38 Special - Something went wrong

[JWT]

I took my S&W Model 10 to the range last week and ran into a problem. Some of my reloads wouldn't chamber easily. Once fired they wouldn't extract without being pushed out individually. Just before moving to these reloads I fired 50 rounds of factory jacketed ammo, so I'm ruling out a gun problem.

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This particular box used Bedwell comercial 148gr wadcutters over 3.3gr of W231 loaded in Winchester brass to an oal of 1.29". The diameter at the neck of a 'tight' round is .381" while a DEWC that works fine is .378". The next box had the same problem with Remington brass. They fire fine, just don't chamber or extract. The die adjustment was not changed. I have reloaded 1000's of rounds of this exact combination without issues. On this occasion I loaded about 300 rounds.

Any ideas what went wrong? Can these be salvaged without tearing down?

[475BH]

Do you scrub the chambers w/ bore cleaner? And have you recently?
Might be a buildup of carbon in there. That's all I can think of.

[texassako]

Just wondering, did you look in the chambers to see if there was any lube or carbon build up?

[JWT]

The are a bit dirty. The smaller rounds chamber easily in all chambers. The fat rounds are tight in all chambers.

The Bedwell lube did build up in the seating die causing the boolit to seat progressively deeper. I had to constantly clean out the build-up. I wonder if excess hard lube could be at the root of this problem.

[GoodOlBoy]

question... did you full length resize this time? I once mixed up a neck and a FL sizing die and had this EXACT problem with 38 specials....

just curious

GoodOlBoy

[Alan in Vermont]

Any chance you're crimping too tight and causing a bit of a bulge right behind the case mouth?

Are seating and crimping in one step or two?

Neither of those questions should cause the fired cases to be hard to extract though. As for salvaging them is there another die you have that might be pressed into service to try to reduce the oversize some?

After writing that last paragraph I got hit with a dose of "gotta go see if". What I found is that by running a loaded 38 WC round into a .223 Rem SEATER I was able to reduce the diameter of a loaded case to .374" at the case mouth and .3759" at the base of the seated bullet. Pretty much the same effect as the dreaded Lee Factory Crimp die. May not give great accuracy but should allow you to unload the brass. Might be a good idea to work up on trying a full cylinder until you confirm it will unload 1-2-3-4-5 rounds before you do the full load.

FWIW I once had a box of 357 cases that fit into the cylinder just fine but had to be driven out singly, with a punch. Something wrong with that brass as it played the same game whether light loads or heavy. It went in the scrap bin in short order.

[C.F.Plinker]

Are you crimping as a separate step? What is the diameter of a loaded round halfway down the length of the boolit? What are the measured diameters of the Bedwell boolits that you are having problems with and the DEWC boolits?

It looks like Alan and I were typing at the same time.:grin:

[JWT]

I use an RCBS carbide full length resizing set. The seat and roll crimp are done in one operation. The round on the left is an older DEWC with a consistent diameter of .376" top to bottom. The round at the right is one of the tight rounds which measures .376" at the base and at the bottom half of the boolit. The measurement at the crimp is .381". It looks like they may not be crimped completely.
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[JWT]

I can't measure either boolit without pulling them which will probably change their dimensions. My last loading session was getting rid of all of the comercial stuff so I could start casting.

[gpidaho]

As the others have said give the gun a good scrub and I never seat a boolit and crimp in one step. After the fact bulged cases on loaded rounds can be fixed with a Lee bulge buster or just a factory crimp die in 38spl. Then figure out what went wrong and fix that and there will be no need for this step. GP

[C.F.Plinker]

It looks like you may be overseating the boolit. Try raising the seating stem by unscrewing it about 1/4 turn (CCW) and see if that is enough to get rid of the bulge at the top of the case. The top of the crimp groove is catching the brass as it is being crimped and pushing it down as the boolit gets seated. It has no place to go and this is what causes the bulge.

[Greg]

Trim all of your cases

I seems to me that you have variable case lengths, which leads to varying crimps and case bulge of over long brass

and seat / crimp as separate operations

[JWT]

The more I look at these tight rounds the more I am forced to conclude that I don't have a bulge. What I think I have here is a failure to crimp completely (the bell is still there). I suspect that while continually disassembling the die to clean out the hard lube buildup from the commercial boolits I must have changed the crimp setting. Tomorow night I will try pulling one of these rounds down so I can verify this.

[Petrol & Powder]

I think post #11 is closer to the issue than #13 but I cannot diagnose the problem via the internet.

In the FWIW category, I prefer to seat and crimp in separate steps. It adds to the complexity but eliminates most other problems related to crimping.

