Bought some starline brass to start some reloading for my 44-40 Winchester. The dimensions listed in my reloading book show it have a distinct but small bottle neck but the starline has no bottleneck. I’m assuming this is fine but curious as to why.

Bitterbeer most new unfired brass should be full lenth sized before loading. Try and chamber a few rounds as they are now. If they have any resistance to load then they will need to be sized before loading.

The Starline brass does in fact come as a straight brass, if you run it thru the size die it will form the shoulder, and after it's loaded and fired it will be fully formed, but will be a bit short.
I and my rifle prefer Winchester brass.

Gotcha ... need to buy my dies so that makes sense. Looking forward to get some rounds put together.

I'm using Hornady dies for the 32,38 and 44wcf.

44WCF and 38WCF brass from Starline needs to be "fireformed". After the first firing the brass will be the size and shape you are expecting. Due to the slightly lower internal volume of the new brass don't make the first load a maximum charge. After "fire forming" just follow the published load data for that caliber.
I actually have some new Starline brass loaded with Trailboss ready to fire form. I will send pictures tomorrow if I can remember.

The round on the left has a new unsized, unfired Starline brass case.
The round on the right has a fired, sized Starline brass case.

The difference is easier to see than capture with a cell phone camera.

Wow.... Heavy crimp.....

Merlin wrote: ↑Sun Apr 19, 2020 7:28 am Wow.... Heavy crimp.....

Lee FCD. I love and hate the die. At least I don't crush any brass with a standard roll crimp die.
The boolit is my design. Just a Lyman 427098 with a crimp groove added. Accurate Molds 43-220C
I use it for black powder and smokeless. Gives me a heavier bullet but still lighter than the 240 grain types.
I saw that someone improved the bullet with a more shallow crimp grove. Accurate Molds 43-220CC. I have the mold but haven't cast any yet. Just don't need to at the moment. I have over a thousand rounds loaded and 800 bullets sized and lubed waiting......but no silhouette matches.
The new bullet with the shallow crimp groove may have me changing the crimp die.

As always many thanks to the late John Kort for helping turn a cantankerous rifle into the most accurate and fun firearm I have.
(okay, maybe I was the cantankerous one)

I think a lot of the "accuracy" problems with the 44wcf have mostly been a function of not using the bullet diameter the rifle or handgun needs. Most modern made guns do much better with a .429 or .430 diameter bullet.

Don

.....and commercial cast bullets that are 1 or 2 thousandths smaller than advertised or hard cast bullets in low pressure loads.
There are a few reasons why I cast bullets now.