New revolver brass prep

[crabo]

I got tired of working up loads with mixed brass of dubious origin, and ordered some new Starline brass in 357 and 44 mag. These loads are for 100 meter silhouette match and not for plinking.

I know case length will affect the amount of crimp, and needs to be trimmed at some point, but here are my questions about prepping new revolver brass.

1. Does anyone deburr the flash holes? (I don't see how it could hurt)

2. Should I trim all of the cases before I use them, or after I fire them the first time?

3. Anything else I should do before I load them?

I know a lot of people just load and shoot until they split. I do that on my plinkers, but I want a higher level of accuracy here.

I will be shooting the 357s in revolver and lever gun, and the 44 in revolver only.

Thanks,

[wallenba]

Trimming won't be absolutely necessary if new, check the OAL anyway. I give mine a pass just to 'square' up the case mouth. Yes I deburr my flash holes. Lyman and others make tools for that, see this http://www.lymanproducts.com/lyman/case-prep/case-prep-tools.php . I also chamfer the inside of the case mouth to ease bullet entry and deburr the outside of the case mouth to get a better crimp. I use starline exclusively and by my experience deburring the flash holes has been unnecessary so far...good quality. Shooting silhouette loads you're going to have to keep an eye on wall thickness and stretching.

[watkibe]

Hey, we had quite a good thread here a while back on this subject. Lots of people contributed with lots of different ideas. I learned a lot !

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=58617

I hope you enjoy it too, Crabo.

[Jeff Davis]

I try to separate my handgun brass from my rifle brass in the same calibers, mainly because the actions in my leverguns are made to spring back against the brass. Marlin 1894s are notorious for this. This will cause more case stretching and require trimming as opposed to brass fired in a quality revolver that should not have any give (ie limited endshake and cylinder gap). Most of the gun experts in the gun mags and the Speer reloading manuals under 357 magnum will mention this fact.

[SierraWhiskeyMC]

I treat new brass almost the same as I treat range pick-ups.

De-burr, size, trim, chamfer in & out, clean, bell, etc.

Otherwise, how are you going to get any kind of repeatability? It's a pretty sure bet that the case manufacturer didn't use your particular dies when they sized the cases, and who knows what might've happened to them during shipping.

For range pick-ups, I also sort by manufacturer; if mil-spec, by armory and year.

I don't bother working up loads with brass that I don't have at least 100 cases of same manufacturer or armory/year for. I'll either save them until I DO accumulate enough, trade 'em off, or just use them for low-velocity plinking rounds.

[44man]

Size and expand, find the shortest case and just give them all a kiss with a trimmer to even them to the short case, de-burr. I expand and flare before trimming, the slight flare does not bother the trimming.
Then load them and shoot them all at least once before using them for a match. Accuracy will be better.
They will all shorten when fired too and you will not need to trim for a long time.
Nothing special needs done with them after that.

[Big Boomer]

Crabo:

I also use Starline brass and think it is great stuff. I load for a Ruger Bisley 5-shooter Hamilton Bowen built for me in .45 Colt with an LBT 340 gr. WLN gc boolit. I tried new brass just "as is" and groups at 25 were not bad, but not as good as I thought they should be.

Then I decided to check the brass for length. There was not a great variation, but they were not all the same length, at least a few thousandths difference among them. Too, the case mouths (according to my case trimmer) were not square. So I started sizing, belling and trimming new cases by lots of 50 and keeping them segregated in boxes, chamfering inside and out. I also keep recorded on masking tape stuck on the boxes how many times the cases have been fired. Since I shoot two other .45 Colts, I record for which revolver they are designated.

Now if I cannot get 5 boolits in one beat-out hole at 25 yds. off sand bags (and certainly can't do it every time), the target isn't a keeper for braggin' purposes. Since I'm getting older (69-plus), I have to use an "eyepiece" with a small, adjustable aperature that lets me see the rear sight (can't think of the name of the thing right now). But it helps. 'Tuck

[cbrick]

Crabo,

I've used a lot of Starline in silhouette (200m), the last lot # I needed to add 0.5 gr powder to keep the velocity and sight settings the same as the previous lot of Winchester brass (larger powder capacity). The starline brass ran a bit more consistent in case length, case weight and flash hole uniformity than the winchester but it was lighter in weight.

I differ with some of the posts here, using virgin brass I don't size but I do bell the mouth very slightly. I uniform the flash hole and the primer pocket with a Sinclair tool, primer pocket depths do vary. Most mass produced brass will vary some both in length and square mouths so match brass should be trimmed. Once fired I neck size (only size the length of the brass as deep as the boolit seats), this helps the brass fit the chamber of the revolver it was fired in.

Tuck,

Merit optical device?

Rick

[wallenba]

Crabo:

Since I'm getting older (69-plus), I have to use an "eyepiece" with a small, adjustable aperature that lets me see the rear sight (can't think of the name of the thing right now). But it helps. 'Tuck

A 'diopter', use one too on my dominant eye for same reason. Works good!

[HeavyMetal]

In this case I would not only size and trim, as well as deburr the flash hole I would also uniform the primer pockets.

Some brass needs this badly other hardly get touched but if you want consistant long range hits each primer needs to be seated to the same depth.

I will also suggest you buy primers and powder by "lot " numbers. This will insure that the components you use are always the same as well.

[Big Boomer]

Cbrick:

Right ... Merit eyepiece. Costly little item ... about $ 65 when I purchased it several years ago, but it works. Probably gone up in price since then.

I've never been enthralled with the idea of using glass on a revolver and I used to mostly do target shooting and the Merit kept me shooting.

I've even used it while deer hunting w/ a revolver. Not really the way to go though, while hunting, because it could be too easily lost. 'Tuck