Short brass for a 38-55

[northmn]

I noticed that Starline sells two lengths of 38-55 brass. One at 2.082 and one at 2.125. when I loaded my Marlin Cowboy I had trouble chambering the Lee 379 bullet but seemed to find that with a deep seat the combination would work. Just curious as to whether the shorter brass offered was for lever guns. The longer brass worked with jacketed, but they were 377. 20 below last night so my exerimentation is limited. Still i am 99% sure that a slightly shorter case would work with the combination. With smokeless I doubt if it would make much difference as long as I kept the laods reasonable.

DP

[northmn]

I found one of my older loading manuals that stated that they changed SAAMI standards from the longer to the shorter.

DP

[475BH]

The longer case is the Marlin-Ballard case length, i'm not sure just what they called it. It preceeded the shorter Winchester case by many years.
The short brass is for the Winchester chamber and guns, not for the Marlin-Ballard chamber and guns.
I have one of those Marlin CB's also, and it doesn't want to chamber the win. case and a .379" bullet real well. I did buy some starline brass but haven't tried them yet, I was told they are thinner and the proper case to use w/ that gun.

[northmn]

I just slugged the bore to my Marlin and found it to be 377, which is contrary to what I ahve been reading, but makes sense in its performance. It used the Winchester cases with a jacketed bullet with no problem and it gave fair accuracy with one that was slightly undersize. I suspect to get it to work OK I will have to order a 377 sizer. I prefer to use a slightly larger bullet but can get performance with one of equal size. Go go with a duplex of BP and smokeless as BP tend to bump up any cast bullet. The 379 almost fits but tends to hang up at the last part of the stroke.

DP

[doubs43]

I have a Winchester Hi-Wall and a Winchester 1894 chambered in 38-55. The 2.125" brass works just fine in both and chambers normally The boolit design and overall length of the loaded cartridge can be critical to proper chambering so be careful of that.

[oneokie]

35-55 itis strikes again. Measure the diameter of one of your castboolit loaded cases. If it measures .396" with the .379" boolit, it should chamber. If it measures more than .396" you have two options, neck turn the cases or have the chamber opened up with a .400" reamer.

[870TC]

I use the current (short) Winchester brass with a .379 lead bullet, with no problems. Never tried the long cases, as the short ones work fine and are available locally.

[northmn]

What I found tht worked for this one is to load the 379's in a Remington fire formed 30-30 case. It chambered very well. I will ahve to take the advice and see if it measures at 396 or less.

DP

[hk33ka1]

Mine were hard to chamber and a slight touch of the crimp in the seating die fixed this. I thought I just had boolits that were too big but in fact my case belling had not been removed.

Lee WW boolit sized to .380, new Winchester short cases. Lee dies, Pedersoli 1885.

I understood that the long cases are the way the cases and guns were all originally made. At some point (1940's?) they decided to just use .30/30 blanks and not draw them longer hence the short cases. Not sure if all chambers since then reflect this, but it is said Pedersolis use the longer ones like the old old stuff and Starline offers the brass for this.

[McLintock]

I've found that brass length doesn't appear to be too critical in my 38-55 loads. My first 38-55 was a Oliver F. commemerative with 24" barrel and tube. Trying to get 9 rounds in the mag I reduced length until I was down to 1.94-5" or so. Made up about 300 cases from 30-30 and 32 Special brass, so had lots to play with. Shortened rounds shot great in both my lever guns and my Browning 1885 Single Shot. Originally came up with a plain base 245 bullet in the shortened case, seated to normal depth and when I wanted a hotter load, I just seated a Lyman 375449 out so I could get 31 grs of 3031 under it and it shot better then ever. Never had any issues with diameters and chambering problems either, but now that I've put my hot load in a normal length case I'm starting to have some.
McLintock

[smithywess]

North mn

As oneokie says .38-55- itis strkes again. I havn't found it an easy calibre to get it figured out in a Marlin Model of 1893 built in 1906. The barrel slugs to .3775" and I very much liked the Lee 250 grain FN bullet which drops from my mould at .381" to .382"with water quenched homemade Lyman #2 alloy. When I sized them down to .379", lubing them with alox, the noses would butt upon the rifling making it difficult to chamber the round. This seems to be the difficulty a lot of folk have had. By trimming my Winchester cases to 2.056" and seating the bullet deeper, and beyond the crimping groove, to an O.A.Length of 2.322" I've had no more problem. I was concerned that the bullet might move under recoil in the tube but with a neck expanding die of .376" there is ample neck tension created by seating a bullet three thousandths greater in diameter. I just apply a light roll crimp to flatten the belling and that's it. I think one should restrict the degree to which one trims the case length as much as possible to cut down on the theoretical problem of cutting chamber rings over time. Balancing this carefully to the overall length and ease of chambering gets around this potential problem in my view.

