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Prepping brass procedure question

bigstone

Hello, I'm back from the reloading shop and did not return the RCBS priming tool.

The owner mentioned that "all" manufactures brass needs to have the primer pocket crimp removed. He sold me a Lyman primer pocket reamer (small) #7777784. This tool removes military crimps and rough edges from a primer pocket I thought only Military brass needed this step. My error here.

Is it correct to say all brass new and old should get go thru this step?

So i'm going to start by saying that the only brass I have is once or twice fired. It was sorted by Manufacturer. Winchester, Remington, Federal, Lake City and a bucket for miscellaneous brass. At this stage I've prepped only LC brass.

When I was prepping LC brass I did see some of the primer pockets had a straight primer wall. Tonight I'm going to go back and use the Lyman Primer pocket reamer on 25 pieces of LC brass and then use the RCBS hand primer tool to see if it works flawlessly.

I will let you know results.

Regards
Dave
 
Never encountered a "primer pocket crimp" on any new Remington, Winchester, Hornady, or Federal 223 Rem cases which I load extensively.

Also, stop using range brass years ago because of it's unknown history. Since I get about 15 to 17 reloads on new 223 brass the cost of new brass is worth the price to start with fresh virgin brass with known history. Amortized over that many reloads the cost of new brass in relatively insignificant compared to the cost of bullets, primers and powder.
 
New LC brass on sale for .17 each. For less than the cost of a pocket reamer you can buy a bag of 100 that'll likely last 15 to 20 loadings. Buy a box of 500 and you'll burn out your barrel long before you throw away the last well used brass.

https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/77610

Your current method, and we've all been there, while fun and educational is also for the most part impractical, especially when loading for 223 Rem. For consistency in loading, there is only one best way to start. New, good quality brass. As a newcomer, buying or picking up used brass will leave you chasing your tail trying to figure out why your handloads aren't performing as expected, with some occasional mishaps that may cost you a lot more than just brass.

Some things to consider when preparing your used brass:

Are you trimming your brass for length and chamfering? Failure to do this may result in a damaged gun and possible facial injury.

How are you measuring your headspace when setting up your F.L die? How much do you bump the shoulder?

Can you spot a case that will likely separate next time it's fired?

Not trying to beat up on you, just offering some insights into why there's a best route to take when starting out. There's a ton of experience and information available here, so please feel free to ask questions. We're all happy to help guide you as you gain experience in the fascinating sport of handloading.
 
It has been a while since I purchased fired brass, but last few batches had minimal crimps. Was probably in the 10% range across over 8,000 pieces consisting of 556, 308, 9, 40, and 45.
 
New LC brass on sale for .17 each. For less than the cost of a pocket reamer you can buy a bag of 100 that'll likely last 15 to 20 loadings. Buy a box of 500 and you'll burn out your barrel long before you throw away the last well used brass.

https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/77610

Your current method, and we've all been there, while fun and educational is also for the most part impractical, especially when loading for 223 Rem. For consistency in loading, there is only one best way to start. New, good quality brass. As a newcomer, buying or picking up used brass will leave you chasing your tail trying to figure out why your handloads aren't performing as expected, with some occasional mishaps that may cost you a lot more than just brass.

Some things to consider when preparing your used brass:

Are you trimming your brass for length and chamfering? Failure to do this may result in a damaged gun and possible facial injury.

How are you when setting up your F.L die? How much do you bump the shoulder?

Can you spot a case that will likely separate next time it's fired?

Not trying to beat up on you, just offering some insights into why there's a best route to take when starting out. There's a ton of experience and information available here, so please feel free to ask questions. We're all happy to help guide you as you gain experience in the fascinating sport of handloading.

Texas10, Today at 1:12 PMReport

Texas10 Sir,

Thanks for the reply and I'm not bruised at all. In fact all these replies speedup my learning process, keep me safer which I greatly appreciate.
Yes, all the brass my grandson and I have prep has been trimmed to 1.750/1.751. Any brass < than 1.749 has been moved to a junk bucket. We have chamfered both inside and out too to break the sharp edges and a little more.

Measuring headspace: I'm not sure, I set FL Lee die per the instruction. I don't know if bumped the shoulder. ?? The empty sized chasings were sampled and fit the 2 Savage rifles ok.

I doubt that I can catch lightly fatigued. It will have to be visible. For this trip we won't load anything near max. We have to use H335 and Varget. We also will be loading for a .204 once we get our feet wet.

At this point we prepped about 350-400 brass and primed 30-40 casings with CCI standard primers. We hope to load these up with H335 starting @ 24.3 grains tomorrow.


I'm going back and re-champering the prime pocket on the LC brass using the Lyman primer pocket reamer I bought yesterday. Tested the reaming process today with the RSCB universal hand priming tool and still had 10-15% of the brass and primer dropping out of the universal primer seater.

Comments would be appreciated from all.

Regards
Dave
 
Dave,

No new, unfired, unprimed brass is ever going to have a primer crimp, but it can take some force to seat the primer. Slightly more force than a firm handshake. I often needed to use two hands due to fatigue when priming large lots of primers. I’m not sure I’d trust the guy that sold you that tool.

Using range pickup brass is not a good practice at all. You don’t know what has been done to it. .223 brass is inexpensive enough to buy new and not scrounge for. Www.ammunitionstore.com sells new, boxer primed Wolf brass for a great price.

You will find crimped primers on any military spec brass that has already been fired. NEW Lake City unprimed brass has not been crimped yet. The crimp needs to be removed in order to prime the fired cases again. Unless you know where the brass came from and it’s free, it’s not worth the work to remove the crimp and reload the brass.

