.40 Fired Brass Sizes.............

[Tattoo]

Hello,

This has probably been talked to death, but everyone always talks about how brass

gets "glocked" in a glock, so I measured some of my fired brass from other .40 S&W

pistols and was kinda suprised..........

These are measured at the base of the brass or basically the fattest part I could find.

New Brass .421 to .422

Browning HP .427 to .428

HK USP .429 to .430

Glock 22 .430 to .431

Dillon reload .427 to .428 ( Using Glock 22 fired Brass )

To me it does'nt seem to be a big deal at only .001 to .003 difference in fired

brass size. Heck the HK and glock are only .001 different and nobody seems to

say anything about "HK'ed" brass. But that Glock brass sure does have a bulge.

I honestly thought the measurement would be a bigger difference

Anyway just thought I would throw it out there as an observation.........

[Carlos]

Difference was big enough that a friend's .40 reloads would NOT chamber in his new CZ after going thorugh the Dillon dies; a switch to Lee dies fixed that.

Considering the variations out there, I suggest you use:

Lee "U" or undersized die. (use with case spray)

Dillon is the only press I will ever use. I am not a fan of their resizing die.

[Tattoo]

It really does'nt matter for me because I only shoot my reloads through the

gun the brass was originally shot in.

[yoshidaex]

my barrel must be way out of saami spec . friend and i went to the range to chrono some 40 rounds he made up. he was using a EGW "U" die and a Lee FCD die (same setup as mine). his rounds would not feed in his limited 40 with a scheumann barrel. it fed decent in my limited 40 with a storm lake barrel. my rounds fed good in his gun and my gun. at first we thought maybe his chamber was slightly smaller than saami spec and he would need to get it reamed out a bit. if the dillon case gauge is saami spec, the case gauge proved my barrel is WAY out of whack . you could see his rounds were not sized properly but they still fed fine in my gun. i'm sure his dies were not adjusted correctly so i showed him how its setup on mine. he had quite a few test rounds and was afraid he'd have to pull all the rounds apart and resize them over again. i just stuck the loaded round in the last station on my xl650, and ran it thru the Lee FCD die with the crimp adjuster backed out and wahla! rounds that fit the case gauge and his barrel properly.

i guess i need a new barrel.....

sorry for the long rant thought i'd share my case sizing experience.

[cruiten]

Interesting... I just recently starting shooting in Limited with a new Glock 35 and I was really worried about having to deal with the dreaded "Glock'ed" brass because I reload all my ammunition.

I have been thoroughly inspecting my brass after firing through my factory barrel and I am not seeing any symptoms of the "Glock'ed brass" problem. So far I have shot around 500 rounds. I am not sure if my situation is an anomaly, but at this point in time I am not looking to replace my stock barrel with a KKM barrel that I was considering.

I am shooting a Bear Creek 200 grain bullet over 3.7 grains of Vit N320, with Winchester brass and WSP primers. This load chronoes at around 169-170 PF, and it is nice, soft and flat-shooting.

By the way, my first station is a Redding sizing/decapping die, and my last station is a Lee FCD die; this setup really works for me.

Hiro (yoshidaex), I wanted to let you know that I ran into some bullet-tumbling problems when I was initially setting up my dies on the Dillon XL650 when I tweaked some rounds that would initially not chamber-check. I adjusted my station one die for these rounds and ran the rounds through station one, and then through the last station with the Lee FCD, and all these rounds were tumbling for me at targets that were at 10 yards. By the way, where were you yesterday? It was a nice and chilly match...

Cor

[Tattoo]

Cruiten,

My Glock 22 was made in Sept 06 and it still has the same case measurements of brass out of a G23 made in 2001. I thought I heard they were going to change the barrels

alittle. Maybe they finally did in yours. When was it made??

I have no desire to change my barrel out due to hearing of some reliability issues.

The stock barrel always functions. Which is why I bought a Glock

But, I only plan on reloading to .40 minor power factors too. Maybe if I was

loading up to major I would feel different. Anyone ever think about oversizing

brass by resizing it down too much? Just a thought. It may actually wear out

brass faster. I want reliability. My resized Glock brass may not all chamber gauge

check, but it all feeds flawlessly in my Glock.

