I did an oops and made some .38-40 into -44-40. Doh

[Baltimore Ed]

This is exactly why I didn't want any of those dash cartridges. Yesterday I somehow mixed a handful of .38-40 up,with my .44-40 brass and didn't catch it until I'd already loaded 16! My .38wcf fits a Colt New Service while the .44wcf fits my 73 and 66 Winchesters. Have I ruined my .38 brass or will they resize back down to .38? Will it hurt to shoot them in my rifle or should I pull them apart? I'm thinking that any case imperfections will not matter with the camming action of the rifle but will the .38 oops.44  brass resized back to .38s still work in the revolver?

[wildman1]

Won't hurt yer rifle to shoot em.  They should size back to 38-40 if yer careful.
wM1

[Professor Marvel]

My Dear Ed -

what wildman said :-)

additionally, however, snce you sor of stretched those case mouths out  in the first place, then plan to squish ( technical term)
them back down in the second place, I mself would be inclined to anneal the mouths aftr cleaning but before resizining
resigning  re size ing . ( dman damn ! you autocorrect! )

Happy Holidays
yhs
prof marvel

[wildman1]

Annealing on a case such as 38-40 or 44-40 will happen very quickly. Don't overdo it.
wM1

[Navy Six]

Just to be careful, might want to check the length of of the re-sized 38-40. While both the 38-40 and 44-40 share the same maximum case length of 1.305, that extra bit of initial expansion of the 38-40 could have affected it.

[Cliff Fendley]

I'd probably just shoot them and if they don't size back real easy then either toss or have a handful of 44-40 with the wrong headstamp.

[greyhawk]

Won't hurt yer rifle to shoot em.  They should size back to 38-40 if yer careful.
wM1

careful being the operative word - go slow - caress the lever on that press

[Coffinmaker]

WOW!!  Hey!!  Boy is this ever easy   

PLUS ONE to ........ EVERYBODY!!

I fire-form 44-40 to 45 Colt to mitigate Blow-By.  Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your outlook, I have had no reason to resize them back to 44-40.  Ergo, I defer to those intrepid guys and gals whom actually shoot "dash" calibers.

[greyhawk]

WOW!!  Hey!!  Boy is this ever easy   

PLUS ONE to ........ EVERYBODY!!

I fire-form 44-40 to 45 Colt to mitigate Blow-By.  Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your outlook, I have had no reason to resize them back to 44-40.  Ergo, I defer to those intrepid guys and gals whom actually shoot "dash" calibers.

I did the 44/40 to 38/40 deal a while back with 100new starline cases - lost 5 in the process - each one was when I speeded up the lever stroke (yeah impatient! never been much different) seems like the brass needs a little time to squish down or else ya get a crumple in the neck - once that neck crumples in its gone goose - no way can ya fix that case - so slow easy lever stroke worked - hurry a bit - dont work ---my end result was ok - per case came out a little under 38/40 buy price - as well I did not want proper headstamped 38/40 cases.