen!

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Gunsmithing since 1961

Not complaining, just inquiring, and the "problem", or more accurately the observation and finding, does lie with me, as does the solution to the difficulty.

As you point out there is no such thing as "zero tolerance". Neither is there absolute measurement accuracy, but that's another subject. The point is that dimensional variation, even within a specified tolerance, can cause problems. In this case it did. All of the brass is within tolerance. It is not uniform enough to enter the shellholder that I set too tight to pass 100% of the brass. The "good" brass averaged about 0.431 in. diameter, and the "bad" brass averaged 0.433 in. diameter, both well within SAAMI tolerance. Rim thickness is a similar story with "good" brass averaging 0.053 in. and the "bad" brass 0.054 in.

These small uniformity variations would likely never show up with a RCBS/Hornady/Lee fixed shellholder, nor in the shell plates of a typical progressive, but they did with the adjustable settings of the Forster tool. I'm not in the habit of measuring rim diameters and thicknesses for mid-range pistol ammo brass, except when it won't fit in shellholders. That level of rigor is for bench rest shooters. I fixed my own problem by adjusting the shellholder.

My inquiry was to see if anyone had experienced or perceived quality degradation in the ammunition and component rush of the past few years. Fiddling with "problems" like this is what makes reloading fun. We'll likely never know how S%$#@ controls QC or how often or why they change out brass forming dies. Those who are entertained by such trivia might be interested that these seven offending brass pieces average 2 grains heavier than the balance of the lot.

What ever you do, do not weigh whatever bullets you decide to use.They are going to vary. Also you will need a a scientific scale to weigh out powder to 0.0001 grains.

The weight of each unloaded piece of brass will really give you heart problems also.

Other than that reloading is a fun!

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Still Running Against the Wind

Unless you are doing precision shooting, weighing each bullet is probably an exercise in frustration. I do, however, weigh a couple of each new batch of bullets to make sure they are what they are supposed to be.

I once bought some bullets that were marked 125 grain. They turned out to be 147 grain. Loading them up at 125 grain data would have put them way over max for what they really were.

Just a bit of sarcasm. I notice the name brand of brass was not mentioned. I guess to avoid riots and mass boycotts. So is it the brass, the tool or could it be the operator?

A little adjustment of the case holding jaws would alleviate the problem, a little slack in 38 special is not going to hurt anything,

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Still Running Against the Wind

I have never had to adjust the universal shell holder jaws in my Co-Ax and am not sure what you are doing. I just drop the case on the plate and let the shell holder jaws close on the case. I keep the jaws to maximum opening so the cases drop down easily and I can lift them off easily.
SAAMI specs for .38 Spl cases:
rim thickness (case head to end of rim): 0.059 +0.0/-0.011"
rim diameter: 0.440 +0.0/-0.012".
If your cases are outside these numbers, contact the manufacturer and complain.
Next, your chamber specs are:
cut for rim thickness: 0.060-0.074"
cut for rim diameter: 0.444 +0.012/-0.0"

The operator was definitely responsible. The unique characteristic of the tool revealed the tolerance variation, even with the brass well within SAAMI spec tolerances. Adjusting the jaws solved the minor glitch.

[QUOTE=noylj;139422248]I have never had to adjust the universal shell holder jaws in my Co-Ax and am not sure what you are doing. I just drop the case on the plate and let the shell holder jaws close on the case. I keep the jaws to maximum opening so the cases drop down easily and I can lift them off easily.

My small adventure was with a Forster Co-Ax priming tool, a little gem of a gadget with adjustable jaws identical to the priming shellholder jaws on a Co-Ax press, completely different in configuration from the ram with its excellent sliding jaws that you refer to.