Split cases

Had reloaded a bunch of 38spl on my 650. I shot quite a few of em myself. No issues, all was good. Gave a box to a friend & he had 2 of 6 split. He sent pics & I will try to upload pics. The brass was several years old, nickel plated federal brand. Loaded consistently within .1 of max. I started with a lighter load within .1 of min charge but the bullets didn't expand at all using that receipe. Used hornady dies, Winchester hollow points, lee factory crimp on last station of the press. I'm way new to the 650 as I've only loaded 1000 38s on it & now have loaded 1200 9mm on it. The 9mm all fed great & no issues so far & ive shot over a couple hundred of those so far also. Lovex powder used in both. What could be causing my problem on this? Over belling, over crimping, old nickel brass, over charged? His gun is a .357, mine is a 38.

Second pic looks more like what I would call separation than a split. I had this happen on some very old 30/06 I had got from the same place as I did the 38 brass, inherited from my uncle

How many times have those cases been reloaded? I haven't loaded any .357 or .38's recently, but back when I had a .357 and shot a lot I usually saw splits like that after loading a case 5 or 6 times, I usually loaded close to max also.

I guessing its just plain metal fatigue

No idea on how many times. They were primed & in blue plastic boxes. I got em 5-6 years ago after my uncle had passed away. He had a bunch of reloading stuff. They coulda been reloaded several times & I wouldn't have known it

Nickel plated cases split easier than brass. You can adjust your sizing die to only size the top of the case; less working of the brass. But too many resizings and this is what you get.
Friend has a mild .32 S&W long and pure brass cases split for him as well after many reloads.

Your buddy's chambers are probably a bit looser than yours and the cases expanded more.

BTW I load thousands of .38s; have seen this myself even with the lightest powder puff target loads. Time for some 'new' once fired brass.

Jmoser has it.. Nickel 38/357 are notorious for splitting after several uses...

New brass

I found brass at Everglades Ammo when I was looking for 300 Blk. They were significantly less than anywhere else.
For 38, They're slightly cheaper than Starline, esp if you get less than 500.

$.15 ea for 500
http://www.evergladesammo.com/brass/handgun-brass/38-special-new-brass.html

appears to be Starline from the headstamp **

$.153 ea for 500 Starline primo brass

FWIW, I bought a 30 M1 Carbine which came with a lot of Amerc ammo. About 50% of them split when fired. I've read that age may cause this, but I shoot a lot of surplus 30-06 and have never seen a case failure

it was the Amerc cases... crappy stuff.. there is a reason they are out of business