Hello,
I have a question about some .38 brass that has a visible bulge about 3/ 16" from the rim. It measures 0.382" +/- .001. Closer to the rim it is 0.375". The rest of the case is less than 0.380".
Other brass that does not show this visible bulge measures less than 0.380" approximately 3/16" from the rim.
After the brass with the bulge is re-sized it measures about 0.377" in that area.
Should I toss the bulged brass or use it again?
It is range brass, fwiw.
Thanks for your thoughts on this,

Greg

I'd load it and shoot it. But I am notoriously cheap. Somebody has a loose chamber...maybe a .38 S&W Victory that was rechambered to .38 Special? Although in that scenario it should be even worse.

It's your call of course. Personally, I've loaded lots of .38 Special brass that was just as you've described with no ill effects.

__________________
Dave Brown
SWCA #3279

use it

10 char

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an actual conservative

Funny, I've been asking about bulging cases using the Tumble Lube bullets, i.e. to resize or not, etc. Because when I don't resize them, they bulge like crazy.. maybe you got my brass, hahaha, or somebody else's that uses the tumble lube bullets and not resizing them.....? I'm fairly new to reloading, but maybe a thought... load a few, no primer or powder with bullet. Get a bullet puller, and a perfectly good bullet you've loaded, and see if it takes the same hits out of the puller to drop the bullet compared to the perfect bullet. When I first started, I took apart many factory loads and good bullets and compared the indenting on the factory bullet compared to mine, how many strikes at same pressure/speed etc. It was how I "matched" factory settings, so to speak. Just a thought. It should tell you if the bulge is actually affecting anything in these regards.

All the concern about minor bulges in shot .38 brass and the bullet bulge from TL bullets in .38 is just newbie obsession from inexperience. Your brass is fine, and a reloaded .38 that meets the plunk test is ready to shoot, no matter if the case looks like a snake that swallowed the rat. You'll know when .38 brass is ready to toss, it will be split. Incidentally, .38 brass splitting when fired does not damage the revolver, just toss it when it splits.
One of the problems with being a new reloader is not knowing what is important and what is not; a good mentor helps immensely.

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Science plus Art

The "bulge" at the bottom of the case is from who ever sized those cases didn't have the sizing die adjusted down all the way.

Typical beat to death 38spl brass that has been shot too many times & then the puppy played with them for a weak. Have case mouths that flare and crimp with little or no effort. 38spl brass is sssssoooooo cheap I toss any well used, abused brass, just isn't worth it.

Most of the time when you see bullet bulge in cases that look like this.


There's "I get gooder neck tension with them bullets" somewhere in the post. Reloading dies are setup for jacketed bullets unless they say cowboy action or something to that affect. Jacketed bullets tend to be shorter than their lead counterparts along with being smaller in diameter. Using the correct expander will get rid of the bullet bulge.

A standard 9mm expander next to a custom expander for the 9mm.


2 of my favorite bullets for the 9mm. I size them to .358" and use that custom expander on my 9mm brass. For some odd reason I don't get that "watermelon" look when I load bullets 3/1000th's larger in my 9mm brass.


You really don't have to buy or make a custom expander. Companies like lyman sell what's called a m-die for little $$$. A picture of a lyman m-die


The m-dies stop bullet scraping, swaging the bullets down & makes it easier to start the bullets straight. It's kinda like the right tool for the job rather then the "Me got pen" mentality.

Anyway adjust you sizing dies correctly and you will get rid of the ring at the base of the case. Use the correct expander for the diameter/length of your bullet and you will get rid of the bullet bulge.

As noted above, don't worry about bulged cases and potential case web failures with the .38 Special.

A bulged case is common in a revolver that has been converted from .38 SW (.38-200 in British service) to the longer but slightly smaller base diameter .38 S&W Special (called plain old ".38 Special").

Many of the .38-200 revolvers produced for Britain were reamed to .38 special and re-imported to the US after the war. You'll note a visible step about 2/3rds of the way down the cylinder - a second one in addition to the one where the case mouth tapers down to the throat.