Headspace is the measurement from the datum line on the case shoulder to the base of the case. Just because the re-sized case fits into your rifle’s chamber does NOT mean it’s correctly sized. You need the correct tool to measure this. It’s often called a headspace gauge. Just setting up the dies according to the instructions provided is insufficent. Excessive or insufficient headspace can cause problems with your ammo and some of those problems can be dangerous. If you don’t already have a good reloading manual, you NEED to get one.

If the primer falls out of the case after you ream the primer pocket, you need to throw the brass away. The most common indicator that a piece of brass has been abused or overused is that it won’t hold a primer. When priming brass, if the primer goes in very easily but stays in, that should be the last firing for that piece of brass.

I VERY strongly recommend you use new unfired brass as you learn more about the reloading process. Use and reload ONLY the brass that has been fired in your rifle so you know what has been done to it. Keep notes if you have to.

Every time you pull the trigger, there is a high pressure explosion being set off next to your face. This is not the time to be mucking around with unknown variables. Safe reloading isn’t too complicated, but there are some critical aspects that you must fully understand before pulling triggers.

I’m happy to help as best I can if you have more specific questions.

Regards,

Another Dave
 
sorry but after years of processing 1x brass for sale/reloading I disagree. based on real life facts, .
a lot can be learned by READING a post prior to replying'
"So i'm going to start by saying that the only brass I have is once or twice fired."

Dave Marshall said:
Take it easy. The thread title doesn’t specify once-fired.

Only NATO spec loaded ammo has crimps. Winchester, Federal, Remington, etc. it’s not crimped.
Click to expand...
 
rsmithsr50 said:
sorry but after years of processing 1x brass for sale/reloading I disagree. based on real life facts, .
a lot can be learned by READING a post prior to replying'
"So i'm going to start by saying that the only brass I have is once or twice fired."
Click to expand...

Glad to see you helping the OP with all your extensive knowledge.
 
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Swaging primer crimps is a solution.

I have to admit, the OP’s answers to the questions posed by Texas10 leads me to believe the OP has MUCH more to learn about reloading before swaging primer crimps.

I don’t wish to insult anyone, but some reloading mistakes have major consequences and his grandson may be firing this ammo.
 
If the cartridge case is a LC or another military surplus one, then it is best to de-crimp every one of them in prepping for reloading. 99 % of them will have a crimp.
New name brand ammunition, from makers like Hornady, Remington, Nosler, Lapua, etc. do not have crimps, except in a few very limited cases. You will probably never run into one, so don't worry about the name brand cases.
 
Ok, now the question of headspace comes up, as well as adjusting your FL sizing die. What is headspace? Basically it's the fit of the cartridge to the chamber. In a perfect world, your re-sized cartridge would fit your chamber very closely, with somewhere between zero and .002 extra room. When the fit is this consistently close, less energy from the powder charge will be spent expanding the case to a tight fit against the chamber wall, meaning shot to shot velocity will be closer to the same.

It also means that when you resize it, you are working the brass less, and less brass will flow from the cartridge walls and shoulder up and into the neck, necessitating trim. As this brass being cut off has to come from somewhere, you're losing brass where you need it, and that is when a cartridge will thin enough to eventually separate. All kinds of bad things can happen when a cartridge separates, so don't go there.

How to tell headspace? First of all you need a gage. Hornaday sells a headspace comparator set. Buy it and a good set of digital calipers.

Then take your once or twice shot brass and before sizing any, chamber them. If the bolt closes easily, they're not quite fully sized to fit your chamber. If the bolt won't close, you have one that is too big and therefore couldn't come from your chamber. Find one that the bolt closes with just a little force, label it with the action serial number and keep it.

Now measure it with the Hornaday headspace comparator using the letter A insert. Record that in your loading records. That is your maximum Base to Shoulder dimension. Anything larger won't fit, anything much smaller is too loose.

The problem with being too loose or having too much headspace is that when the firing pin hits the primer, the cartridge will be driven forward some distance before it hits the shoulder and stops. Firing pin energy will be dissipated, which will likely result in a FTF (fail to fire). So you want to keep headspace to a minimum and consistent dimension.

When setting up your dies, measure and trial fit the cartridges until you can consistently get the desired dimension, plus or minus .001. Then tighten the lock nut on the die.

Hardness of the brass will cause this die setting to give different results, and this is the problem with range brass. You never know how many cycles are on the brass, and how hard it's become, and will not size the same.

Annealing is the answer, but that's a whole new technique to learn. Baby steps, baby steps.

My suggestion would be to take the brass that chambers easily, neck size it only, load and shoot. When it chambers such that the bolt is not closing without a firm push, that brass has been fully fire formed to your chamber. Bump the shoulder back .002 with a full length die and continue.

I can get 10 or more cycles on my 223 brass before it reaches the point of needing FL sizing. The rest of the time I neck size only and get very good results on the target.

I hope this helps. Sorry for the long post, lot's of ground to cover.
 
next time start with the truth.
HEADSPACE is a characteristic of a chamber and bolt face. typically not adjustable, see gunsmith and savage rifles.
HEAD CLEARANCE.. is making sure the case is small enough so it fits and the bolt can close.
this is an adjustment that can be made by adjusting your sizing die.

Texas10 said:
Ok, now the question of headspace comes up, as well as adjusting your FL sizing die. What is headspace? Basically it's the fit of the cartridge to the chamber.
Click to expand...
 
rsmithsr50 said:
next time start with the truth.
HEADSPACE is a characteristic of a chamber and bolt face. typically not adjustable, see gunsmith and savage rifles.
HEAD CLEARANCE.. is making sure the case is small enough so it fits and the bolt can close.
this is an adjustment that can be made by adjusting your sizing die.
Click to expand...

You sure seem like a guy that got booted from this site...He went by the forum name "Retired"...
 
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