Short cases (.357)

[Scott Tschirhart]

I finished loading a huge batch of.38 Special which should last me a good long while.

Next up is .357. Unfortunately some Hornady brass (which seems to be liberally mixed with my other brass) is sometimes short.

Reading all the headstamps at the end of a long day gives me a headache.

I’ve always separated out the short cases and loaded those separately. But I wonder if I should not just run them through the machine and later pick out the loads with an exposed cannelure and run them through the back two stages to seat them deeper and apply a shorter crimp?

[AJMD429]

.
Are the shorties 'LeveRevolution' load brass...?

I have a few 444 Marlins of that nature. Thought about using them for shot capsule loads or something.

[44shooter]

.
Are the shorties 'LeveRevolution' load brass...?

Most likely

[Walt]

Scott, when I want to sort cases by length, I lock my caliper down at either the longest or shortest cases to be separated and use that as a case length gauge. Saves the headache from squinting at head stamps.

[Scott Tschirhart]

Yes and not all the Hornady cases are the same length either!

I’m thinking that I really don’t want to go trim all of the .357 cases I have and I just don’t see this kind of variation in any other handgun cartridge.

So, as an experiment, I’m planning to load everything at the same setting and then go back and seat those bullets deeper after I visually examine cartridges that are not crimped into the cannelure.

I know from experience that this deeper seating seems to make no noticeable difference in how the cases and primers look at 14.5 gr of 2400.

So I’ll chrono the next batch and shoot on paper.

If I can’t tell the difference on paper, it makes no sense to trim.

[Scott Tschirhart]

I don’t think it will hurt anything to seat the bullet deeper and crimp because, as you can see the Hornady brass on the left has no crimp.

[44shooter]

I don’t think it will hurt anything to seat the bullet deeper and crimp because, as you can see the Hornady brass on the left has no crimp.

As long as your pressure doesn’t run too high from the additional compression. FWIW Hornady recommends brass be trimmed to 1.240” for their pointy 140s. I think you may have brass from these factory loads. I would probably just run midrange lead through those, but I’m pretty cautious about anything unusual with a lack of data.

[Scott Tschirhart]

I’ve run them in separate batches with the same load. I can’t tell any difference.

[Walt]

The other thing to take into consideration is that your loads may not need to be crimped if your brass has a firm grip on your bullets. If you load your cylinder full, fire five and then inspect the sixth round for bullet movement, you may find that there's no need to crimp any of your rounds and in that case you can seat all to the same overall length knowing that pressures will be reasonably consistent.

[Griff]

Or... do what I do when I find the small primer 45ACP cases... I put them in my scrap brass bucket to trade for lead at the recyclers. Normally, I return brass to it's owner, but these small primer 45ACP cases are an abomination, and I won't return them to . Similar to Hornady using short brass on their Leverevolution ammo... just thumbing their nose at reloaders.

[1894cfan]

Great, just great! And I just picked up a 200ct bag of Hornady 357 factory brass! Thanks for the heads up on what I have to deal with.

[Scott Tschirhart]

The other thing to take into consideration is that your loads may not need to be crimped if your brass has a firm grip on your bullets. If you load your cylinder full, fire five and then inspect the sixth round for bullet movement, you may find that there's no need to crimp any of your rounds and in that case you can seat all to the same overall length knowing that pressures will be reasonably consistent.

I like to crimp all of my loads because:

1. I run them through a rifle as well and I don’t want them compressing into the case in the magazine tube.

2. I think a crimp helps the powder get a better burn. I wouldn’t care if I was loading Bullseye or 231. But with 2400, I think a crimp is necessary.

[AJMD429]

Great, just great! And I just picked up a 200ct bag of Hornady 357 factory brass! Thanks for the heads up on what I have to deal with.

You might check with Hornady, but they may not use all 'short' cases - hopefully just for the 'leverevolution' loadings. Measure them and see, I guess.

[earlmck]

Scott, I played with that 14.5 gr. 2400 load in QuickLoad, using Hornady jacketed bullets to see what it had to say about reducing length by .05". So... very strongly dependent on weight of bullet you are loading. If you are using the 125 grain hp then your initial pressure is under 30k psi and shorter rounds only raise the pressure 3k psi leaving it still nicely under SAAMI max of 35k psi. If you are loading the 140 grain hp then normal length is just below max and reducing .05" raises pressures 5k psi putting it a ways over SAAMI max. If you are using the 158 grainer then you are already well over max and reducing .05" raises things another 9k psi for waaay hot.

Just sayin' what ole QL thinks about little case length changes. If you're shooting a Ruger revolver I wouldn't worry about a few kpsi over SAAMI max. And I suspect we don't get pressure indications (like sticky extraction) until we are somewhat over 50k psi.

[Scott Tschirhart]

That’s probably exactly right. I’ve been shooting the .357 for many years, including before SAAMI dropped the pressure down.

I don’t recommend that anybody exceed the manuals

[Scott Tschirhart]

In my guns, this load gives a bit more than the Hornady manual velocity.

FA 97 4 1/4 inches averages 1374

FA97 7.5 inches averages 1435

S&W 686 4 inch averages 1343

Marlin 20 inch averages 1767

[1894cfan]

My standard go to for 158gr is 13.5gr 2400, both jacketed and cast. Mostly cast these days.

[44shooter]

Great, just great! And I just picked up a 200ct bag of Hornady 357 factory brass! Thanks for the heads up on what I have to deal with.

You might check with Hornady, but they may not use all 'short' cases - hopefully just for the 'leverevolution' loadings. Measure them and see, I guess.

That’s my understanding: The short ones are spent LeveRevolution loads. New brass should be in spec.

I think I have a box of pointy 44s somewhere. Might trim these to Russian length if I ever empty them.

[stretch]

How short ARE those cases?

(And how does Hornady get away with making brass outside of SAAMI specs?)
Maybe they had to make them that way to get them to feed reliably.

FWIW, my standard load for 357 using 158 gr. JHP:

14.0 - 14.1 gr. 2400
OAL: 1.575 or 1.580, depending on how the crimp looks.
Trim-to-length: 1.280

I've loaded 14.5 gr. of powder, but 14.0 seems more accurate.
I'm told the original loads were up around 14.9 - which is pretty hot
by modern standards!

-Stretch

[44shooter]

How short ARE those cases?

(And how does Hornady get away with making brass outside of SAAMI specs?)
Maybe they had to make them that way to get them to feed reliably

-Stretch

The bullets are longer so they make cases shorter to maintain OAL. No different than Stinger cases or ratshot cases being longer.

[1894cfan]

Great, just great! And I just picked up a 200ct bag of Hornady 357 factory brass! Thanks for the heads up on what I have to deal with.

You might check with Hornady, but they may not use all 'short' cases - hopefully just for the 'leverevolution' loadings. Measure them and see, I guess.
[/quote]

1.273" to 1.280"! SO, I'll have to deal with different case lengths after all!