.44 brass for the long haul

[John Joseph]

I'm in CA and ammo here is going to get 'spensive and a PITA to buy when all the new requirements are implimented. One of my favorite bullet launchers is a S&W M-29 shooting .44 Spls. at targets, so no need for tubthumper mags or hot loads.
So I'm ramping up my handloading for .44 Spls.
BUT
Revolvers (at least those in calibers with oompf) need roll crimps and roll crimps will eventual work the brass into failure, at least way sooner than the taper crimps used in semis.

I want to keep my brass workable for as long as possible since who knows if our Masters here in CA will lower the boom on hand loading components as well?
I have a good supply of .44 Magnum as well as Special brass, so my question is, would it be more prudent to start loading the .44 mag brass to .44 Spl velocities and when the mouths of the brass start to let go, trim the cases back to .44 Spl length and keep on loading them if they're otherwise GTG?

Got any advice?

 

[troy fairweather]

I'm in CA and ammo here is going to get 'spensive and a PITA to buy when all the new requirements are implimented. One of my favorite bullet launchers is a S&W M-29 shooting .44 Spls. at targets, so no need for tubthumper mags or hot loads.
So I'm ramping up my handloading for .44 Spls.
BUT
Revolvers (at least those in calibers with oompf) need roll crimps and roll crimps will eventual work the brass into failure, at least way sooner than the taper crimps used in semis.

I want to keep my brass workable for as long as possible since who knows if our Masters here in CA will lower the boom on hand loading components as well?
I have a good supply of .44 Magnum as well as Special brass, so my question is, would it be more prudent to start loading the .44 mag brass to .44 Spl velocities and when the mouths of the brass start to let go, trim the cases back to .44 Spl length and keep on loading them if they're otherwise GTG?

Got any advice?

yes that is the best thing to do to get the most out of your brass life. if u use as light as say 6 grains of unique thats around 1150 rounds per pound. id get all the brass u can as well this place rangebreas.us has 44 mag and 44s once fired brass for 5 and 7 bucks for 100 shiping is cheap to.with light loads i crimp to just remove any bodge form the flaring they work fin in my marlin 1894 and rugers.

 

[Jack B.]

Sounds ok just don't do it the other way around . 44Mag loads in 44Special in brass can go really wrong , unless you keep really good records and mark your reloads and only shoot them in 44 Magnum pistols. I just don't like the idea of mixing headstamps.

 

[John Joseph]

Sounds ok just don't do it the other way around . 44Mag loads in 44Special in brass can go really wrong , unless you keep really good records and mark your reloads and only shoot them in 44 Magnum pistols. I just don't like the idea of mixing headstamps.

Point well taken!

 

[John Joseph]

yes that is the best thing to do to get the most out of your brass life. if u use as light as say 6 grains of unique thats around 1150 rounds per pound. id get all the brass u can as well this place rangebreas.us has 44 mag and 44s once fired brass for 5 and 7 bucks for 100 shiping is cheap to.with light loads i crimp to just remove any bodge form the flaring they work fin in my marlin 1894 and rugers.

Interesting. The roll crimp I understand prevents the bullet from travelling forward under recoil and binding up the cylinder. Semi autos use taper crimps to keep bullets from setting back under recoil in the magazine. In a tube magazine like the Marlin rifles, will bullets tend to set back? Would a taper crimp then more appropriate in that case? Then there are some revolvers that function quite well with taper crimps---1917 S&W and Colt revolvers shooting taper crimped .45ACP and .38 revolvers shooting 148 gr LHBWCs come to mind---apparently not enough recoil to move the bullet out of the case? But then, a target velocity .44 Spl doesn't seem to have the recoil a .45 ACP so why not a taper crimp on the .44 Spl if it is good 'nuf for the .45 ACP? I recollect Elmer Keith recommended stout roll crimps on .44s, but then he didn't load mouse loads either.

This is getting confusing!

 

[troy fairweather]

Interesting. The roll crimp I understand prevents the bullet from travelling forward under recoil and binding up the cylinder. Semi autos use taper crimps to keep bullets from setting back under recoil in the magazine. In a tube magazine like the Marlin rifles, will bullets tend to set back? Would a taper crimp then more appropriate in that case? Then there are some revolvers that function quite well with taper crimps---1917 S&W and Colt revolvers shooting taper crimped .45ACP and .38 revolvers shooting 148 gr LHBWCs come to mind---apparently not enough recoil to move the bullet out of the case? But then, a target velocity .44 Spl doesn't seem to have the recoil a .45 ACP so why not a taper crimp on the .44 Spl if it is good 'nuf for the .45 ACP? I recollect Elmer Keith recommended stout roll crimps on .44s, but then he didn't load mouse loads either.

