38 special brass- what brand do you like by best? Any to avoid?

[GT_80]

I’m just getting into reloading 38 special, have all the components (finally- took forever to find primers) and I have a bunch of different brands of (mostly) once fired brass. I inspected all the brass, sorted by brand, de-primed and re-sized all of it, checked case length, trimmed as needed, and I am polishing each brand of brass separately. Once I complete tumbling, I’m pretty much ready to start reloading.

As I was de-priming and resizing the brass, I notice that the Remington UMC and Winchester brass seemed to be the most consistent, and no over length cases in the 350+ that I resized and checked. The Aguila I had close to 300 rounds, and several of them were needing to be trimmed, even though they were once fired. I have a Lyman length checker “card”, and a hornady overall length checker as well. The hornady seems to be more precisely machined and has a little more wiggle room than the Lyman length gauge. If they were over length I trimmed them with my lee trimmer on my drill, then chamfered inside and out of the shells.

I am certain I did the process correctly up till now. But being that this is my first time reloading anything other than shotgun, I wondered if any of you had suggestions on brass that is better, or brass I should stay away from before I start adding primers and powder.

I have Remington UMC, Herters, PMC bronze, PPU, Aguila, Winchester, some “US” stamped cartridges which may be armscor, and some perfecta as well. All that is brass, and I have some random nickel coated UMC, and other brands.

All my loadings will be standard pressure, not plus p, and I will be loading some 158 grain lead round nose, some 125 grain berrys plated target hollow points, some 125 grain xtp, and some 148 grain double flat ended wadcutters as well. I have #2 powder and silhouette to load with. Just wondering what anyone with experience has to say, if I am going down the right approach, and what you think about the brass I have.

Am I overthinking it?

 

[Rpg]

I have no brand preference for brass to reload 38s, assuming it’s not for bullseye competition. I don’t sort brass by brand.

Sorting according to number of times the brass has been reloaded is more useful to me.

 

[GT_80]

I have no brand preference for brass to reload 38s, assuming it’s not for bullseye competition. I don’t sort brass by brand.

Sorting according to number of times the brass has been reloaded is more useful to me.

Thanks for the feedback. I won’t be so anal then lol.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

The Columbus police academy tumbled their brass about 5000 at a time, then dumped them on screen for inspection. You just roll your hand across the brass and you will hear a split case. You will find not all brass last the same. The brand that shows up cracked the most is the one you don't want.

Ivan

 

[Troystat]

Unless you are shooting bullseye at 50 yards any conventional brass will be fine. I have noticed that nickel plated brass seems to not last not as long.

 

[DWalt]

The only brass differences I have noticed is that nickeled cases seem more likely to split after a few leadings, and S&B cases seem to have very tight primer pockets.

 

[Sevens]

I could only guess at the sheer number of times I've loaded .38 Special. A fair guess would be something on the order of 35,000 or beyond. I'm only trying to guess at a number to share that I have never in my life trimmed a piece of .38 Special brass. At this point in the game it is a safe bet that I never will. So in my opinion, case length is not something you will need to concern yourself with in .38 Special.

I like lots of different headstamps and I always sort by headstamp in every different caliber I load.

In .38 Special, I like to use R-P for all my swaged HBWC for use in the Model 52 pistols. This is because I find R-P to be the thinnest on the market and it just plays very well with the HBWC and the nice chambers of my 52's.

I like to use all Federal headstamp for cast BBWC that I use in my custom PPC revolvers. I suppose I chose this years ago because these guns demand the soft Federal 100 primer, and so I use the Federal brass.

I like to use S&B and Herters brass for hot .38 loads in my Coonan pistol -- I use this brass because it is cheap and the most likely to split brass I've experienced in .38 and I run this particular ammo with Power Pistol and the Coonan loves to chuck brass in strange directions, so I'm more likely to use it.

For random other .38 loads, most often with a plated 158 grain bullet, I like PMC or CBC or Winchester brass the most, but I'll use any headstamp if I have 50 or more of them to all match up in a box.

I have made the argument many times over the years that there is -ONE- single best place to start a handloading journey, and that one single best possible place is with .38 Special.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I use mostly Federal, Winchester and Remington brass because when I was buying ammo a long time ago those were the brands of ammo I was buying. I kept the brass and have been using it forever.

