Reloading .357MAG Cases w/ Existing Primer

[Argentum]

Last year my dad and I started shooting some .357MAG reloads done by my grandfather back in the late 80s/early 90s. The reloads were really hot - huge fireball and the cases would actually get so hot they would stick in the revolver cylinder requiring a tremendous amount of force to eject. One we even have to take home and knock out with a small screwdriver. That was enough of that! I later looked up the recipe as he listed on the card in the box and it was a full 1.5 grains over the published max charge for that powder/bullet type. Last summer I pulled all of the bullets with the kinetic puller and dumped the powder. I had plans to fire off all the primers and do a complete reload on them, but I never got around to it.

I finally have my own press setup and want to do some reloads using those cases (they're really nice nickel Winchester WW Super cases). However with the scarcity of pistol primers right now, I hate to fire off 200+ perfectly fine primers. I am considering reloading them by skipping the resize/decap die and just running the cases directly into the mouth expander since they were never fired. If you were "backing out" a mistake in seating or crimping, that's what you end up doing anyway so I'm thinking it's perfectly fine. Anyone have thoughts on that?

I'm pretty sure I'm over thinking this now, especially after typing it all out, but wanted to toss it out there...

[smitty56]

I've done this a few times in the past and when I did so, I just pulled the decapping pin out of the resizing die and moved forward from there.

[r horn]

Remove the decap pin and do the re size, re flare and load your good to go

[Argentum]

That's a good point, I didn't think about taking the pin out. Thanks.

[dk99358]

Since they weren't fired, why bother with the sizing die? Flare, charge, and seat/crimp.

That's they way I do it.

Dale

[1HappyCamper]

Do you know if they are magnum primers? If your not sure 2400 is a good powder for magnum loads that doesn't require a magnum primer.

[csmith]

Curious what was his load?

[redturbo0]

I had some what I think are undercharged .357 mag loads that I ripped apart. They seem to have enough powder which leads me to believe the primers aren't magnum primers.

So this makes me wonder, maybe he over compensated because he didn't use magnum primers?

Also, is it possible to pull and reuse primers? Like out of .357 and put into .38 special?

sorry for the bit of thread jack although not really a thread jack, haha

[Argentum]

I don't know for sure, no. I'm assuming they were magnum primers, but I was going to look for a recipe that worked either way. The load sheet in the box from my grandfather just said "Primer: Winchester". Thanks for the recommendation on 2400. Reloading .357 is new for me so I've just been researching powder possibilities.

[Argentum]

Curious what was his load?

Sorry for not getting back to you on this sooner, I wanted to get the boxes out and re-confirm the details. The load card listed "Speer 140gr" with 16.5gr of Alliant 2400. The max charge for Alliant 2400 with 140gr bullets is 15.1gr so these were way overcharged. I supposed it's possible the load data has been revised downward over the years. The date on the box is 1/11/88. The bullets look like an older style hollow point:

There's two varieties so I'm still trying to understand which type is which. It's hard to tell from the poor iPhone picture, but the bullets on the right are probably 1/8" longer than the ones on the left.