On another note the only powder that has given me consistent accuracy (and it's been very good) has been I.M.R.4198. The minute I go below and especially above 1350 F.P.Second everything falls apart. That mid 1300's is consistent with the original black powder load. I had no luck at all with various other powders at various speeds. It never ceases to amaze me that a group size, with bullets tumbling sideways, of a foot, can be reduced to three quarters of an inch with holes cut like wadcutters when the correct combination of loading criteria is made.
A very interesting thread. Thanks.

[northmn]

Mine is the Marlin CB a newer make. Still with WW brass it will not chamber a 379 bullet even when I shortened it some. However, as noted if I fireform Remington 30-30 brass whcih then is a little bit by not much shorter, the Lee bullet at 379 will chamber. I ahve a 377 sizer to sue up the WW brass but may still make up a bunch of Remington brass as I have several different brands of cases for the 30-30 and can spare one brand. This rifle did shoot very well with Barnes jacketed bullets at 375, but it does slug out at 377. Will be interesting.

DP

[northmn]

I was able to get the starline Brass which was on back order at my suppliers. It permitted me to load the Lee bullets as cast. I used the shorter brass but I think the ability to chamber the as cast bullets at 380 or so made a big difference. It shoots like it should now, even with a warmer load of 30-31. Before I could get a sort of a group with a lighter load of 4198. It now shoots as tight as my old eyes and the peep sight allows. Advice was great on this issue.

DP

[45-70 Chevroner]

I shoot a Marlin CB and use Win. brass which are standard long cases. The bore measures
.380 and my Lee 250 gr. double cavity drops .381 slugs. I have a lyman sizer and it sizes too
.380. Just the way things work out sometimes. My caliper was made in china. I have two small blocks of steel that are stamped .500 and .250 respectively. The china caliper checks out perfectly.

[Buckshot]

..............As was mentioned, the 2.125" was the original case length. The 38-55 lost favor in the early 20th century (as did many others like the 32-40 etc) due to bolt actions and higher performance cartridges. I really believe the shorter length of the 38-55 came about as they could be produced on the same machinery making 30-30 and 32 Win Special brass. Simply forgo the neck forming operation. Yes they'd work in the older longer chambered 38-55's too. Just a matter of simplifying operations and tooling. So if you want the correct longer case for your 38-55, Starline makes them.

................Buckshot

[hatman]

I know you guys are all the experts but I try to do everything on the cheap. I have a marlin 375 in .375 winchester and have shot nothng but cast in it since I put 1/2 a box of factory rounds through it ten years ago.
I use mixed .30-30 brass which I expand with a .375 mag expander pin in a Lee universal deprimeing die. The cases are short but I load them with 10 grains of Unique and the Lee 250 grain and the Ranch Dog 235 grain (without the gas check) bullets sized to .379. They are my plinking loads for 50 yards or so, and the Ranch Dog bullet does a little better. About 1 to 1 1/2 inches at 50 yards and 3 inches at 100 yds.
I use the Ranch Dog bullet with gas check and 32 grains of H-4198 for my hunting load and it will shoot into 1 1/2 inches at 100 yards with much better trajectory than the ubique loads. I use the same reformed .30-30 brass and have never had any trouble. Overall length of the brass seems to matter very little in performance though I do try to load to maximum overlength, I haven't found that to be critical either.

my 2 cents.

[felix]

Hatman, you are correct. This is because the neck opens up in extremely short amount of time without regard to the neck's length, especially when the brass neck is thin like for any of the parental 30-30 cases. However, the tightness of the brass holding the projectile is much more seen by the initiation of the powder burn. The size of the expander button has much more affect on the load in question.

[jtaylor1960]

One advantage to starting with the longer brass is that it allows you to adjust your O.A.L. to get that bullet into the rifiling while still being able to use the crimp groove on most bullets.