Thanks for posting the pics Boyd!
First pic shows a brand new bullet (Berger VLD hunting 6.5x47 130 gr); clean, no scratches, before I pressed it into the case.
Second pic shows the me using the KM arbor press and Neil Jones bullet seating die to seat the bullet in the case (Lapua 6.5x47). I prepped this case using Neil Jones FL case die then a once in-and-out nylon brush through the full length of the case neck. This case had been fired 5 times before; it already had bevels (13 degrees) on the inside (and outside) of the case mouth which I had done before the first loading.
Third pic shows how I pulled the bullet from the case.
4th pic is the pulled bullet. You can see the scratches around the pressure line just above the boattail. These scratches were not evenly distributed around the circumference of the bullet; there were considerably more scratches on the one side that I took the pic of. These are small scratches.
5th pic shows a another brand new bullet after going through the following process. First I used the same case as for the bullet above but (1) I pushed/twisted the mouth of the case against 0000 steel wool until it was smooth (was already pretty smooth), and (2) wrapped a small piece of 0000 steel wool around a Q-tip and rubbed/spun the Q-tip by hand inside the overall surface of the inside of the case neck. This produced a noticeably cleaner inside case neck surface, but I did not scrub to the brass metal (I saw no brass color; still the dark carbon color but slightly lighter, meaning apparently cleaner). Then I repeated the process of seating the bullet, then pulling the bullet (in the 5th pic) to see if there were any scratches. There were none anywhere.
This tells me using the nylon brush alone does not sufficiently clean the inside neck of the case. Wish there were a tool available for my case prep station to do the job of the Q-tip wrapped with 0000 steel wool.
Cassidy
First pic shows a brand new bullet (Berger VLD hunting 6.5x47 130 gr); clean, no scratches, before I pressed it into the case.
Second pic shows the me using the KM arbor press and Neil Jones bullet seating die to seat the bullet in the case (Lapua 6.5x47). I prepped this case using Neil Jones FL case die then a once in-and-out nylon brush through the full length of the case neck. This case had been fired 5 times before; it already had bevels (13 degrees) on the inside (and outside) of the case mouth which I had done before the first loading.
Third pic shows how I pulled the bullet from the case.
4th pic is the pulled bullet. You can see the scratches around the pressure line just above the boattail. These scratches were not evenly distributed around the circumference of the bullet; there were considerably more scratches on the one side that I took the pic of. These are small scratches.
5th pic shows a another brand new bullet after going through the following process. First I used the same case as for the bullet above but (1) I pushed/twisted the mouth of the case against 0000 steel wool until it was smooth (was already pretty smooth), and (2) wrapped a small piece of 0000 steel wool around a Q-tip and rubbed/spun the Q-tip by hand inside the overall surface of the inside of the case neck. This produced a noticeably cleaner inside case neck surface, but I did not scrub to the brass metal (I saw no brass color; still the dark carbon color but slightly lighter, meaning apparently cleaner). Then I repeated the process of seating the bullet, then pulling the bullet (in the 5th pic) to see if there were any scratches. There were none anywhere.
This tells me using the nylon brush alone does not sufficiently clean the inside neck of the case. Wish there were a tool available for my case prep station to do the job of the Q-tip wrapped with 0000 steel wool.
Cassidy
