Worn out 38 brass?

[40-82]

I ran into a problem this morning. I was shooting a 6-inch L-frame Smith over a solid rest at forty yards. I tried two 38 Special loads: the first a cast 148 grain wadcutter that looks like an H&G 50 from a mold from an unknown maker loaded with 3.0 grs. of Red Dot, and the second load, a Lyman 358477 loaded with 3.3 grains of Titegroup. I hadn't done any shooting at this distance from a solid rest for a while with this gun, and all my six shot groups hovered around 3.5 inches. I just couldn't do any better. I attributed this to bad eyes, arthritis, and lack of practice at this distance. At ten yards these loads were shooting ragged holes double-action.

Just before I quit I decided to try one group with my 357 load of a 173 grain Lyman 358429 loaded with 15.0 grains of Lil'Gun. Due to the recoil and the fact that I just don't shoot that many 357's I expected the results to be embarrassing after I had just seen what I could do with the 38 Special loads. When I checked the target I found a center-to-center six shot group that measured an inch and a half in the center of the bulls eye.

I am wondering if my bad results with the 38 Special could be due to worn out brass. My 38 Special brass is all mixed lots picked up off State Police ranges. Some of it must be 50 years old, and I wouldn't be too surprised if some of it hadn't been reloaded 50 times. Although I never kept the records to prove how many times I have reloaded this brass. My .357 magnum brass is not great for consistency either. It's also mixed lots, but it hasn't been shot that much and I trimmed it to length.

I know that what I'm describing here lacks the precision necessary for any true scientific sampling, but based on what I've described here is my guess reasonable that I'll never get the best accuracy I'm capable of without replacing my 38 Special brass with new brass. Something has to change when you begin to suspect that you're holding for better accuracy than you're gun/load combination delivers.

[chsparkman]

This may not help, but it could be as simple as the fact that the .38 bullet has to travel a little farther than the .357 to engage the rifling. Another possibility is that the light charges in the .38 don't fully obturate the boolit as fully as the hotter .357 load.

[Airman Basic]

Think I'd buy a sample lot of new stuff before I decided that's your problem. It ain't cheap.

[40-82]

chsparkman,

If I remember correctly many of the old PPC target revolvers were built up around almost all of the 357 actions, and they delivered remarkable fifty yard accuracy with light 38 Special loads, but you've given me an idea. I have a Colt target .38. I could try the same 38 Special loads as the same distance and see what happens.

[HATCH]

There are too many factors to consider.

Bullet weight difference
Velocity difference
Not to mention 38 special vs 357 case distance

I have shot several different rounds with the same boolit but different powder amounts.
On some the difference between a 1 inch 6 shot group and a 2 inch 6 shot group was just 1/2 a grain of.powder.

[Scharfschuetze]

Let me suggest a different hypothesis. With mixed lots of 38 Special cases produced over 5 decades, you may not be getting equal crimping pressure or bullet pull on your bullets even though your crimping die and expander die is set the same for each of them. This can be due to case length, brass thickness or the brass work hardening from belling and crimping. What that all means is that you may not be getting similar bullet pull for each shot and thus different pressure curves for the various cases.

Back in the day as a firearms training officer in LE and team captain of the pistol team, I shot a lot of PPC with an average in the 1480s for several years. I always kept my match brass, Federal cases, segregated and they lasted for years. I did anneal the cases from time to time to keep them from work hardening and cracking. They were also from the same production lot and while it may seem a bit extreme, I ensured that they were all of the same length when prepping them for the first time which provided the same crimping pressure from round to round. Perhaps not necessary at the shorter ranges, but I feel it makes a difference at the longer ranges.

In the service pistol class I used either a 6" Colt Python in the 70s and a 6" S&W 586 (L Frame) in the 80s and, while counter-intuitive, I never could see much difference in accuracy between 38 Special cases and 357 cases when using the 148 grain wadcutters at the 24 shot 50 yard stage. The Colt, with its faster rifling twist did seem to handle the HBWCs better than the S&W with its 1-18 something twist which showed evidence of the long-for-weight HBWCs starting to wobble at 50 yards.

As noted above, there are lots of variables in your situation. Try a single brand and lot of brass to start getting a handle on those pesky variables.