357 mag brass cut down!

[dewcrew8]

I was going throw some brass that was giving to me and the nickel brass that was win 357 mag, was smaller then the fed brass . So I ran them throw a case length gauge and all 48 win brass came out as 38 SPL. Would you keep them and mark them somehow, for 38 SPL or just throw them away so you mix them up later? It sucks that someone cut down the brass when you can find 38 SPL all day long.

[GP100man]

They may have cut off splitting necks .

I`d put it in the recycle bin , smash the mouths so a scrounging urge won`t have ya scrounging it back out (been there done that) or someone else getting hold of it .

GP

[g.willikers]

They might have been cut down from perfectly good .357s to fit a .38.
If they're in otherwise good shape, there's no reason they can't be used.
Like you say, it does seem like a waste of someone's time, but why throw them out.
The hard work has been already done.

[Misssissippi Dave]

As mentioned if they seem to be in good shape I would just take a sharpie pen and put a line around them near the base to make it easy to know just what they are. This is the same method I use to try to recover my brass at steel competitions or just general use at the range. I use a red marker since it seems to be easier to find the brass from semi-auto pistols.

[mikld]

Since they are nickel plated, and shot in a revolver, they are easily kept separate from other .38 brass, if you feel it necessary. I've been reloading .38 Special for a loooong time and I often shoot mixed headstamp cases in my .38s and I have no idea how many times they've been fired, and usually get good results. Inspect those cases and if no splits and primer pockets seem ok, just shoot 'em...

[Sevens]

Depending on the load you happen to be crafting and the crimp you are imparting and most obviously the bullet in question... There is a chance you could accidentally get them mixed in with your .357 brass supply and run them through your entire process and load them and you might never notice it.

You could even shoot them and you might not notice it. Which would never really be an issue until/unless you accidentally chamber them in a .38 Special revolver, and then you could see a real problem.

"Oh, I'd never do that!" Sure. But your brother might, if he's digging out of your ammo box on a range day. Or maybe someone in your family going through your old stuff after you kick off.

How many pieces of brass are we talking about here? The smart move may be to crush 'em like GP100man man suggested. It becomes a simple risk-reward scenario here. If it's 20-50 pieces, get rid of 'em and go on in life. If it's a couple hundred, you could take some kind of a tool to the headstamp and wipe clean the ".357 Mag" that is marked there and use 'em as .38 Special brass.

[g.willikers]

What's the chance of not noticing .38 length brass have been run through a loading process for .357.
The bullets would be half out of the cases, wouldn't they?
Even someone brand new to reloading should notice that.

[buck460XVR]

Sounds like someone tried to salvage old .357 brass with split necks by turnin' them into .38 special. As long as you know what they are and there is no chance that they would end up in someone else's loading room, go ahead and load for yourself. To me, 48 pieces of mismarked .38 brass ain't worth the bother and are worth more to me as scrap than legitimate components. I mark all my reloads and all my bulk components and toss any brass that may be questionable. If something would happen to me there would be thousands of rounds of loaded ammo and components to make thousands more. My sons would be the one's to inherit it. Knowing for sure what's in the boxes they end up with means they will be able to shoot them safely and with confidence.

[dewcrew8]

It was 48rds not a lot, I thank all of you for your input I can see some one loading them wrong . I started to hand prime them when I found out.

[Sevens]

What's the chance of not noticing .38 length brass have been run through a loading process for .357.
The bullets would be half out of the cases, wouldn't they?
Even someone brand new to reloading should notice that.

Someone loading on a progressive machine may very well never notice that until they grab a handful to load while at the range. It is almost a SIN on handloading forums to say it out loud (shhhh!) but I've made a good number of .357 Magnum loads in .38 Special brass with a jacketed 158 grain bullet where the COAL of the loaded round was absolutely to perfect spec of a loaded .357 Magnum round. Plenty of slug in that brass and a round that ran exactly as I wanted it to run. There was a very specific need for this ammo and it ran perfectly, just as I had hoped.

[Nathan]

Personally, I'm pitching them as that is a sign that they are altered. They could have been reloaded hot like 15 times and left for that reason.

[mattL46]

Nathan I think you made the safest decision regardless of how careful you might have been.

[precision_shooter]

There are also some factory loads for defense rounds in .357 magnum that have shorter cases than the normal .357magnum brass. Hornady is one I can think of that does this, though I don't know the reason. I have some once fired brass stamped .357 but is noticeably shorter, 38spl, than the rest. I just throw them out rather than try to keep track of them as .38spl.