A while back I ended up with a lot of S&B .38 Special brass. Loading it, I found the primer pockets tight and it was a bit scary seating the primers. They were not crimped pockets (why would anyone do that with 38Spc?). I tried reaming out the pockets anyway. Didn't make a difference. I set the brass aside. I had plenty of other brand brass that loaded just fine, so I didn't need it. BTW, I've reloaded a ton of S&B 9mm and don't have the same problem.
At a later point, during normal times when primers were readily available, I happened upon some S&B primers, so I picked up a few boxes, thinking that this would be a possible solution for my S&B brass issue.
The time has come to use those primers on that .38 Special brass. First thing I noticed is that the S&B primers are randomly oriented in the packaging (as many right-side-up as wrong-side-up). Darn. The other thing I noticed is that the shoulder is noticeably squared off compared to other manufacturers' primers. In some applications, this may give the appearance of a flattened primer, but flattened primers shouldn't be an issue with regular .38 Special loads and I don't plan on loading them hot.
Finally, upon loading my primer tubes I found that the tubes are noticeably less full than with other brand primers. There are definitely 100 primers in that tube, so that indicates that the S&B primers are physically shorter than other brands. Maybe that explains my seating issue with other brand primers in the S&B .38 Special brass? We will see. I'll post back up after loading a few hundred.
At a later point, during normal times when primers were readily available, I happened upon some S&B primers, so I picked up a few boxes, thinking that this would be a possible solution for my S&B brass issue.
The time has come to use those primers on that .38 Special brass. First thing I noticed is that the S&B primers are randomly oriented in the packaging (as many right-side-up as wrong-side-up). Darn. The other thing I noticed is that the shoulder is noticeably squared off compared to other manufacturers' primers. In some applications, this may give the appearance of a flattened primer, but flattened primers shouldn't be an issue with regular .38 Special loads and I don't plan on loading them hot.
Finally, upon loading my primer tubes I found that the tubes are noticeably less full than with other brand primers. There are definitely 100 primers in that tube, so that indicates that the S&B primers are physically shorter than other brands. Maybe that explains my seating issue with other brand primers in the S&B .38 Special brass? We will see. I'll post back up after loading a few hundred.