As most of you already know, 445 supermag brass has all but dried up completely and Starline has them indefinately backordered until they reach enough prepaid orders to meet their 30,000 piece minimum qouta for another production run. I ordered 1000 brass last month for just under $300 bucks with free shipping. If we can get 15-20 other people to place a similar order Starline will go back into production and the brass shortage will be over. I posted a similar message on the Gary Reeder Custom Gun Forum earlier today. Here's what I need you guys to do. If you can afford to place an order please do so, even a 100 piece order will help us out. If you are sitting on brass and you don't need any, or if you simply can't afford to order some, please go out and post a message like mine on other gun related forums to make other people aware of the problem. If we work together on this we can get the brass back into production as soon as possible. Do I have any willing participants?

As a side note, the brass can be made from 30-40 Krag brass. I used to make 475 Wildey brass from the 284 winchester. Trust me when I say that it's a lot of work. I know the tricks to make the process go quicker but the $400 plus cost of case forming dies, and need to turn the rims down in a lathe is more than I'm willing to deal with if I can help it. And if the reformed brass is anything like the 475 brass that I used to make, it will be inferior to what Starline has produced. So let's get together and get starline back into production before this years deer season kicks in. Otherwise I'll be forced to put myself through the costly and miserable task of making my own, and many of you will be right behind me.

In case you are wondering, this is how it works.

1. You raise the brass into a cut off die where you cut the top of the case off with a hack saw.

2. You then ream and trim the rough stuff off of the new case mouth.

3. You then expand the inside of the case neck in an expander die.

4. You then raise the case up into the reamer die and then hand ream it out using a tap wrench. I used to use a Duwalt 1/2" drill at 450 RMP to ream my cases out. They recommend against it but it works great. Just add a little drop of Lyman case lube to the reamer die to reduce heat and die wear.

5. Next you have to clean up and trim that case to the correct length. If you have the 475 wildey your work is finish. If you have a 445, the worse is yet to come.

5. The case rim if the 30-40 Krag is too big to fit the cylinder on the Dan Wesson so you have to buy a hobby lathe from Harbor freight orf pay someone to turn the case rims down for you. You might be able to drop a piece of a wood dowel rod down into the case for support and then lightly lock the case into a drill chuck. Then you can grind the case rim against a stationary abrasive stone such as a grinding wheel. The rims will not be exact this way but they will fit the revolver cylinder. If you grind too much they won't fit into your shell holder forcing you to start all over again.

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