38 brass

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Starline always if I have a choice they make the most consistent pistol brass IMHO hope this helps
 
Well, for me it's usually "best bid" brand which is usually Winchester around here. However, for pistols, my application is short range practice, target, and some cowboy action, none of which really benefit a lot from the more premium products (I do spend the money on components for rifle reloading). However, I have no objections or complaints about any of them, and have loaded (and shot) all three brands before without trouble.
 
Starline.

It's better and usually cheaper than the others. Next one would be remington if it were on sale. After that I would use Magtech. Short of that I'd use whatever I could get.
 
Starline is always my first choice with pistol brass. I don't think I've ever had a complaint about it, and it seems to last a long time.
 
All of them work in my 27. I load very light so I don't worry about it too much. A friend just bought a 686+ and he said that Winchester is a little different and would not work with his speed clips. He likes Remington and Starline, Magtech, and most others. If you are not doing +P I would buy once fired.
 
Thought I would explain about why I asked. When I started reloading 45 colt the first brass I bought was Starline. Then the next caliber I set up for was 38spl. I had a mix of once fired factory brass. cbc some Remington and MFS head stamps. then I bought some new Starline 38spl brass.

What I have found is that the starline seems to be harder. In both calibers it has more bullet pull in other words the bullets are tighter in the brass this is good. But 45 colt and 38Spl. are fairly low pressure when loaded at target levels. I get a lot soot on the outside of the brass with Starline. The softer brass is clean on the outside.

45 colt any 250gr bullet 6.8 HP-38

38spl 158gr 3.8 HP-38
 
Starline or Winchester.

Remington is good if you want light neck tension with minimal swaging of the bullet on soft lead bullets, since it tends to be thinner.
 
Starline would be my first choice.

But, given the state of availabilities these days, i would buy any of the three listed.
 
Another vote for Starline. Though I have yet to find .38 brass that didn't work just fine. It's low pressure, so it's not subject to that much stress. It gets ejected by hand, so it's not getting chewed on by an extractor/ejector combo working at high speed. It's not getting slammed into a feed ramp, and you can roll crimp it, so neck tension doesn't seem to be an issue. So the brand/quality of brass just doesn't seem to matter as much with .38 spl. About the only thing that really matters is consistency. Starline brass of a given caliber will all weigh within a very small window.
 
Starline. I'm having issues with some Win 357 mag brass... I don't ever want to see another new Win piece of brass, no matter what caliber. Search the web and you'll see recent issues with Win brass.
 
Either of the three are great, but for me living in the humid south, I'd buy the cheapest nickel plated. If you think you will keep the loaded rounds clean and dry and/or shoot them fairly quickly it doesn't much matter. The nickel pays off if the rounds sit exposed for any length of time or get slid into leather loops.

The nickel will be slightly harder than ordinary brass, but I doubt you'd ever even notice in 38 spec.
 
Starline. I bought some Herter's loaded ammo a while back, went to reload, primer pockets really small. So ended up having to buy a Dillon swaging tool, we're good now, but lots of blue in the air when I first tried loading them.
 
I buy Starline every chance I get. Nothing wrong with the other two either, but Starline has often been the least expensive, and QC has been excellent.

GS
 
I wouldn't buy new. The .38 Spcl is so low pressure, you get a lot of use out of a case. I have .38 brass I've loaded 40-50 times and it shows no sign of wear. Never trimmed it or anything. I have brass that was nickle when I started that has no nickle on it now.

There are people in the Buy,Sell,Trade section right now trying to sell .38 Spcl brass.

If something happened and I was forced to buy new, Starline would be my first choice.
 
If I am buying new, it's always Starline no matter the price. If I am buying once fired and have a choice I usually get Win or Rem. I recently picked up a good buy on some Winchester once fired that other than the fired primer in the rear looked to be brand spanking new. I only picked it up to load some DEWC's up for the wife to play with. Figured it would work great for that and we can save the SL for the good stuff.
 
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