Need some advice

[DeputyDog25]

I was trying to be a good uncle by letting my 13 y/o nephew help me out in the reloading room. I had him depriming/resizing .38spcl brass. After he got finished with the brass, I put the lid on the box and put it back on the shelf until I was ready to use it. Well, here is where I need the advice; I went to use the brass today and it seem that he cranked down on the case mouth flare screw and belled the cases way out. I tried running them back through the sizing die, but it did not do anything. Does anyone know of a way I can take out all the bell or have I just lost all my .38 brass? Thank you in advance for your response.

[dh2]

can you get them in a crimp die and start over?

[gpidaho]

Try other sizing dies you have on hand and see if by chance you can size it back in steps. Gp

[oldcanadice]

If you can fit them in the sizing die they are clearly not too badly deformed. Try making a dummy round with one of the cases. If they won't fit into the seater die, you need to set the sizing die down some more. If the die is already against the press ram, it is ok to set it down more so the die is still touching the ram when the case is full into the die -- take the spring out of the press, but don't over do it.

If you are using a 4 die set, see if the seating die crunches the case enough to take out the major part of the bell. If you generally run with no crimp that may still be enough. If using a combination seater/crimper, it should be close enough to normal to be able to shoot.

If the dummy won't chamber, you will have to set the crimper down a little at a time until it will. At that point you should be good to go.

[DeputyDog25]

Thank you guys for all your advice.

[jhalcott]

I always check the progress of new freeloaders. An ongoing discussion of possible errors and corrections will save lots of future salvage work.

[DeputyDog25]

I always check the progress of new freeloaders. An ongoing discussion of possible errors and corrections will save lots of future salvage work.
You are very right about this, I will in the future check behind him on a regular basis. He has been doing very well with everything else, so I guess I got lax and didn't think to check behind him on this endeavor.

On a positive note, I was able to salvage the majority of the brass, although it did make for extra work, thank you for your advice, it saved me a lot of brass.

[paul edward]

Resize in a .357 SIG resizing die. These cases are now good candidates for neck annealing.

[Wayne Smith]

Ditto on the neck annealing.

[DeputyDog25]

Got them all fixed and only lost about 8 cases out of about 1000, thank you for all the advice