[cruiten]

I believe that my G35 was made in February of 2005. I am basing this on the date stamped on the brown envelope containing the two shells that were fired from the pistol by Glock personnel.

I am loading to major power factor for my rounds and I still have not seen the "Glock'ed" brass problem.

Ultimately it comes down to whether your reloads function properly for your pistol, 100% of the time. We are not commercial reloaders; we only have to worry that our ammo works for us... Having said that, I still chamber check all my reloaded rounds with a Dillon case gauge; if the round fails this test then I will not shoot it in a match, not even a local match... Luckily I have not encountered any rounds that failed the Dillon case gauge test after I got all my dies set up properly.

Cor

[yoshidaex]

Hey Cor,

Haven't been to a match in a while. Had some family matters to take care of.

I don't think glock brass is actually too bad. The S&W sigma series on the other hand. OMG! that thing bulges cases REALLY bad. how about we start calling them sigma brass instead of glock brass? flame suit on

If you ran your "completed" rounds thru station 1 (size/deprime, right?) without the deprimer, the bullet will end up sized smaller than its supposed to. I did that with one round just to see what would happen. i could pull the bullet out with no effort. In your case was it possible the bullet got sized small enough but not to the point of losing any crimp strength? Running the loaded rounds thru the Lee FCD only, should be no problem since the FCD sizes only to "loaded" saami spec. The EGW "U" die sizes the brass substantially smaller than saami spec. In fact i checked if a new federal case would go into a FCD die by hand. nope. on the other hand the U die sized case went in the FCD with no problems.

Tatoo: undersizing brass tends to work harden the brass to the possible point the brass will either split or won't hold a tension on the bullet. in the case of pistol brass, i think it would spit first. As for all your rounds not case gauging, have you tried case gauging your rounds in your barrel? drop it in one way, rotate it and see if it drops in again. i've seen a ffew rounds before i started using the EGW die and FCD where a round will case gauge one way and not when rotated (can't remember how many degrees rotation).

[DougCarden]

Guys, FWIW I am halfway through Case-Proing a 5 gallon bucket of .40 brass gifted to me....

What I have observed is that brass through the berettas, sigs and the like need some squeeze, but the hard ones to pull through is the GLOCK striker stamp on the primer. You can be pulling through in a rhythm and then bam, you hit a glock case and you have to pull it through harder. I havent measured them, but I know with my Lee dizing die they would probably chamber in my Schumann barrel, but I dont want to deal with the ones that wont....

Regards,

DougC

[Tattoo]

Yoshidaex,

I may not have said it very well, but that is what I meant about undersizing. It may lead to less reloads in your brass if you used a die that resized it TOO small. Sure it will function, but may not last as long. I'm not saying its bad to resize that way beccause

obviously a lot of guys use the Lee FCD die. I know the Dillon die does not size all the way down, but I sort my brass by gun. I will check rounds in my barrel, that is a good idea.

BTW, I shot some .45 yesterday too and I noticed after tumbling it that I can see the exact spot on the brass where the resizing die stopped resizing. There is a noticable sizing line.

I'm just curious if other brands of dies do this too or only Dillon?? They all function great

in my .45 so it was just an interesting observation.

Doug C,

I agree with you I know when I am loading my Glock brass on my 550 as opposed to any other .40 that I reload. It is noticably harder when working the handle. Every other

brass feels like butter.

As I said in my first post the size numbers don't seem all that different, but you sure can

see it and feel it.

T

[yoshidaex]

dillon dies don't size as far as a Lee/EGW "U" die. Its due to the opening radius in the dillon dies which help guide the brass into the die. You get hangups with the Lee/EGW die since the opening radius is smaller especially in progressive presses.

i don't shoot my 40 brass umpteen times so i'm not worried about over working the case.

[DougCarden]

Thank Christ! I am done case-proing the .40 brass...... I am glad that is over with for the year.....must get ibuprofen for forearms.....

Observation time. This .40 brass was shot through Berettas, Sigs, Glocks, and maybe a XD or two along with some supported barrel 1911s.

All the brass needed resizing back to factory specs, as can be expected. The GLocks were the worst offender, followed by the Sigs and Berettas. The supported barrel .40s didnt hardly pull at all. I have brass from the Berettas and Sigs on hand, so I compared them when pulling through the machine, then I could kind of tell when they were coming through due to difficulty pulling through. The ones that pulled through easily were the same as the fired brass out of my Schumann barrel.

