brass thickness question

toybox99615 · December 29, 2007, 08:21 PM

So I reload a number of rounds using 148 grain WC Hornaday bullets with no problem. Then I changed over to using Western 148 grain WC. That is when the problem surfaced. The reloaded Western would not chamber into my revolver. They only entered about a third of the cartridge before they snugged up and stopped. So I do a visual and I can see a ridge around the outside of the cartridge where the base of the WC would be. I use a micrometer and sure enough the ridge location is a few ten thousandths over the diameter of the rest of the cartridge. Basically that is a no brainer at first thought: wrong size bullets from Western.

So I take my micrometer and find out the Western is in fact bigger in diameter than the Hornaday. But it still is under the max size. To make sure the bullet is not over-sized I run a few through my sizer-lubricator. It does change the diameter by .0002. Now both the Hornaday and the Western are the same diameter when I check them.

Now I reload a few more rounds using some Federal cases and some with a W C C head stamp. The Federal rounds are perfect and have no ridge that I can find when I mike a number of places on the cartridge. But the WCC rounds have the ridge at the base of the WC. Could it be the problem with the WCC is thicker brass?

December 29, 2007, 08:21 PM	#1
toybox99615 Senior Member Join Date: December 9, 2007 Location: Kodiak Alaska Posts: 767	brass thickness question So I reload a number of rounds using 148 grain WC Hornaday bullets with no problem. Then I changed over to using Western 148 grain WC. That is when the problem surfaced. The reloaded Western would not chamber into my revolver. They only entered about a third of the cartridge before they snugged up and stopped. So I do a visual and I can see a ridge around the outside of the cartridge where the base of the WC would be. I use a micrometer and sure enough the ridge location is a few ten thousandths over the diameter of the rest of the cartridge. Basically that is a no brainer at first thought: wrong size bullets from Western. So I take my micrometer and find out the Western is in fact bigger in diameter than the Hornaday. But it still is under the max size. To make sure the bullet is not over-sized I run a few through my sizer-lubricator. It does change the diameter by .0002. Now both the Hornaday and the Western are the same diameter when I check them. Now I reload a few more rounds using some Federal cases and some with a W C C head stamp. The Federal rounds are perfect and have no ridge that I can find when I mike a number of places on the cartridge. But the WCC rounds have the ridge at the base of the WC. Could it be the problem with the WCC is thicker brass?