Home Forums Lever Action Central Cowboy Levers Sizing 30-30 or 375 win brass to 38-55?

I Just picked up two vintage 38-55 rifles (a lever gun and a cape gun). I have several boxes of brass from both 30-30 and 375 Win. Could I resize the brass to 38-55?

FYI- teh 375 Win resized nicely. 30-30 not so well.

The .375 will be a little short. You could fire form the .30-30 with a light charge and a lead bullet.

You can get either one to work, but it's not worth it. .38-55 just isn't hard to get anymore. Pick up some Starline .38-55. They sell it in the correct period length brass. It's exceptional stuff.

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I have been fighting brass for 38-55 for six months. Tried the above and others of which none worked for me. Reason is the neck is too thick on most all of it. My 38-55's bores slug .3795 (Marlin) to .380 and .381 (Winchester). Bullets sized .001 over will not chamber properly in those cases. Do it right, use the correct brass. Winchester 38-88, Not 375, will work but Starline is best. 375 Win brass is too thick, I tried trimming the cases with mediocre results. Forget that, just buy the correct brass and save yourself a lot of grief.

You should be able to take 30/30 brass ,prime it and put 5 grains bullseye with a sheet of tolet paper over it and fireform

a case for your 38/55 . a little short but you should be able to load good round out of it.

bob

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Why? I can buy 38-55 brass off the shelf at Sportsman's Warehouse or Cabela's. And it will have the correct head stamp.

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Why?? For the reasons you stated in your earlier post. With properly sized cast bullets chambering is difficult to impossible when seated in either Win. or Starline 38-55 brass Solution is to go to the expense of enlarging your rifles chamber which are working well with jacketed bullets as is. Or as I did, fire form 100 inexpensive 30-30 cases, trim them to a specfic length that allows seating my favorite cast bullet to the top of the upper grease groove and apply a taper crimp. Overall length comes out slightly longer than the same bullet seated in 38-55 case and crimped in the crimp groove, feeds and functions fine. No enlarged chambers and lots of cast bullets going down range. Headstamp is of no concern to me. But I did chuck the modified cases up in my bench top lathe and one quick light cut obliterated the original head stamp. Lastly leave the 375 Win cases to the 375, way to thick for the 38-55.

My Marlin also has a correct SAAMI chamber with a traditional bore size and I chose not to have it enlarged.

I have had to turn the "necks" on .38-55 winchester brass. It seems awfully thin, but I have more than 10 firings on some of it.

I didn't have that problem on the longer size .38-55 starline. I suppose it's the same blank as the shorter size and stretched out thinner.

Initially, I also tried applying a "taper crimp" by running a loaded cartridge back into the sizing die just enough to bring the cartridge diameter down to chamberable dimensions. That worked, and had no effect on accuracy I have been able to realize with standard factory sights.

It just felt wrong, so I bought my first neck reamer. RCBS hand crank lathe type. It reams the inside and turns the outside. You start using one of those and you'll see just how out of round a whole lot of factory brass is.

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The Winchester 38-55 brass and the Starline long brass work fine in both my Marlin 38-55's with .380 Lasercast bullets. My rifles have factory chambers, I would not consider altering the chambers. I use a roll crimp in the crimp groove.

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I measured my Winchester and Starline 38-55 brass after I discovered that Moyers 260 gr .380 gas checked cast bullets chambered with a bit of force as compared to the same components in Starline brass, which falls into the chamber of my Marlin 336 CB.

Winchester 38-55 wall thickness at mouth: 0.090"

Starline 38-55 wall thickness at mouth: 0.080"

So I run Starline brass, and neck turn the Winchester stuff.

BTW, I use 10.0 grains of Unique under that Moyer 260 GC and it's a tackdriver. I chased a yellow empty quart Pennzoil bottle around the 100 yd berm yesterday with 12 rounds so loaded in Starline brass, offhand, much to the amazement of two other guys at the range. They, like so many in this part of PA, were under the impression that one cannot reasonably hit anything farther than across the room with a rifle unless it is scoped. I invited them to try it, and one took me up. He fired two rounds from a rest, the first missed and the second shot sent the container spinning. "Unbelievable!" he said. "No, just practice and familiarity with the capabilities of the rifle and cartridge," I said.

I really like those lighter Unique loads in hyphenated cartridges, which seem to run between 1100 and 1400 FPS depending on the cartridge. A little dirty, but I like to pretend it's BP performance without the mess.

Noah

Sure you don't mean .008 and .009?

SAAMI is .0076 I turn mine to .010 and have no problems.

Unique used to be my old stand by. I switched to Trail Boss. I shoot it in all my levers.

A lot of the BP appeal, without the Unique mess.

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I think that he just got the decimal in the wrong place.

10 grs. of Unique is my standard load. At 1375 fps out of my 38-55's, I can ring the dinger plates out to 500 yards and more. The dinger is 22" wide by 32" high. but it looks like a speck at 500 yards. Then we have the Quigley Bucket which is 16" square at 380 yards. Iron sights and offhand, a bit more difficult. At those ranges we fire and take another sip of coffee and THEN listen for the ding.

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Correct. I kan shoot; I jsut cant' tipe.

Noah

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looks to me like your still going to come out about .04" short, and you must take this in mind with your reloads. Then you might have an issue with your dies being a little on the long side. But these cab be trimmed at the bottom about .050" The seater will probably be OK, but may have an issue with the crimp if you use one.
gary

If you are fireforming 30/30 use 5 grains bulleye and one sheet

Toliet paper and hold rifle upright and fireform away!

The .375 Win will be a little short also ,the 38/55 was parent

cartridge of both .

Bob