38 special & Trimming

AbHobbyist

AbHobbyist

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Hello all!!

I have decided to get into cowboy shooting. I got my hands on a pair of Rugers black hawks in 357 mag. :dancingbanana:

I got a hold of some 158 grain rnfpbb from the bullet barn, and I found a good deal on a shwack (2,000) of once fired 38 special nickeled brass.

I plan to shoot lead cowboy loads.

I have sorted by head stamp, and resized them all. Further I have trimmed about the first 500 or so. I have pretty good manual trimming set up with a RCBS trim pro and two foster deburing pedestal and tools with the appropriate end out.

Now I do not mind trimming all the cases the first time, but its time consuming and tedious, and I really do not want to do it terribly often.

I was wondering how you guys handle trimming with straight walled pistol cases that require roll crimp.

I am not new to reloading and right now, reload all my metallic cartridges on an old school RCBS Rock Chuker.

Any thought would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

R
 
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In general, pistol cases don't require trimming.

While advantageous when using a roll crimp, non-magnum loads are generally fine with little to no crimp at all. A taper crimp to remove the belling of the case mouth is all that is generally required, and case length is not a large factor.
 
Canuck223:

Thx I apprciate your comments.

I have been reloading rifle and shot shell for a long time, but I guess I still have lots to learn about loading handgun.

regards and all the best

R
 
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The other thing you will noptice is many pistol cases tend to get progressively shorter with repeated firings and sizing.

One thing you can do to help your groupings is to ####can your mixed brass, and get a few thousand new or once fired from the same batch. Having similar case wall tension, and internal capacity seems to help.

Revolvers are often frustrating, in that you've got 6 chambers, 6 cylinder throats, a cylinder gap, and a forcing cone to account for before the bullet hits the rifling.
 
John C:

I very much appreciate the advice.

Do you have a special tapper crimp die for 38 special, or do you just go easy on the included roll-crimp die

regards

R
 
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When I started loading handgun, I sat down and trimmed my way through about 400 cases. My friend who'd been loading forever came by for a visit, saw what I was doing and told me "Silly rabbit, trimming's for rifles". Havent' touched a handgun case since.......no looking back!:dancingbanana:
 
There are two things to remember here. If you decide to trim your revolver cases you need do it only once. The major benefit is you wil be able to get a consistent roll crimp which will result in greater accuracy, important if you are into Bullseye shooting.

With straight walled pistol cases they will indeed shorten overtime. Bottle neck revolver/pistol and rifle cases lengthen over time and must be trimmed to size.

Take Care

Bob
 
Thank you all for your insights.

For now, the plan is to trim once, shoot many times.

regards and all the best

r
 
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JohnC said:
In many 000s of rounds of PPC shooting light 38 special loads mostly nickel plated - I never trimmed cases and had no issues related to the lack of trimming. As C223 mentions a light crimp is all that is needed.
Click to expand...

As JohnC says.

I've still got my PPC brass from 18 years ago and it's still good to go and never been trimmed.

You've heard of once fired, well I'd say some of this 60th fired.

Every so often you find one with a split, easy cure, toss it.
 
One thing you may notice - nickel brass is almost always more brittle than brass brass. I have used up mountains of both over the years. Brass cases do not seem to get case mouth splits as often as the nickel plated. Point in passing.
Carry on!
 
Handloader B.C. said:
One thing you may notice - nickel brass is almost always more brittle than brass brass. I have used up mountains of both over the years. Brass cases do not seem to get case mouth splits as often as the nickel plated. Point in passing.
Carry on!
Click to expand...

After 15+ years of reloading both, why no, I hadn't noticed that. Maybe the nickel splits more often at higher altitudes.....;) :p
 
Given the wide availability of .38 Special brass, it will generally split at the case mouth before it ever requies trimming. In the 20 years that I have been reloading .357/.38 Special, the only person I ever heard trim .38 Special brass, did so for his Smith & Wesson M52 semi auto pistol. In my Cowboy pistols I always try to use nickle brass as it ejects from the cylinder faster. Talking about your cylinder, consider polishing the chambers with a .357 Flex Hone. They are available from Brownells www.brownells.com and they allow your brass to just fall out of the cylinder.
 
Gentelmen:

I thank you for all your responses!!

I never expected this volume of replies and it is greatly appreciate.

regards and all the best

R
 
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