What did you do in the reloading room today?

[whitewalrus]

FW Arms makes two sized pins. Large and small. The small fits fine in Norma brass and the large swages them up to normal spec.

However the small pin will sometime puncture the primer if the brass is tightly crimped in place.

Do you use their popper or just the normal decapper?


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[Hoser]

Do you use their popper or just the normal decapper?

Both. The popper is much better.

The popper gets used on my 9mm, 45, 223 and 308 processing toolheads. Basically anywhere that I might get a crimped in primer.

[eddiememphis]

Primed 93 rounds of .45 Colt.

I bought 100 wet tumbled cases from Maverick reloading. Received 103. Seven were too short. Three are S&B that measure at .206 in the primer pocket so I am guessing they were crimped? They did not accept the primers as easily as the others, so I set them aside.

[Linkless]

Primed 93 rounds of .45 Colt.

I bought 100 wet tumbled cases from Maverick reloading. Received 103. Seven were too short. Three are S&B that measure at .206 in the primer pocket so I am guessing they were crimped? They did not accept the primers as easily as the others, so I set them aside.

I would guess the short ones were likely Hornady and started life as FTX rounds as they require shorter brass for those loads. If the S&B need swaging, I have a Dillon Swager that will clean them up quick.

[eddiememphis]

Thanks for the offer. It's only three cases so not a big deal.

The short ones aren't FTX short. They are 1.270ish, I trimmed all to 1.275. The shorties I will turn into snap caps. The Ruger manual says it's fine to dry fire the Blackhawk but some hot glue or silicone will make me feel better about the firing pin.

[Hoser]

Several years ago I shortened a few thousand Starline 38 Long Colt to 38 Super length for a true rimmed 38 Super.

At the time 8 shot 38 Super revolvers were stupid expensive and hard to find. And the bullet I was using didnt get along well with 38 Short Colt brass. So I ordered a 38 Special trim die from CH4D for the Dillon trimmer, shortened it by .310 and got to work. It worked well and it went fast. The trimmed brass was 100% functional, but it was not as good as I had wanted. Then in 2014-2015 Smith came out with the 929, an 8 shot 9mm revo. My 627s got pushed to the back of the safe.

Fast forward to now... I decided to load up some 38 Special +P+ ammo for my old 5 inch Smith 38/44 Heavy Duty which is basically 38 Special in a 44 mag frame. I decided to trim all my Starline +P brass to the same OAL because they were off by 4-5 thou. I broke out the Henderson trimmer and now they were all to within .001 of each other and have a nice chamfer and deburr. You cant do short calibers like this on a Giraud trimmer. Anything shorter than 223 sucks and anything shorter than 300 Whisper/Blackout wont work.

Then I remembered my 38 Shemedium brass. I got to work on it last night. Soon all of it will be better and the little OCD twinge wont flare up when I think about shooting my 627s.

The bad part is that because this Henderson idea is working so well, now I have to do 500 pcs of new 454 brass and 500 pcs of 41 Mag brass.

Below is an old picture of 38 Shemedium, 38 Short Colt, 38 Long Colt, 38 Special.