@#!**%# .380 brass......

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CMV

CMV

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So I got entirely out of .380 a few yrs back. In part after getting a Sig P938 & Ruger LC9s I had no good reason to keep any .380 guns around - their size was their appeal & the micro 9's fixed that. Main reason though was separating 9mm & .380 was such a PIA. I let lots of people shoot at my range and I really don't care what they shoot but I don't allow steel/aluminum case or .380 because I don't want that stuff entering my brass stream.

So anyway, I traded for a lot of 9mm brass that was "clean and sorted". It was neither.....Ran a magnet thru and got all the steel, visually got all the aluminum, but I suck at visually separating .380 & 9mm....after a while they all look the same. So thought whatever was getting thru was getting sorted on the press. Waste a primer, but powder won't drop in a .380 case, feels off placing the bullet, and even if it sneaks by that looks odd enough to stand out.

Well apparently not. I thought I caught 100%, but today at range I had a stoppage & sure enough a primed .380 case with bullet plugged my barrel. No big deal smacking the bullet out with cleaning rod, but irritating since I thought I had them all.

Ughh....so now I have to go thru ~2400 loaded rounds and about 3k pieces of brass and pluck out whatever .380 I missed. I guess real bright light & some reading glasses - I can't think of any other way to cull the .380.

Since I got out of .40 also everything else is real easy - no mistaking this for that, no cases that can jam others inside.

oh well...just griping. IF I were a tiny bit smarter, I would have just stopped at the 2nd or 3rd .380 and really gone thru it all then. Really figured I was attentive enough to not let one get past bullet seating at least, but apparently not.
 
pulled out about 150 pieces if anyone wants them.....resisting urge to toss on driveway & stomp them flat :)
 
When sorting the loaded rounds line them up in a long line. The 380 brass will show up as shorter brass/more bullet showing. FWIW I reload on a single stage press and can feel the difference in force when resizing between the two. With a 380 brass the press handle virtually falls down when using 9MM dies. Good thing nobody shot a 9MMX18 Makarov at your range.
 
I recently found something worse than .380 brass.......normally I can "feel" the .380 brass when sizing on my Dillon 650, this was different.

Last Tuesday we had carbine night at our IDPA club. Brought out my utterly reliable Colt AR6951 9mm AR, with 2 boxes of my normal loads. This gun has never had an issue other than with an ASC mag that's been junked.

Middle of a stage, I get a "click" (the really loud kind when you were expecting a bang). So I do a Tap (really an AR push/pull), rack, bang, and end up with a round chambered, and a round fed against it. Dump the mag, but cannot get the round chambered to extract. Had to use a pocket knife to extract the round.

The guys in my group were nice about it, we pry the round out and I get a re-shoot. Next stage is OK, stage after that I get a click and the same exact jam when I go into remedial action. Rounds won't extract. So I go into stripping the gun, cleaning the extractor etc. It repeated several more times during the evening and I finished the match with a borrowed carbine. Ended up winning the match, but only because the guys allowed me re-shoots when I should have been booted for showing up with a non-working gun.

This past weekend I decide to sort chit out. Completely break down the Colt, remove the extractor, do plunk tests on ammo, even develop a new load for the Colt's chamber. Head out back to test; new load runs fine, old load runs fine, now thinking it had to be a gunked up extractor. 4th magazine of old ammo...."Click", won't extract. This time I pull the round and really examine it......9x18 MAK brass! I go through a couple boxes of ammo and find 3 more of the %^^%$ things. Apparently the 9mm Mak brass is just short enough not to headspace on the mouth and the AR9 extractor won't hold it against the breach face to fire (sometimes does in a pistol)

It appears that somehow I got a bunch of 9x18 MAK brass (not the steel chit, real brass, boxer primed) intermixed with my 9mm brass. My sorting, with the intent to eliminate .380 brass and look for split cases didn't pick up the 1mm delta. Once loaded, they're the same OAL as my 9mm loads, so my finger over cases looking for high primers check didn't catch them either.

