Rossi Rifleman

Hi All,

I Just noticed some bulging in a few factory loads I was shooting today. The cases near the head have bulged out to a few tenths over 0.384" The brass is stamped "GECO" and they are advertized as 158Gr FMJ. I bought them at a local shooting range a few months ago. Is it just substandard brass? I also fired a few handloads in R-P brass with 21gr of H110 under a Speer 125gr JHP. They have bulged a little bit too but only to about 0.382". Do I Likely have a chamber problem? The factory loads have noticeably less recoil than the Handloads. I have made quite a few handloads of various amounts of Unique (4-7.5gr) and didn't notice any bulging. I'll go back and check those cases.

EDIT: I added a picture of the cases I measured. The Shiny ones are the Factory loads and the dull ones are the handloads. You can clearly see the bulge on the left case.

Thanks,

Todd

Looks like your missing some chamber that supports the cartridge case. I would keep an eye on it watch your brass carefully. They more than likely over chamfered the chamber mouth to make the gun function. My words not technical words lol. It looks like you have a glock chamber. If still under warranty you may be able to get it replaced. That is up to you I would avoid shooting very high pressure ammo threw it though.

Ditto what AK offered. It has come up a number of times on the forum and the 357 Mag seems to be the most mentioned. I did a quick google on the brass and there are a lot of bad comments about it.

I think GECO is what Fiocchi uses and if so it's junk. Inconsistent thickness.

Wanna stick some in your size die? Go find some Fiocchi .223 Rem brass.

what he said.

Mae smoke,

I was afraid of that. How much do you think this will limit my max loading? I'd like to hunt piggys with it. I assume even good brass will fatigue faster and blow out easier than a properly chambered rifle.

I noticed Don Huff has made his own reamer for the Dan Wesson 360. I could make or buy a reamer to clear out the existing chamber, then figure out a suitable steel to make a sleeve, and re-chamber the sleeve to the proper specs.... or maybe even the DW360. I have a hunk of leftover 1" 416SS from my AR15 muzzle brake hmmm...

To be honest with many brands of brass being inconsistent in qaulity these days. I would try to keep it near 38 special loads. If you planned on hunting piggies I would send it back asap to try and see if they'll fix it. Don't tell them they're reloads that can void you warranty, but share your pictures, (of your factory ammo wink wink) with them and see if they'll give you a return authorization. As I would want a gun to trust. I wouldn't trust yours at the moment. As a fellow loader I'm liking star line brass the most lately. Winchester,remington,hornady, almost all foreign brass as well have alot of variations. Just my findings not what I call fact. Last thing if you plan to keep it you need to chrono the load that you develop that doesn't stress your cases. Then with that bullet and powder and fps at your muzzle you should be able to figure up the lethality that load carries. RD might be able to give you some ruff numbers with his qiuk load program to, you wold just need to gI've him your details of your powner load, bulet tyou n weight, oal, and so on. Keep us posted

GasGuzzler wrote:I think GECO is what Fiocchi uses and if so it's junk. Inconsistent thickness.

Wanna stick some in your size die? Go find some Fiocchi .223 Rem brass.

I haven't noticed Fiocchi brass being bad but I have noticed that some of their loads a few years back were a bit inconsistent. I think I've got a couple hundred rounds of factory in .357. I'll have to keep an eye on the brass as well. So far I think I've only shot it out of my 686.

I went through more of my brass and there is a definite bulge on some of it, varying head stamps. Some of it was fed through my Vaquero and I'm not sure which is which other than the ones that are bulged. None are as bad as the Geco brass. I guess I'll call up Rossi tomorrow and see what they will do. Thanks for the info everyone!

Please keep us posted to your results.