I'm just beginning to reload 44 magnum rounds after collecting brass for over 15 years. After measuring several empties, I find they are all shorter than what the reloading manuals show.

Most of my empties are 1.267 or so, the manuals list 1.285 as the right number.

Is the number shown in reloading manuals simply the max?

Just load up and shoot. Being a little short doesn't hurt a thing and the brass will begin to split at the case mouth long before you get too long and have to trim. Once it begins to split at the mouth toss it as you will no longer be able to get a consistent crimp. As for crimping I would get a Profile Crimp die from Redding and crimp as a separate operation.

The listed length in the manual (at least in mine) are max length. Being 10 or 15 thou. short won't hurt, but if they are not all the same length, you can't get a consistant crimp.

My Lee manual just gives max(1.285") length. Some will give max & "trim to" - typically .010" (1.275" for example)less. Some will give max length, w/ minimum length in parenthesis - or bracketts.



I try to pick the longest common length (after sizing)as my "trim to".



For example, after sizing my new Remington .44 mag brass, I noted that although much of it measured 1.280", a good bit was as short as 1.278".



In the interest of consistency, I will trim the lot to the shorter length.



Why your brass is shorter - don't know. Will it hurt to load "shorter" brass? Some one w/ more experience then me, should comment on this one. Off the top of my head though, I would be very concerned w/ over pressure issues.



You might want to check the accuracy of your micrometer...

Like one fellow already said, they need to all be the same length for the same crimp. Just pick out the shortest and trim them all to that length. BM

Bill

One possible reason they're short is that they may have been fired in a slightly oversized cylinder, so instead of them getting longer, they got fatter and shorter. As long as they fit in your gun's cylinder (after or without full length sizing), I find that it's OK to load shorter than recommended case length. Heck, you can even even load a 44 special which is waaay shorter. HTH.

noticed the exact same thing when i started loading for my .44 mag lever action. only the hornady brass at min lenght. not to fear, just trimmed all a tad to square up and they shoot fine.