The bulges that form in a .38-200 chamber will significantly shorten case life as the run expands significantly more each time it is fired and the increased resizing increases the work hardening that occurs.

This is very similar to the issue with .45 Colt brass, as while the .45 Colt is a parallel wall cartridge, the chamber dimensions have .007" of taper in them. This is a throw back to the black powder era to improve extraction in fouled chambers, and for what ever reason the chamber specification has never been changed to reduce the taper. The end result is excessive expansion, and excessive work hardening shortening the reloading life of .45 Colt cases.

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The .38 Special gets work hardened in the middle of the case and that ultimately results in the formation of cracks in the side of the case. The cracks are still in front of the web, so gas loss isn't an issue. I shoot my .38 brass until the cracks appear and then thrown them away. If I happened to miss one and see a crack in a loaded round, I shoot it and then throw the brass away.

If you see me throwing brass into a range bucket, you really don't want to talk it home as it's truly past it's useful life.

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The other thing that people often call a "bulge" is the wasp waist that often results when a sizing die undersizes a straight all pistol case in order to ensure adequate neck tension, usually in semi-auto pistol cases like the 9mm Luger or .45 ACP where the case head spaces on the mouth and thus where a roll crimp cannot be used. It's a purely cosmetic defect, although the increases sizing and the belling then needed to get the bullet to seat cleanly means these cases usually fail due to cracks at the case mouth.

Much like the .38 bass, I'll shoot my 9mm and .45 ACP brass until the mouth cracks.

Below are a series of 1895 Nagant cartridges. It's an odd round where the bullet is seated completely inside the case and the mouth of the case expands to seal against the forcing cone, making it one of the only truly suppressible revolvers. This however requires the case to be able to extend across the cylinder gap on firing. the factor brass uses an hour glass shape to achieve this, while hand loaded cases use an exaggerated roll crimp

Theey are from right to left a factory cartridge, fired case, cartridge reloaded with a factory die set, and a cartridge reloaded using a decapping die, a Lee .32-20 seating die, with a .303 British expander ball to accommodate .313" cast bullets, and then the 7.62 Nagant die with the seating stem removed to post size the round (although partial post-sizing with a .30 carbine die works just as well.

The only purpose was vanity in seeing if I could make a better looking round. The bullet is better centered, but the accuracy of the Nagant pistol isn't good enough for it to ever make a difference.




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Where bulging becomes a problem is when a bullet for what ever reason seats so hard that it bulges or wrinkles the case.

This is distinctly different than the "wasp waist" effect of an overly sized case, as it creates an increase in diameter that will prevent chambering.

This is normally caused by not belling the case sufficiently, to allow the bullet to seat easily. The comparatively thin brass of the .38 Special is prone to this kind of problem, but it normally rears it's had with a case that is too short and gets no belling at the charging die or belling die station.

In general you want to use as little bell as possible to save wear and tear on the case, belling it just the point you can feel the bell and the bullet seats easily.

Thanks for all your replies. I am pretty new to reloading and I don't have a mentor. I will be asking more questions and reading alot of the reloading threads on the forum.
Best regards,
Greg

This is good info. This can also happen when the crimp is too tight or when lube plugs up your seater. If you load cast and this^^^ starts happening, it's time to clean your die.

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an actual conservative

In the worst case, if a revolver, one of the cylinder holes might
be just a slight bit out of spec. from a bad reaming or finishing.

Put all your fired cases back in a box in order of the cylinder it was fired in.
Check to see if one cylinder hole is causing the bulged cases.
It still will not hurt the weapon, just mess up the cases and wear them out faster.

Good shooting.

I never had one either. They aren't always available, are they? I think guys who had mentors think that's the best way. But it's not rocket science. If I can figure it out on my own so can you.

We'll be here for ya.

If I was a newbie reloader I would find that response at the very least unwelcoming. At the worst intimidating.

Try being one, right here.