[Baldy]

[?] I was going to try this new load from the book. I am using lswc 158gr bullet, so I wanted to keep it around 1,000fps. Book says 6.1grs of Win-231. So I load up 20 at 5.5grs, and 3 of the shells split long ways.[?]These was nickel plated shells. Could that have been my problem[?]. I was well below max load and my OAL was 1.590". A good crimp and I used regular primers. [)]Got me[)][?]

 

[sheepdog]

Nickel's pretty-but notorious for being brittle...if you haven't had your expander die get loose and deepen the throat-that's probably all it is. I'm assuming you mean split in the loading-if you fired them and they split-check the primers to see if they're washing out.

 

[Iowegan]

Just a few suggestions ... first, 1000 fps is probably too fast for most cast bullets without a gas check. In some guns you can get by with it but most will get lead fouling in the bore.

Case splits are very common when using nickle plated brass. If you measure the wall thickness, it is a couple thousandths thinner than normal brass. Besides, the plating makes the cases brittle.

I would look in the reloading manuals for a load in the 850-900 fps range then use regular brass cases.

 

[btrumanj]

I prefer regular brass but I still have a lot of .357 nickel brass left that a guy at the gun range gave me some years ago at the indoor range, mostly Win white box. Some of it's been loaded quite a few times. My experience has been mostly case mouth splits but it's lasted much better than what I've heard from others but then my range load of 7.4 grs of HS6 under a 158 LSWC bullet is pretty mild.
Baker

 

[Baldy]

Well I got to confess I am not quite sure how many times they been reloaded. I was .6grs below max and I thought I would be OK. I am going to check the wall thickness aginst the brass ones for sure. Here I thought I would be down around 850fps. They all shot good.