This is getting confusing!

u have to try what your guns like and what u can get away with. elmer also used heavy crimps to get higher fps it gives more dwell time. the thing about taper crimps is some times u can swag down the bullets to much then they dont fit your bore. in a tube feed gun the crimp depends on the bullet its self if there is a good crimp grove then use a roll. i seat the bullets just to the end of the grove and crimp just a little so the case is smooth with your finger. the edges of the crimp grove keep the bullet from being pushed in the case and it holds from the bullet from going forward under recoil. the smaller the case flare u do the easier it is to crimp soft and brass last much longer with a small flare. the also depends on the bullets as well the bottoms with more tapered base can get away with little neck flare.

 

[Varminterror]

Mechanically, a roll crimp seated in a cannelure or a crimp groove offers greater resistance to bullet set back than it does to crimp jump.

You could always take up annealing to improve brass life, overcoming the extreme Work hardening which comes with heavy roll crimping of revolver cartridges.

 

[Shimitup]

I have yet to have cracking at the mouth from roll crimping any brand. I'm still loading Federal brass in .44 mag that I bought in the 80's it is starting to fail more or less on the 14th reload cracking on the side, mid case. I've similar results so far with Winchester.

 

[gotboostvr]

For my easy plinking loads in 44 I taper crimp.

Only on hot ammo in 44 mag do I actually roll crimp.

 

[joed]

I haven't lost much brass at all to roll crimping. The trick is not to over crimp which will cause the crimping. Try crimping a round and pushing the bullet against something, you don't need a very strong roll crimp to hold the bullet.

Another thing I learned was buy a separate Lee FCD as it works better then the standard seat/crimp die. When I had problems it was with the seat/crimp die that came with the die set. The problem is it is trying to do 2 things at once and if not set correctly does a terrible job. I went with the Lee FCD 15 years ago and haven't lost one case yet.

 

[troy fairweather]

I haven't lost much brass at all to roll crimping. The trick is not to over crimp which will cause the crimping. Try crimping a round and pushing the bullet against something, you don't need a very strong roll crimp to hold the bullet.

Another thing I learned was buy a separate Lee FCD as it works better then the standard seat/crimp die. When I had problems it was with the seat/crimp die that came with the die set. The problem is it is trying to do 2 things at once and if not set correctly does a terrible job. I went with the Lee FCD 15 years ago and haven't lost one case yet.

i do it in 2 steps when seating and crimping.

 

[WestKentucky]

In a tube magazine like the Marlin rifles, will bullets tend to set back?

Yes. Think about where the recoil hits the cartridge hardest. In a revolver recoil drives the gun back into the hand and in the process smacks the loose fitting rounds on the rim snatching it rearward while the bullet still is staying at rest. It essentially pulls the case off of the bullet (like loose swim trunks if you fall off of the inner tube). In everything else the recoil impulse is shoving the case onto the bullet or shoving the bullet into the case. In a tube mag you have a spring lightly pushing on the nose of all of the bullets in the magazine since they are all under spring tension. Then when the recoil hits it drives the gun back away from the cartridges then the spring slams the stack of cartridges into each other as the spring rebounds. In a box mag you don’t have the rounds slamming each other, but you do have the front of the magazine being driven back into the nose of the bullet shoving it further into the case. (Ever ride one of those high speed water slides where you go like 50mph down the slide and then splash down in the bottom...my family refers to them as an enema slide, kinda like your the magazine smacking into that still bullet or water in this case.)

And to answer the question on crimping, roll is pretty well universally accepted in revolver rounds, but everything else is a mix of taper, collet crimp, or roll. Collet crimps are tough on home user grade equipment. Die makers vary, but I greatly prefer a taper crimp in all my semi autos and rifles.

 

[Slamfire]

I will have to check, but I think I have some 44 Magnum brass on its 15th or more reloading, and it is doing fine. These were full power loads, something I seldom use anymore. You know the 44 Magnum is still a very powerful pistol with 1000 fps loads. I have shot ammo cans of 240 LSWC and 8.5 grains Unique. That is just at 1000 fps in my pistols and it is plenty powerful. The most common failure mechanism of my pistol brass is case mouth cracking, due to crimping. And that is true whether it is 44 Special or 44 Magnum. I do have 44 Special brass that I had loaded so many times, probably 20 times or more, that I took the stuff out of their boxes and was about to dump, when I decided, what the heck, just load till the case mouths crack. I no longer keep track of the times reloaded on this stuff, it is all mixed together in a 50 caliber ammo can, and the stuff must be immortal. I just shoot, reload, shoot, reload, and can't remember when any one case failed.