My current theory is that during the match, once removed I'd pocket the offending round and then as I normally do reload it into a magazine at the end of the stage. I probably jammed that gun 4 times with the same round! So now I'm adding another step of checking the case heads and reading the caliber.
 
mstreddy said:
I'll take those evil 380 cases off your hands.
Yes, they make it through various stages. Gotta ask though, are you not checking for powder in the case before you seat the bullet?
Click to expand...
Yes, but apparent;y that one snuck by. All the empty brass is gone thru. Went thru once with the bright light & readers & culled a lot. Then saw a nickel case with belted band - all of those had been .380. Sure enough it was, so that made it thru my sort....ughhhh....ended up just standing them all up on a large storage bin then pulling out the couple short ones.

Thru some of the loaded rounds and haven't found any, so that's a good sign....

@mstreddy - PM your address & will send the 380 brass
 
CMV said:
So I got entirely out of .380 a few yrs back. In part after getting a Sig P938 & Ruger LC9s I had no good reason to keep any .380 guns around - their size was their appeal & the micro 9's fixed that. Main reason though was separating 9mm & .380 was such a PIA. I let lots of people shoot at my range and I really don't care what they shoot but I don't allow steel/aluminum case or .380 because I don't want that stuff entering my brass stream.

So anyway, I traded for a lot of 9mm brass that was "clean and sorted". It was neither.....Ran a magnet thru and got all the steel, visually got all the aluminum, but I suck at visually separating .380 & 9mm....after a while they all look the same. So thought whatever was getting thru was getting sorted on the press. Waste a primer, but powder won't drop in a .380 case, feels off placing the bullet, and even if it sneaks by that looks odd enough to stand out.

Well apparently not. I thought I caught 100%, but today at range I had a stoppage & sure enough a primed .380 case with bullet plugged my barrel. No big deal smacking the bullet out with cleaning rod, but irritating since I thought I had them all.

Ughh....so now I have to go thru ~2400 loaded rounds and about 3k pieces of brass and pluck out whatever .380 I missed. I guess real bright light & some reading glasses - I can't think of any other way to cull the .380.

Since I got out of .40 also everything else is real easy - no mistaking this for that, no cases that can jam others inside.

oh well...just griping. IF I were a tiny bit smarter, I would have just stopped at the 2nd or 3rd .380 and really gone thru it all then. Really figured I was attentive enough to not let one get past bullet seating at least, but apparently not.
Click to expand...
Well CMV steel cased ammo is reloadable and there are berdan primer decapper tools that can be bought, they're on the pricey side but worth the cost if shoot combloc steel ammo.
 
I agree with you guys. It is really annoying when, I sit down to reload .380 and, a 9mm sneaks in.

I wasn't aware of the shell sorter, all of the other sorters I have seen are quite expensive. I will probably pick up one of these next month. It looks great. If that plate works, it looks like a good way to get rid of those 9mm cases.
 
Last edited:
I also use that 380 shell sorter plate, but I go one step further.

Here is what I do now. Makes it easy to inspect 9mm for stepped cases, NATO headstamps (crimped primers) and 380, 9mak, 38super cases.
 
An easy remedy for the presence of 380Auto cases is this...

• Buy your niece a 380Auto
• When you find 380Auto brass in your 9mm, pull it out and save it for her
• Every 6 months you can reward her with a bag of 380Auto brass
• Then she'll take up reloading, at which point she'll start shooting more
• Another family member into shooting and reloading

Problem solved. :p
 
I think I was just more aggravated with myself than anything else. I took some steps to effectively prevent .380 from entering my brass stream (along w/ AL & steel). Got it all out of my possession, put in a plan to prevent new .380 brass from entering. Simple. Then I just let a pile in for no good reason (I shouldn't have even traded for any since I didn't need any). Just dumb...
 
I've only had one piece of .380 slip by me in the past year. I'm loading on a Lee Classic Turret and last year started using the Auto Drum powder measure. I don't know if it's specific to the Auto Drum (don't have the Auto Disk anymore so I can't check), but with my 9mm settings, the .380 case wasn't tall enough to activate the powder drop. All I wasted was a primer.

