OleFreak said:
http://leeprecision.net/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/734/14/lapua-brass-undersized-flash-hole--decapper-pin-does-not-fit
Lee’s support guy says: “The undersized flash hole should be enlarged with one of the commercial flash hole uniformers. Or use a 1/16 (1.6mm) drill. Uniform flash holes are helpful to uniform ignition.â€
Not I ...
Nor I. That is very poor advice. Flash-hole reamers if correctly specified should barely increase the hole diameter so the 0.061" BR/PPC size doesn't increase Palma brass flash-holes enough to guarantee standard dia. pins fit, whilst using a 0.081" type designed fror standard 2mm flash-holes on Palma brass or any other small flash-hole type risks increasing it far too much and thereby increasing MV ES/SD which defeats much of the object of buying Palma cases in the first place.
Flash-holes come in two sizes - 2mm which is used in all LR primer brass and most SR models (such as the 222/223 family); 1.5mm (0.059") only in .220 Russian and the PPCs formed from it, 6.5 Grendel which is an adapted 220 Russian, BR brass whether 6mm BR Norma or Remington 7BR, 6.5X47 Lapua and Lapua .308 Win Palma type. It was also used in the old Remington .308 UBBR Win brass for case forming to BR and of which there seems to be a surprising amount still around from comments by many 'old hands' on the Palma Teams Long-Range Shooting Forum (most of whom predicted that the Lapua 308 Palma wouldn't work as small primers hadn't worked for them back in the year dot).
For Lee dies and the Lee Universal Decapper, the only answer is as suggested to chuck and spin the rod and reduce the pin diameter with emery paper. It doesn't have to come down a lot actually.
Redding, Forster and RCBS produces their pins in the two diameters and the answer is to buy a pack or couple of packs of the small size - good insurance anyway as they're pretty fragile in this size.
http://www.sinclairintl.com/search/index.htm?k=decapp+pins&ksubmit=y
So far as the bushing die type you're interested in, you have three options basically, custom or semi-custom jobs based on your fired brass aside:
Full Length bushing sizer such as the Redding Type S. You choose a bushing size for the brass that reduces the neck O/D enough to just need the expander ball to kiss the thinnest-neck example on the return press stroke. Although retaining the ball, this reduces brass working very substantially compared to standard FL sizers and also makes the expand part a great deal easier especially if you've lubed the inside neck walls as well as the case exterior or bought the aftermarket carbide expander ball to replace the standard steel one. It should produce very concentric results with good brass. If using neck-turned brass, the expander ball can be removed and bushing sizing alone employed.
Neck size only such as the Redding Competition bushing sizer, otherwise as per the FL version. Doesn't have an expander ball if I remember right as it assumes turned brass.
The Forster Bushing-Bump die as a halfway house - a bushing neck sizer that bumps (resets) the shoulder position but doesn't touch the main part of the body. It has a decap stem but no expander as it assumes neck-turned brass, but a standard decap / expand rod can be bought and fitted.
I use the Redding Type S, but only for brass that is being transferred between rifles / rebarrelling to suit the new chamber. The Forster Bushing-Bump is my die of choice for an FTR 308 with a minimum SAAMI chamber and Palma brass. So far with loads that push the 155.5gn Berger to 3,050 fps or 168gn Hybrid to 2,990 fps, I've never had to resort to a FLS die to touch the case body with solely shoulder-bumped brass used in the chamber from new despite several firings. Cases chamber and extract with ease.
My Palma brass usually gets a light clean-up neck turn to provide near uniform thickness, so I could use the B-B die as is with a suitable bushing size. Instead, I prefer to go a thou' too small and use a Sinclair expander die with the same comapny's E30 expander mandrel as a separate operation. I discovered ages since that Sinclair's expander mandrels (designed for neck-turning) produces just the amount of neck tension that works for me and keeps everything very consistent irrespective of brass lots and neck-turner setting variations between lots too. This adds a second operation of course which you wish to avoid. The only way to do it as one step would be the Type S and a FL body sizing (nothing at all wrong with that) or the Forster type with decap / expand rod substitution assuming out of the box (non-turned) brass.