The only 9x19 brass that was hard to resize through the machine was again the Glock brass and brass that was through the MP-5s with the fluted chamber.

I guess the moral to this story is when in doubt where your "new" brass has been, it might be a good idea to run it through a Lee sizing die before you load it to get it close to factory specs, or befriend someone with a Case pro.....

[Tattoo]

Doug C,

I hear what your saying. If I got "free" brass from somewhere and did not know what it

was shot through I would definately use a Lee Die on it. Call me stupid but what

is a Case Pro?

T

[DougCarden]

No problem, T. A case pro is a hand operated machine that uses hardened steel plates to "roll size" the bulge out of brass, while protecting and reshaping the case head rim as well. It came about to do 38super brass before supported barrels were in use. Most unsupported brass had a "Glock" type bulge on the case head area and they wouldnt chamber. The Casepro got rid of the bulge. The plates are removable, and you can do other calibers. A friend that shoots open 38 super has the CasePro, and gets a lot of brass from ROing bigger matches. He got the CasePro to do the "Unknown" brass.

Hope this helps, I cant find the website for them right now....

DougC

[TwoGlock]

There is nothing unique about variations in the size of fired brass in handguns. The same thing occurs in rifles and shotguns.

There will be a difference in the case expansion of a standard 9mm or 40 S&W load and a +P+ fired in the same firearm, small but measurable.

Measurement of case head expansion was the method used by noted reloading guru Ken Waters for the NRA to determine when he had reached the upper limit of pressure when working up reloads.

Another factor is variations in chamber dimensions. There is industry standards that chambers are required to fall within; regardless of whither it is a Glock, H&K, S&W, SIG, or master blaster.

I have two Winchester M-70 Classic rifles in 270 Winchester calibers. The chambers are very different. A cartridge case fired in rifle “A” can be neck sized, reloaded and re-fired in rifle “A” many times and never need to be full length sized.

Insert the cartridge in rifle “B” and you can’t even close the bolt on it.

I have been told that the reason is that gun manufacturers specify to die makers for a reamer to have certain exact dimensions. A new chamber reamer will drill a “Larger Hole” than one that has reamed an untold number of chambers. They use these reamers as long as they ream chambers within an industry standard tolerance.

To help reloader’s with the created dilemma, I know that both Redding and RCBS manufacture SB (Small Base) rifle dies for those with chambers on the small side. I have two 270 Winchester die sets, one standard for rifle “A” and a “SB” set for rifle “B”.

I use Glock 9mm & 40 S&W, load with Dillon 550B reloader and have no problems. Well, occasionally I run out of powder, primers, or bullets.

9mm in excess of 80,000 rounds. 40,000+ in a single Glock19.

40 S&W in excess of 12,000 rounds in a glock 23.

[Tattoo]

Two Glocks,

I don't have any problem with using my own Glock brass in my Glocks. But, have

you or anyone else ever noticed a failure in a case due to "X" amounts of reloads?

After how many reloads did it actually fail?

T

[TwoGlock]

Two Glocks,

I don't have any problem with using my own Glock brass in my Glocks. But, have

you or anyone else ever noticed a failure in a case due to "X" amounts of reloads?

After how many reloads did it actually fail?

T

With the 9mm and 40 S&W the only case failures I have had have been cracks at the case mouth and occasionally down the side of the case.

I go through a lot of ammo and have not counted reloads in those cartridges. I just use them untill they crack or are lost on the range or at a match.

My reloads are slightly below most factory loadings. The 9mm 115gr. loaded to 1160' /sec and the 40 S&W 155gr. JHP loaded to 1040'/sec.

The only case failure I have seen was in a friends 9mm loaded about the same as my own. It was a true case head failure taking out part of the rim of the case. It was in his wifes Glock 19 and blew out the magazine, caused considerable what she called stinging of her hands, but otherwise unhurt and the gun was not damaged.

We both thought that it was a faulty case rather than a gun problem due to the way the case appeared. (the torn part looked as if it were laminated metal rather than being a solid case).

[TwoGlock]

Two Glocks,

I don't have any problem with using my own Glock brass in my Glocks. But, have

you or anyone else ever noticed a failure in a case due to "X" amounts of reloads?

