Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Weird case splitting on 38 spl loads

Combo of weak brass&Unique. Course i aint an expert.

I had the exact same thing happen to me, using NEW Starline brass (brass) cases. I was loading my normal wadcutter load of 2.8g of Bullsyse with a Remington 148g HBWC. Split cases on 8 of the 15 rounds fired. These were fired in my S&W 52-2 which has had thousands of these rounds fired without an issue. I contacted Starline and they said it is a detonation issue, light powder charge and perhaps the powder got trapped in the hollow base of the bullet. Not sure I buy that, it has never happened with any other brass Nickle or Brass. At any rate they sent me a dozen new cases and I have used that brass in my K38 with heavier loads and have never had the issue again. The perfect little holes in the Nickle brass is odd, no idea about that. I use walnut media and Lyman turbo charger.

They were former factory loads (the nickeled ones) that had been pressure-tested, I'll bet. The circular holes came from where the pressure testing units were.

I got hold of some cases like that, from a local dealer, and that's what he said. He'd been buying them directly from Winchester (that particular batch, anyway).

The ones I got were .41 Magnum cases, and they'd crap the bed if I went a bit hot.

The dealer often got some other contract overrun stuff from Winchester every now and then. He was a distributor/jobber for the local area, and often got stuff that other dealers claimed they couldn't get.

Round holes about the size of a Unique "dot"...

Looks like delayed Ignition/hangfire, possibly?

I'd bet a box of doughnuts that it goes away with a different load.

I had the same thing happen with a 45 colt, new starline brass and unique.
The load was a midrange load.

Just one case of several had the split down the middle, no round holes.

Moved on to other loads and has not happened since.

Krispy Kremes stealy?

That load is under 7,500 CUP according to the Lyman cast bullet manual if seated flush or .20 longer than the case.

Hornady lists a load that light, again with about .25 above the case mouth. Velocity is 550-600fps. A 357 chamber will bleed pressure down even a bit...

"Unique has a balance point around 13,000 pounds, with a working range of about 4,000 pounds above this, but very little below."

Elmer Keith-Sixguns


The other thing that the pictures show is case obturation shows up midway on about every case. None is present at the case web that I can tell.

Thanks fellas. I have some more rounds loaded up using brass from the same batch these came from but with 3.8 gr of Unique. This is the load that was giving me leading before. I'll shoot some and if the cases all survive, then I'll chalk it up to the low charge.

If, then, I still have leading, I'll check the throats and also try the load in several of the other 38/357's I have.

^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

CAS have run into the same thing, and that is many powders have minimums that if you go below the recommended results in higher pressures and sometimes even blown up guns. Part of that is how the powder sits in the case. Powder needs to be up against the primer, otherwise you have one explosion with the primer and a second before the first has the opportunity to push the bullet out which ends up with double explosions. I make it a point to NEVER go below manufacturers starting points with light loads.

I have never seen the holes, but the case splitting in mid case of a low intensity round, 9 out of 10 times it's bad brass. Could be from any number of reasons, brittle from the factory, work hardened from too many loading, something that happened to cases in storage.

But the holes, that's freaking weird. Nothing wrong with Unique in .38 Special, not my first choice in .38 Special, but if that's what you have. But that does seem an awfully low starting charge...by chance, where'd you come up with that powder charge?

Went back out with the loads that had brass from the same batch, same bullet but 3.8 gr of Unique. Cases were all perfectly fine. But, got bad leading again.

Guess I'll be reaming the throats and chalking the previous case splits up to the under-charged loads. That sounds really weird, but there are some other reports of weird things happening with under-charges. It's the only thing I can figure.

Why not just switch powder. Bullseye, W231,Universal Clays, Power Pistol, HP 38. Lots of faster burning powders that will solve your problem

Buy some pin gauges (you can get individual gauges on Amazon) and go from there.