[38 vs 357 brass]

Many of the casting companies will size the 147 bullet .358 if you ask. My Marlin did not like 38s unless they were loaded out to the 1.50 range. The 147 fed great in 38 cases .  A lot of people like to shoot the really light bullets in their pistols.  These can cause some problems loading them out.  I had a 92  that I had shot for years with smokeless 38s and when I loaded first loaded some blackpowder ,357 I found they would not chamber. After cleaning  the chamber I started just using 357 brass for it. Using both .38 and .357  makes it easier to keep pistol and rifle loads separate if you want to go that way.  If your rifle feeds 38s fine and want just one load for both it and pistols 38 brass is more common and cheaper, Some day if you want to shoot real .357 you might  have to do a good cleaning of the chamber. That was the norm when shooting 38s for practice and .357 for duty guns was the norm. Some places though loaded everything in .357 cases to keep from having to clean cylinder build up. Also some competitive shooters used .357 brass in their low power competition loads because the thought not having that. 1/10 of an inch jump made the .357 loads more accurate. Of course some people who want different loads for pistol and rifle  use brass cases or nickel cases version of the same caliber for the pistol and the rifle gets the other.  Then you have people who say never use nickel in a rifle because it will split and others who say nickel feeds better in a rifle and lasts just as long a plain brass.    

[Marlin 94 ejection direction]

After posing the topic, I did a search and found lots of comments on the SASS wire about 12 years ago when Marlin's were more popular and had the same problems with ejection direction. The ejectors are not cheap now adays, but at least are available from Ruger. I might try to see if I can tweak one a little or try one from one of my other Marlin's to see if they might be a little different .  

[Marlin 94 ejection direction]

I have a 44 Magnum Marlin 94 that finally is feeding well and is easy to clean with black powder Specials and Magnum brass . I have been using it a  club that has some nice props that are elevated about a foot or so above the ground. Most of the rifle locations have the shooter back about two feet from the downrange end of the prop.. There are no side berms so a person cannot go forward to pick up brass. The other day I was shooting the Marlin 94 had a loss rate from 20 to 50 percent each stage. Many of those I found later after the match where they rolled off the prop.   Afterwards,  I tried one of the new Ruger/Marlin ejectors and it was about the same distance and direction, forward and to the right.. That got me to compare it with some Winchester 92s which I found threw brass right and behind from a few feet to several feet.  Looks like I will use the 92s at that club unless there is something i can do to the Marlin to change the direction of the spent brass so I can quit thinking about all the brass I am losing. . Any suggestions?   

[38 Short Colt brass WTB]

Might I suggest you talk to a cowboy shooter who has a case trimmer. Anyone who has shot much has had 38 special and .357 mag cases crack on the ends,. I have trimmed lots of them to 38 Short Colt length to make shells for a derringer. You stated Short Colt and not .38 S&W which are different. .

 

Easy to do especially if you have drill motor attachment for a case trimmer.

[Western 3 Gun is Not Dead!]

We tried a few W3G matches at Tater Hill a few years ago and even had the bonus targets made for it. We hoped it would draw more shooters to our small program and maybe give us a little something different.. All that came were mostly are small group of regulars, The serious SASS shooters complained about it messing up their timing. I thought it was fun.

 

We had several Wild Bunch matches before WB became official, but they did not catch on either. The shooters were so concerned about brass recovery it took forever to shoot a match. We switched to doing a .22 version of WB match and we get at least a few shooters. The last one I wrote with 20 pistol shots on a few stages was right out of a club's real WB matches. The shooters expected the usual 10-10-4 round count of a regular cowboy match complained about too many pistol rounds. At least we did not spend all day looking for missing brass.

 

Times have changed. None of the real competitive shooters want to shoot flying birds or shoot a Texas star. Even the simple shotgun target which pops up a clay slows down a regular match, but would add to a W3G.

 

If I knew I could draw some shooters, I would work to get some dates and put on W3G or WB on a regular basis.