since the last ammo/components shortage, 9x18 mm Makarov brass has become as rare as virgins. so lately, I have been trimming 9x19 luger brass down a millimeter and it works fine. just a pain in the ass to trim all that brass. then I realized that I have a LOT of .380 brass (9x17) and am down to only one .380 pistol which is a LCP. which is not the kind of pistol to shoot a lot of rounds through at the range. so, I decided to try to load the bigger diameter Makarov bullet in them. since it works in the same diameter size 9x19 cases, why not? so, I ran a .380 case through the 9x18 case mouth expansion die. I had to run the expander down a mm but it worked! next question was will the shorter by 1mm cartridge fire in the 9x18 chamber? so I happened to have 18 pieces of .380 brass already primed so I loaded them with 3.5 gr. of Bulls Eye and a 9x18 bullet. yesterday I took them to my shooting place. (calling it a range would be an exaggeration) and shot them up. all but 2 fired with the first trigger pull and those 2 both fired on the second hammer strike. good enough for practice ammo! now I have another source to feed my beloved CZ 82s and Makarov pistols! I will do some more testing but it looks like for my serious ammo I will stick to the regular 9x18 brass and use the .380 brass for blasting ammo.