I broke out 1,200 pieces of Remington cases and loaded them for many years. I must have had well over 40 loads on them. No split case necks, no loose primer pockets. I changed them just because and now I'm doing the same with 1,200 pieces of Federal brass cases.

The Rem cases are fairly soft but neck tension was never a problem. The Federal and Winchester cases are a little stiffer but no problems sizing them at all.

Most reloaders will agree, never ever try loading AMERC brass. It's a waste of time and components.

 

[robertrwalsh]

I have had very poor luck with AMERC brass, as noted above. Every time I find one I crush it and throw it in the trash so it doesn't get back into the component stream by accident.

 

[Ruger 13]

Any American made brass is your best bet as far as consistency is concerned! Lately I’ve been using Starline for everything I can.

 

[dogdoc]

Starline brass!. Excellent new brass with great consistency . The preferred brass by many of us long time reloaders. Brian Pearce of handloader magazine is a big proponent. I just purchased another 1000 from starline. You often get the best accuracy from using 1 brand of brass but it is not always a huge difference.

 

[Protocall_Design]

With a revolver, especially with moon clips, you get all of YOUR brass back. I have standardized on Starline for all calibers of revo brass except for the auto calibers like 9mm, 38 super, 40 S&W, & 45ACP. Starline has the same groove for moonclips in the 38 Short Colt, 38 Long Colt, 38 Special, 357 Mag. The same (expensive) moon clips fit all of them. I have reloaded the same 1000 38 Short Colt brass for years and still have most of the original 1000. Same for 38 Special.

 

[ggibson511960]

Like many here I have reloaded more .38 Spl than any other caliber, driven by the preponderance of .38 Spl S&W revolvers I like to shoot. Being somewhat obsessive compulsive I sorted lots of .38 Spl to keep brass together by brand. It just looked better in a 50 round M&M plastic box. But the years took their tool on case necks. First to go were the nickel plated, then the rest by shear number or reloads. I finally gave up and tossed them all together and never looked back. My shooting volume is way down what with component shortage and advancing years, so the occasional split neck or loose pocket is a rarity. If there is any difference in accuracy it would take a Ransom Rest and much test shooting to find it. It's not worth the sorting hassle, but inspection continues to sort out the case failures.

 

[oddshooter]

I don't think there's any doubt about buying new brass.

Starline Brass | Rifle, Handgun, and Pistol Brass

Prescut

 

[Ameshawki]

I've used just about every brand out there in the last fifty years. Can't say I've noticed any appreciable difference, at least on range ammo.

 

[nbedford]

I have noticed that brass with a WCC head stamp (Winchester head stamped cases do just fine) just does not crimp down well with my Lee 358 158 TL swc's. Not sure why, but I chunk them. BTW, after that I keep my S&W Model 67 handy and do a "plunk test" with it to make sure my loads will drop into the chambers without any problems (yeah, I know the "plunk test" is for auto's but it works fine for revolvers too). I also for the first time in ages had a case mouth split after I had seated the bullet - the same Lee bullet I mentioned. It was a S&W head stamped nickel case. Since then I have avoided all nickel plated cases. I had read on another forum that the nickel cases were prone to case mouth splits, but that was my first experience. In any event I have plenty of other 38 Special brass; so I saw no point in using the nickel cases, and potentially wasting primers and powder.

 

[stansdds]

If buying new brass, I'd highly recommend Starline, it is really good brass. Nickel cases... I have found that the nickel can flake off from the edge of the case mouth, those little bits of nickel can get into the resizing die and then scratch plain brass cases. Nickel plated cases also tend to suffer case mouth cracking sooner than plain brass.

 

[GT_80]

Unless you are shooting bullseye at 50 yards any conventional brass will be fine. I have noticed that nickel plated brass seems to not last not as long.

I had gotten a bag of random brass from a friend, and it had a few nickel plated cases that were split in it. All the brass I saw was still mint.

 

[GT_80]

wow lots of great advice, and I will definitely look into starline brass if I decide to buy all new components! for now I have about 350 rounds of mixed PPU, Herters, PMC Bronze and Aguila tumbling so I may start loading some tonight.

 

[ACP230]

I like Winchester brass the best.

Still load some other brands though.
Remington seems thinner in the case wall than other
types. No problem because of it, however.