I do have nickled 38 Special brass where the nickle plating is worn down to the brass. It still works.

 

[Reeferman]

5 grains of Bullseye in a 44 magnum case with a 240 grain SWC is a very nice and accurate load in any of my revolvers. Some of my Federal and Winchester cases are at 15 reloads and I’ve been using a FCD with no cracked cases yet. I have a 100 Winchester cases for full magnum loads using either Win296 or H110 and they are on number ten now and all look good.

 

[cfullgraf]

Like gotboostvr, I taper crimp my light loads.

Trim all your cases to the same length and then you can control the amount of crimp that is applied to all cases. If your cases have variable case lengths, the longer cases will get crimped more heavily and the risk of cracks in the case mouth are greater.

Generally, trimming will be a one time thing as revolver cases do not "grow" much, if at all, under resizing like rifle cases do.

 

[Varminterror]

I’ll agree with the others, 44mag brass should last a lot of firings. I have a set of PMC’s going right now (got them for free, once fired), which are over 20 firings. Other than the first firing under the factory load, they have fired cylinder length 300XTP’s over an over-book load of H110/W296 for every firing. In other words, they have not had an easy life. It doesn’t take me very long to get 20+ firings on a batch of 44mag, however. I picked up 300 in this batch about 5yrs ago.

 

[Ireload2]

Learn to anneal your case mouths for longer life.

 

[Toprudder]

I have 44mag factory ammo that has no crimp, but it appears they use some type of glue in the neck to hold the bullet.

If you are loading light-for-caliber bullets, shooting mid-range or mild loads, and are shooting from a heavy gun, a crimp may not be necessary as the neck tension alone might be enough to hold it. Load up some, fire all but one round in the cylinder, then pull that last one and check for bullet jump.

Slower burning powders may perform better with a tight crimp. FWIW, I have found BE86 works well for mild or mid-range velocities, is not position sensitive, and does not seem to require a tight crimp for complete ignition.

For 44 magnum, Lee makes two types of crimp dies, the regular FCD that has the carbide sizing ring and a crimp ring, but they also have a collet style crimper (only for the magnum calibers, unfortunately they don't have one for 44spl). I feel that the collet crimper puts less stress on the case mouth. I also can't use the regular FCD as the bullets that I use are sized .431 and the carbide rind in the FCD will try to resize the bullet down. The Collet crimper does not do that.

 

[Jack B.]

I have over 20 firings on almost all of my pistol brass and only have thrown a couple away as they had gotten to short. I've only throw one case away because of splitting and that was a 38 Special case that was going on 35 reloads.

 

[FROGO207]

First annealing every say 5 reloads will help with the necks splitting. But if using light loads of fast propellant then the crimp could be lots lighter and arrived at by trial and error. As long as the ammo will be used in a revolver then the least amount of crimp that keeps the bullet from moving out enough to tie up the cylinder is enough with the right propellant. I use mostly 44 MAG brass and get 18-20 reloads with hot loads as they are. Also consider that buying OF brass from a fellow reloader would be mighty hard to regulate if they ever lower the boom on components from retailers out there in the future.

ETA: For comparison I have 38 SPL brass that I have shot the snot out of for the past 20 years or so. Some of it has been shot so much the head stamp cannot be read any longer and the nickle plating is worn off. More than a hundred reloads for sure. I do loose an occasional brass to a side wall split but most of these are mostly the older nickel plated ones for some reason. Just use light loads of fast propellant and minimal crimp, your cases will last a long time IMHO.
Additionally if you are shooting at home and are able, a bullet trap to save the lead to be recast would be a big savings as well.

 

[GooseGestapo]

A light-moderate crimp won’t wear out your brass.
I’ve got .44spl brass I picked up (literally, ofb at ranges, dumps) from back in late ‘70’s. Only those that have degraded from corrosion have been discarded.

I’ve shot NRA PPC since ‘80’s. I’ve had .38spl brass loaded with match wadcutters and SWC go over 100 loadings before splitting. Most will split from cannelure before case mouth.
It’s the heavy/ridiculous crimps given to magnum loads that wear out the brass prematurely.
1,000 Starline cases will outlast you.

 

[CLP]

One thing to consider is that some powders need a heavy roll crimp (4227 comes to mind).