Unsized primed brass
- Thread starter dbaird
- Start date
bozo699
Gold $$ Contributor
Yes you can do it either way.
Wayne
RegionRat
Gold $$ Contributor
Just food for thought if the OP plans to do much of this. It used to be more common but isn't as available as it used to be.
The only consideration to buying much brass that is primed and sold in bulk, is the question of the neck or body sizing and applying/removing lube. Most methods that yield the brass tend to require lube to avoid galling, so finding ones that don't affect the primer are a study.
If that brass was shipped in bulk, some of the necks may no longer be round such that the bullet is forced to correct the brass. If that brass has a chamfer or rough edge, that situation will inevitably cause issues with scraping the bullets or even stopping your process.
When this kind of brass was more common, many of us would use a Lee Collet die that we modified with cutting off the decapping pins. We also just made our own mandrels for this die to have control of the neck tension since their default value in 308 was typically -0.002 and most of this brass was being run in service rifles where we wanted it a little higher.
If the body needed to be bumped, we used Hornady One Shot and a Redding Body die. The combination of the Lee Collet Die on the necks, and the Redding Body die on the shoulders and diameters, allowed us to use a lot of this stuff. The 200 and 300 yard line ammo required rapids, and once done this way the ammo worked fine. In 308 we didn't use this stuff for the 600 yard line.
Later on, Wolf branded 223 brass became available when the service rifles migrated to the AR. I have several friends who ran that Wolf brand primed brass in to get to High Master. In the AR, that brass was also good enough to clean the 600 yard line.
The only fly in the ointment these days, is Lee modified that die body so it leaves about a millimeter of the end of the neck unsized, but the original ones sized all the way past the mouth so we could chamfer or flare. That is a double edged sword since it means you cannot use a trimmer or chamfer tool in the normal way, but it also might mean you don't need to. Those of us who use the Lee Collet Dies preferred they didn't make this change since we could decide to chamfer or flare on our own. YMMV
The only consideration to buying much brass that is primed and sold in bulk, is the question of the neck or body sizing and applying/removing lube. Most methods that yield the brass tend to require lube to avoid galling, so finding ones that don't affect the primer are a study.
If that brass was shipped in bulk, some of the necks may no longer be round such that the bullet is forced to correct the brass. If that brass has a chamfer or rough edge, that situation will inevitably cause issues with scraping the bullets or even stopping your process.
When this kind of brass was more common, many of us would use a Lee Collet die that we modified with cutting off the decapping pins. We also just made our own mandrels for this die to have control of the neck tension since their default value in 308 was typically -0.002 and most of this brass was being run in service rifles where we wanted it a little higher.
If the body needed to be bumped, we used Hornady One Shot and a Redding Body die. The combination of the Lee Collet Die on the necks, and the Redding Body die on the shoulders and diameters, allowed us to use a lot of this stuff. The 200 and 300 yard line ammo required rapids, and once done this way the ammo worked fine. In 308 we didn't use this stuff for the 600 yard line.
Later on, Wolf branded 223 brass became available when the service rifles migrated to the AR. I have several friends who ran that Wolf brand primed brass in to get to High Master. In the AR, that brass was also good enough to clean the 600 yard line.
The only fly in the ointment these days, is Lee modified that die body so it leaves about a millimeter of the end of the neck unsized, but the original ones sized all the way past the mouth so we could chamfer or flare. That is a double edged sword since it means you cannot use a trimmer or chamfer tool in the normal way, but it also might mean you don't need to. Those of us who use the Lee Collet Dies preferred they didn't make this change since we could decide to chamfer or flare on our own. YMMV
Last edited:
As mentioned above run an expander in the necks @ .002 smaller than the bullet diameter and roll with it.
bozo699
Gold $$ Contributor
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