Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles A question for .375H&H reloaders

Hi everybody,
I haven't been active on this forum for some time, but I hope you can help me.
I was helping a friend reload for his .375H&H rifle for the first time.
Checking the Federal cases he had (17 of them) I measured the neck wall thickness with a tube micrometer and found them to be between 0.0105" and 0.011" which is nice and consistent, but seemed a bit thin.
Is this a Federal case thing, or a normal dimension?

Honestly, I've never checked neck wall thickness in my whole life.

I have used Federal 375 H&H brass before. What you have to watch out for is incipient case head separations. I've had them on the 3rd reloading with Federal brass. I believe the reason is the long tapered case which means that case needs to headspace on the belt rather than a neck and thus stretches more than cartridges with a sharper shoulder.

You may know this, but to check for incipient head separations, run a wire (I use a paperclip) with the end bent at about a 90 degree angle down the inside of the case. If you feel a groove on the inside of the case just above the web, it's time to discard the case. Also, you should check for the groove AFTER resizing.

The 375 H&H is known to have thin brass. I read a bit about the brass being thin in African Dangerius Game Cartridges by Pierre van der Walt.

As long as you are getting adequate neck tension, the thickness of the necks should not be a problem. Make sure that your dies are not overworking your brass and you should get 6-10 reloadings easily.