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Old September 25, 2011, 11:29 PM   #1
TennJed
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380 brass case mouth dented from gun

I just picked up my first 380 auto...a kel tec p3at. I am waiting for all my reloading components to come. In the meantime I picked up 1 box of Federal and 1 box of Rem UMC to break the gun it. It shot well for those 100 rounds.

As I was sorting thru the brass tonight I noticed EVERY case mouth was dented at one side. Also the spot on the side right below the dent was "buffed" or "scuffed" a little. Don't know if those is the right words but hopefully you get the picture.

I have been reloading for a few months so I am still new at this, but I have reloaded a 2 or so thousand rounds of 9mm, 38sp, 357 mag, and 45 colt. I have seen the occasional indention or dent but not every round.

I am assuming it is being dented while it is being feed into the ramp. Should I be concerned with this? Will it lessen the life of my brass by a noticable amount?

Hopefully these pictures will help you see





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Last edited by TennJed; September 26, 2011 at 01:32 AM.
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Old September 26, 2011, 12:31 AM   #2
Unclenick
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It's being dented when it's extracted and ejected. The extractor still has the case rim captured when ejection starts. This causes the case to spin as it ejects, and the spinning case is striking the slide or is being struck by the closing slide on its way out the door (in some guns they kind of spin more than get out of the way).

BTW, that's the case mouth that's dented and not the rim. The rim is on the other end of the case. Rim dents can happen, but its a different issue; more often, if they are damaged, they are bent outward by excessive extraction force before barrel pressure drops enough.

What you have is common for self-loaders, both pistol and rifle. Your loading dies will straighten it out.
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Old October 2, 2011, 08:49 PM   #3
will99
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A lot of my .380 cases look like that. The way that little case flies out on ejection any contact with the slide or frame is going to leave a mark. There's not a lot of brass there, either. Guarantee it will be a perfect circle when you decap/resize.
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Old October 2, 2011, 09:37 PM   #4
Tim R
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What you show is pretty common from a auto loader. I would run the dented cases through you bell die, except don't bell the case. Thus way you will iron out a lot of the dents and make the case mouth round again. Then full lengh re-size. If you get brass whith the walls folded over youu might have to use a tool to bring it back. I've used a thin Phillips head screwdriver to repair rifle case neckIn some cases you might have to pitch the case.
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Old October 2, 2011, 11:12 PM   #5
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Resize and you will be on your way.
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Old October 2, 2011, 11:25 PM   #6
Sevens
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For sure, there's nothing to worry about there.
If you have some sort of an ejection failure and get a piece munched in the slide somehow and actually tear a jagged crack in the case mouth, THOSE are difficult to reclaim. But dented like that while ejecting? It'll look darn near new after going through your size die.

One other thing... you mentioned in your post how you thought it might be getting dented on the feed ramp on the way in. That's really not ever going to happen like that (the bullet ensures that it won't!) but here's the thing -- if you somehow had some sort of dent in the body of the case, even if you managed to specifically place a dent somewhere along the length of it and then fed it in to the chamber?

What would happen is that the simple act of firing it would iron that piece of brass out so that you'd have no (or very nearly no) visible evidence that it ever happened. Firing in the chamber will iron out just about anything in brass and form it to the chamber. It's a high-stress environment and the brass is quite malleable. As soon as the round is discharged, that brass will expand with great force and become a perfect mold of the chamber from which it's discharged.

You may be a new handloader... but inspecting your brass to that degree shows that you are already forming good habits that successful handloaders depend on. So well done!
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