Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading Case OAL?

I have about 5000 1x fired 38 SPCL brass I want to reload but it is all various head stamp and there is some variety in case OAL. I plan to build mild practice loads (probably with Unique) with either a 148 RN or 124 WC and a light roll crimp, depending on price and availability. There is no way I am going to manually trim them all to length so my question is if minor variations in crimp will matter much. Not that is should matter, but these will run through various J- and K-frames.

Alternatively, I am thinking about setting my calipers to the mid-length and just sorting cases in to "short" and "long" piles.

Thoughts or experiences?

Informal practice rounds? If so don't worry about it.

Couple of ways to mitigate the disparate OAL.

Don't crimp by running the ram to the very top of the stroke. Screw the crimping die down until it just touches a case at the top of the ram stroke, then screw it in another 1 to 1 1/2 turns. Raise the ram until the case just contacts the crimp ring, then press a bit more until you feel the mouth turn into the crimp groove. It's not hard to do and you'll quickly get a feel for how much you're crimping each case. You'll still get varying crimps depending on where the mouth is in relation to the crimp groove but you won't buckle overly long cases.

Sorting the cases as long and short will certainly help with that since you can adjust your seater die for each pile to position the crimp groove a bit more optimally.


Use a taper crimp die. Lee sells a taper crimp die for .38 Spl/.357 which I've been using for Hornady lead SWC or full WC with no crimp groove and it works just fine.

I've used both methods depending on the type of bullet - crimp groove or not - and still get excellent results.


OR - just load'em and don't worry about it.

Jim - great advice as always. I didn't think about either one of those options.

Semi autos

Lee factory crimp die

No reason they won't work in 38 special

with revolver mild loads, case length isn't really a thing.

Ditto. And when they get too egregiously long I toss them rather than trim. With thousands of the buggers cluttering up my life throwing a few away now and then is probably a good thing anyway.