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

[M14sRock]

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?

Where are you located? I'm in SoCal and have a few thousand once fired pieces of brass. USGI WCC, IIRC.

 

[Reloader Fred]

Without going back and reading all 61 posts in this thread, I'll make a comment on a few of my preferences in .38 Special brass. My wife and I shoot roughly 10,000 rounds of .38's in a year's time in SASS matches, so I load a lot of them. I relegate nickle brass to our revolvers, since it will split sooner than unplated brass. A split case will tie up a lever action rifle during a match, which costs points and is aggravating as all get out.

PMC brass has been made by various companies, both in the U.S. and South Korea, where it's currently made. When PMC was located in Boulder City, NV, it was made in the U.S., and used CCI primers for their loading. Now they're back in South Korea again and use their proprietary priming which leaves a white residue in the cases. If they get wet, that white residue will cement the primers in place and you can get ringers when trying to decap them, which ruins the brass. A ringer is when the bottom of the priming cup tears loose and leaves the walls of the primer cup stuck in the primer pocket.

I always avoid the old AMERC brass, which thankfully is no longer made. No further comment required concerning that junk.

I don't load the Blazer brass without the extractor cut above the rim. Without the extractor cut, there isn't enough rim for the extractor on a Marlin 1894, Winchester 66 or Winchester 73 to hold onto. That leaves an expended case in the chamber. That messes up your whole stage of fire.

Unlike some, I will load military brass. Some of the Lake City .38 brass has crimped primers, which means running a primer pocket swaging tool into them. I've also encountered some recent commercial Winchester .38 brass with a light primer crimp, some of which needs to be removed, but not all of them. The primer crimp seems like a half hearted attempt at crimping for some reason. I've never understood the reasoning for crimping .38 Special primers in place in military brass, since I'm not aware of any full auto .38's.... There are also some older Remington and Federal military brass with very square primer pockets, rather than the slightly rounded ones found on almost all other .38 brass. Military brass is also generally thicker brass.

I don't trim .38 brass, due to the sheer volume that I load. I'd rather spend that time casting bullets...

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[DBrainard]

New: Starline
Avoid: PMC as it seems to have a shorter lifespan IMHO

 

[rockquarry]

New: Starline
Avoid: PMC as it seems to have a shorter lifespan IMHO

I haven't seen that but it might be with some lots of PMC brass. I find it easier to just buy new American brass, usually Winchester or Starline in boxes of 1,000. Brass is still a bargain even if it's higher than it used to be.

 

[Huskerguy]

Count me in as one who started reloading 38 special many moons ago and it is still one of my favorites.

You didn't say what you will be shooting these in. A standard 6 shooter or a moon clip revolver?

I got on a binge buying Starline brass to load for my 627 with moon clips. They work well in that setting and fit the two different manufactures of moon clips that I have. I shoot Starline in competition.

For practice I shoot just about anything that ever hit the floor. I honestly cannot tell a bit of difference in any of the headstamps as far as accuracy or any unusual traits. As I said, it all comes down to how they fit the moon clip for me when I am shooting the 627.

Starline is really hard to beat. If you watch for sales, you can find it for under 19 cents each.