After how many reloads did it actually fail?

T

Well it was a decent day here so I started the 9mm reload test.

Everyone realizes of course that the 9mm is actually a TAPERED CASE!! And when you reload it you convert it to semi straight case. It is straight back to the case web where it is left the original size.

I started with 10 new Winchester Wal-Mart 100 pack cartridges.

I pulled the bullet on one and case length was 0.750"

Case diameter at the web was: .385

The cartridges were fired and reloaded 12 times. Being fired 13 times and reloaded 12 times.

The Load is 4.6 gr. Titegroup, Federal 100 primer, Military pulled surplus 115 gr. FMJ bullet, COAL = 1.160" Chronographed Velocity for 10 rounds Average = 1197' / sec. in my Glock-34.

Case diameter of a case fired in my Glock-34 is 0.390.

Case Length after 12 reloads is 0.748”.

No indications of case failure of any kind after being fired and reloaded 12 times.

Test terminated for the day because of physical exhaustion. I’m 72 years old, its 14 steps down stairs to the reloading and 6 steps down from the kitchen to garage. Up and down 20 steps and 1.5 miles drive each way to where I can fire the gun has just worn me out for the day.

I will resume test tomorrow if weather is OK.

Edited January 18, 2007 by TwoGlock

[Tattoo]

2Glocks,

Thanks for the numbers. I shot alot of HP Rifle matches before pistol and always trimmed

brass. Trimming sssuuuccckkks!! Always wondered if pistol brass would grow.......

I thought that since it headspaces on the case lip, for lack of a better way to say it, that

it probably did not stretch much. I guess atleast not after 12 reloads.

Take care, and get some rest,

T

[TwoGlock]

2Glocks,

Thanks for the numbers. I shot alot of HP Rifle matches before pistol and always trimmed

brass. Trimming sssuuuccckkks!! Always wondered if pistol brass would grow.......

I thought that since it headspaces on the case lip, for lack of a better way to say it, that

it probably did not stretch much. I guess atleast not after 12 reloads.

Take care, and get some rest,

T

Tattoo;

I have shot very little Hi-Power matches and started that late in life. I'm still classified Marksman. I am going to Davenport, Florida (near Orlando) next week to one of Fred's Appleseed shoots in hopes to get a little sun and learn to be a better rifle shooter at the same time.

I agree completely, TRIMMING CASES SUCKS!!!. Guess that's the reason I have a bucket full of 223 brass that needs to be trimmed then reloading. I am considering getting Dillon’s power trimmer some time in the near future.

The price of surplus ammo continues to grow and makes reloading almost become a requirement.

I have a found a good source of surplus ammo components. I recently purchases 9,000 9mm surplus bullets (military pulled) and they are first class. It is within driving distance from me so I picked my stuff up. If you don’t see what you want on the web site give him a call. He sometimes has components that are not listed. The fellows name is Jeff Bartlett. Here is he website address. http://www.gibrass.com/

I have heard a lot of pistol shooters talk about having to trim their cases. I have NEVER had any STRAIGHT WALLED pistol cases grow in length. My cases change very little. When they do they get SHORTER with firing.

BOTTLE NECKED cases are a different story. They behave just like bottleneck rifle cases. I have used the 32/20, 30/30 Winchester and 7mm super mag (a wild cat cartridge) in the Thompson Contender. In particular the 32/20 required frequent trimming. Mostly because I made an exception of my rule and loaded it FAR in excess of published load data. I did this because it was the most accurate cartridge I had in the TC. I was active in IHMSA Long Range pistol for several years.

It’s cold here today, 22 degrees when I got up, so I won’t be doing any shooting today.

[Tattoo]

2Glocks,

Sorry had to go on tth road to work and no laptop. Get the CMP DVD highpower

videos. www.odcmp.com They have alot of good info. And if you want to

spend the money a Gracey case trimmer is great for lots of .223 brass, but its

$227 bucks. Kinda pricey but guys that have it swear by it. It trims, chamfers, and

deburrs in one step. You can do like 500 cases an hour or some ungodly number.

Good luck and sling up tight until it hurts!

T

[TonyT]

I pick up once fired 40 S&W brass from the local range after LE use, mostly SIG but some Glock. I discard the cases after 4 reloads.