One of the cool features of the newer Dillon dies is that the core of the die can be removed for cleaning just by pulling a clip. You don't upset the adjustment. I also keep one of those cheap nylon brushes with the twisted wire handle near the press to clean the crimping die if there is an issue.
Good Luck ! And keep those model 10's running !!!

[Love Life]

http://www.saami.org/pubresources/cc_drawings/Pistol/38%20Special_38%20Special%20+P.pdf

[tja6435]

You could try a lee factory crimp die for the 38/357, easier than pulling down ammo

[Char-Gar]

Most assuredly your problem comes from the bullet seating and crimping. The pics are not sufficiently sharp for me to refine it more than that. If I had a loaded round in my hand, it would take about 3 second to find the problem. That said, your loading procedures allowed this to happen. Following proper loading procedures would have caught this before a trip to the range. Here is what I do;

1. If you want to seat and crimp in one operation;

A. turn the die down on a sized case until it stops (hits the crimp ring) and then back the die off 1/4 turn.
B. Seat the bullet a little at a time until it is at the right depth in the case and then back the seating stem off a dozen or so turns.
C. Now turn the die body down until you have the proper crimp and bring the seating stem down until it contacts the top of the bullets and lock everything down.

2. Check the first few loaded rounds visual and mechanical before proceeding to load the batch.

A. A visual check will catch most problems.
B. For a mechanical check, try the first 2 or 3 rounds in either a loaded round gauge or the cylinder of your revolver.

3. If you disassemble your die for cleaning, repeat 1 and 2 above.

4. If you keep a dummy round for each bullet (sized and bulleted case with no powder and primers), with your dies, this will make the set up of your seating and crimp dies much easier.

5. If you want a uniform crimp, trim your cases to a uniform length. Once trimmed, the cases should not need trimming again for several reloadings.

6. Life is much easier, if you seat and crimp in two operations. You can do this by readjusting your die or by buying a separate seating die from which you remove the seating stem and just use it for a crimp die. I use and old Belding and Mull hand seating die (with the seating stem removed) to crimp my 38 Special cases with my arbor press.

If you are the sort who feels they must load huge amounts of ammo with a progressive press, then disregard this entire post and you are on your own.

[Love Life]

The steps for loading quality ammo apply the same to progressives. What you would do for a single stage or turret, you would also do for a progressive.

[Alan in Vermont]

You could try a lee factory crimp die for the 38/357, easier than pulling down ammo

If the OP has anything for dies for calibers based on the 222 Rem. head size the work around I described in post #6 will do the same thing. Costs nothing to try.

38 Sp cases vary as much as .050" in length. I did many hundred of them during the winter, found I had to go to 1.120" TTL to get them all to clean up. Took a while to do but now everything is crimped the same. .050" is more than the length of brass that gets crimped so, depending on how long the case you set up with is, some could get no crimp at all or very heavy crimps that would pucker the case. IIRC, out of what was probably more than 200 cases that I checked to establish the parameters for my trim-a-thon, not a one came up to the trim length in any of my manuals.

[Jeff82]

I once had this problem with 38-specials in my Model-14. The root cause was using too much force when operating the lever on my progressive press. After that I learned to work a little more slowly, and have not experienced the problem since. I don't know if that's the cause of your problem or not; just one more thing to consider.

[robertbank]

The steps for loading quality ammo apply the same to progressives. What you would do for a single stage or turret, you would also do for a progressive.

Exactly! Loading cartridges is not exactly "new technology". Grand dad used to load my 41 LC with a nail as a deprimer and Ideal hand tools. The process is the same for me as it was for him only I use either a single stage for rifle or a progressive for pistol.. I shoot IDPA and life is to short to use a single stage for loading 9MM in volume.

To the OP sounds like you have dirty cylinders and case bulge from over crimping. I would think removing the belling is really all you need to to do for shooting target loads. I seldom apply much of a roll crimp on my 38spl ammo I use in IDPA. using 158gr RN or 200 gr RN bullets. I rely on friction from the case to hold the lead bullets securely in place.

Bob

[44man]

It is very hard to see on the pictures but looks like too much crimp with a shallow crimp groove.
Can it make fired brass hard to remove, sure, if low pressure does not iron the brass.

[JWT]

Final diagnosis:

I pulled down a few rounds and found the same problem with all of them. The commercial cast boolits had a lot of that hard blue lube on them and it packed up the seating die. Every 30 or 40 rounds I had to dissassemble the die and clean. At some point during this process the lock ring must have moved. None of these 38's was fully crimped.

The fix is easy of course, just run back through the properly set crip die.

Thanks everyone for all of the words of wisdom. Problems are always easier to solve if you can bounce ideas around.