Dave
 
With my 550B, I've noticed that .380 feels much different than 9mm when sizing as the case comes out of the die, sometimes pulling the rim free of the shell plate.

When that happens, I pull the round out from under the powder drop and return the powder to the hopper and re-insert, raise the ram and re-engage the offending case and put a little sideways pressure to the shell plate as I lower the ram. No components wasted.

Bad word mantra helps during this exercise....
 
CMV I shoot and reload both 380 and 9mm. Not too much of a problem for me. I don't have my own range so I shoot mostly at an indoor range that will allow me to clean up left over brass as long as I'm not going past the firing fine. First thing I do when I return home is to sort brass by size, which only takes 1/2hr or so. Easy to pick out the 45 and most of the 40 stuff.

With the 380, 9mm stuff I place it in an aluminum tray, the kind that takeout food comes in, usually a couple hand fills at a time. I then give it a shake like one would with a primer tray and the cases all pretty much stand up. Then with them standing tall it's much easier to find and sort out the shorty's. When sorted they all go into large plastic jars that pretzels come in.

Lastly another quick inspection when I wash, dry then tumble before I then sort it by headstamp. I sort into 7 groups, 6 are the most popular brands and the last is the oddball stuff that I'll load when I know I'm going someplace that I won't be able to collect my brass.
 
Chuck R. said:
I recently found something worse than .380 brass.......normally I can "feel" the .380 brass when sizing on my Dillon 650, this was different.

Last Tuesday we had carbine night at our IDPA club. Brought out my utterly reliable Colt AR6951 9mm AR, with 2 boxes of my normal loads. This gun has never had an issue other than with an ASC mag that's been junked.

Middle of a stage, I get a "click" (the really loud kind when you were expecting a bang). So I do a Tap (really an AR push/pull), rack, bang, and end up with a round chambered, and a round fed against it. Dump the mag, but cannot get the round chambered to extract. Had to use a pocket knife to extract the round.

The guys in my group were nice about it, we pry the round out and I get a re-shoot. Next stage is OK, stage after that I get a click and the same exact jam when I go into remedial action. Rounds won't extract. So I go into stripping the gun, cleaning the extractor etc. It repeated several more times during the evening and I finished the match with a borrowed carbine. Ended up winning the match, but only because the guys allowed me re-shoots when I should have been booted for showing up with a non-working gun.

This past weekend I decide to sort chit out. Completely break down the Colt, remove the extractor, do plunk tests on ammo, even develop a new load for the Colt's chamber. Head out back to test; new load runs fine, old load runs fine, now thinking it had to be a gunked up extractor. 4th magazine of old ammo...."Click", won't extract. This time I pull the round and really examine it......9x18 MAK brass! I go through a couple boxes of ammo and find 3 more of the %^^%$ things. Apparently the 9mm Mak brass is just short enough not to headspace on the mouth and the AR9 extractor won't hold it against the breach face to fire (sometimes does in a pistol)

It appears that somehow I got a bunch of 9x18 MAK brass (not the steel chit, real brass, boxer primed) intermixed with my 9mm brass. My sorting, with the intent to eliminate .380 brass and look for split cases didn't pick up the 1mm delta. Once loaded, they're the same OAL as my 9mm loads, so my finger over cases looking for high primers check didn't catch them either.

My current theory is that during the match, once removed I'd pocket the offending round and then as I normally do reload it into a magazine at the end of the stage. I probably jammed that gun 4 times with the same round! So now I'm adding another step of checking the case heads and reading the caliber.
Click to expand...
That is why my Makarov and all its ammunition are on long term loan to my daughter in law for home defense .

To make matters worse, I cut down 9x19 brass for most of the loads.
 
D Rock said:
I've only had one piece of .380 slip by me in the past year. I'm loading on a Lee Classic Turret and last year started using the Auto Drum powder measure. I don't know if it's specific to the Auto Drum (don't have the Auto Disk anymore so I can't check), but with my 9mm settings, the .380 case wasn't tall enough to activate the powder drop. All I wasted was a primer.

Dave
Click to expand...

Yeah...it could never sneak by me when I'm using LCT. I don't feel it off enough at sizing on 650
 
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