Reloading Karma 38 Super brass

[Kevin]

Last week or so, I started a thread about what would be the best thing to do with brass I pick up at the outdoor range I shoot at. Last time I went shooting I found about 80 pieces of Starline 38 Super brass. I picked them up and brought them home...deprimed and cleaned them. I have one of the X-treme Thumbler's Thumblers. It cleans with soapy water and the little stainless steel pins. Wow! The brass turns out like new.

Anyway, here's the karma. There are 80 pieces of Starline 38 Super....there is actually a few more, 83 or so, but I say 80 incase I miscounted. Pictured, they are the middle between 9mm and 38 Special. Just FYI if you are curious. I don't have a 38 super gun, although the thought did cross my mind to get one...one of those nice race guns with a c-more mounted on it. hmmm....one day...

Question, could these be fired in a 38 revolver? Oh, wait...the rebated rim wouldn't let me, or would it?

Oh, I'll draw a name on Friday afternoon. Not sure how many people will be interested in this...

9mm on left, 38 super in middle, 38 special on right.

 

[WIL TERRY]

The rim is NOT re-bated, Sir.
They work well in many 38/357 sixguns.
You can load them with a set of 38S&W loading dies. { not 38spl/357mag dies !!! ]
And so it goes...

 

[Kevin]

Oh, thanks for pointing that out. I deprimed them on a hand held depriming tool, I don't have 38 S&W dies, just 38 special. So they are not resized. Just cleaned...

 

[NikA]

.38 S&W dies should actually be a bit too large for .38 Super. I've used .38 Special dies to size .38 Super cases (for the sort of experiment you're referencing), but they actually size the brass on the small size. Great karma!

 

[contender]

Put me in for the Karma. If I win,,, they will be donated to my Autism Charity match,, and I'll add some to it as well.

 

[Kevin]

Just some more info on the 38 super. It's interesting to me, I hadn't really ever heard about it until I found these cases and started to read about them.

As WILL TERRY points out, while it's not a rebated case, it is a semi-rimmed case, and obviously different than a 38 special case. I fixed my picture link, it should work now and you can see the difference.

Here is what I found quickly on the internet about the case rim from Wikipedia, (so you know it must be true )
"The .38 Super retains the original dimensions of the .38 ACP case. The cartridge was originally designed to headspace on the semi-rim, which worked in the Colt M1900 due to the design of the feed ramp. When the .38 Auto became the .38 Super, in the 1911A1, the feed ramp could no longer be used as rim support. As a result of this, observed accuracy of the .38 Super suffered until Irv Stone of Bar-Sto barrels re-designed the chamber to allow headspacing on the case mouth. Since then, all new production .38 Super pistols headspace on the case mouth, as with other cartridges in this class. The semi-rimmed case is known to cause feeding problems in some magazines, especially double stack magazines, and led to the development of new variants with reduced rims (typically only .003" per side)."

 

[Jimbo357mag]

...a cartridge that can't make up it's mind whether it wants to seat on it's rim or on it's mouth.

 

[DGW1949]

...a cartridge that can't make up it's mind whether it wants to seat on it's rim or on it's mouth.

In it's original form, the .38-Super (or more accurately, the .38ACP+P) was loaded to a rather healthy pressure level and used a roll-crimped 130-FMJ bullet. At the time, the crimp was thought to be necessary to prevent bullet setback during feeding, hence using a smallish OD rim for head-spacing...the "smallish" aspect being necessary for reliable feeding though the 1911-A1 platform.
And BTW, what looks like a rebated rim is in fact not. What you're seeing there is actually an extractor grove.

All in all, a purty-nifty cartridge which did it's intended job rather well.
And just as an aside, I've always believed that the infamous "accuracy issues" which became associated with "Colt's .38 Super pistol" had more to do with poor QC on the part of the ammo manufactures in terms of maintaining proper rim thickness, than it had to do with the design of the cartridge itself.

So there ya have it...nothing mysterious about any of it.

DGW

 

[Kevin]

Thanks for everyone's input. I learned something about a new to me caliber, so it's a good day.

Karma's over, they will go to Contender for his charity shooting match, I'll send you a PM. I think everyone can agree it's for a good cause as well. Thank you for that.