Reaming Donuts...does it shorten brass life?

[Dusty Stevens]

Alinwa...
Do you think if I have a custom die made by Harrell's using my 20 Vartarg brass the donut problem would not occur assuming I used new brass?

the harrels do not make custom dies. they have multiple size dies on the shelf and pick one that sizes enough. some cases are not designed to not have donuts- not sure how the vartarg stacks up in this dept. I will say that you'll have a good chance of NOT getting them, if theyre ever not going to get them, by getting a whidden die set made from your fired brass.

 

[alinwa]

Care to expand on this? What are the characteristics you think lead to easy brass maintenance?

Also for ratbuster.....It's less about "new brass" and more about PROPER fireforming and PROPER maintenance, but short answer YES, Harrell dies can give you 40-50 reloads if used properly.

I doubt Harrell's makes 20VarTarg dies but IF THEY DO then to avoid donuts you need to fire 3 pieces of brass until they're hard to close in the gun. In other words, necksize-only until the stuff gets tight...... GREASE YOUR BOLT LUGS!!! I personally also provide Thee Bros Harrell with 3 pcs of "perfect fit" brass also. Neatly baggied and with a letter of explanation. "Perfect Fit" and "Tight To Close" gives them a range from which to measure.

damoncali.....

Two things are required for truly long case life, first that the sizing die fit the case perzackly (and my personal stats are different than others'...... and the only diemaker on the planet than makes dies to my spec without asking is Neil Jones, in fact Neil suggested it to me 20yrs ago) but suffice it to say that no dimension shall be more than .002 smaller than your tight-fired cases...........and second that the cases don't slip the shoulders when you size them. (This second item you've never heard of, nor thought of ) Because it's never been assigned to print. Except by me, and then only on BRC, long ago. Many folks unwittingly use this method but I don't know of anyone who's ever isolated or explained it.


THE RULES are that first you must make good cases, then more importantly you must maintain them..... this requires forethought.


The characteristics vitally important to extended caselife are three. #1, proper jam-fit fireforming. Reason; this gives you square caseheads. ONLY proper fireforming will yield square caseheads (this can be said to me more an "agg'ing characteristic" but square caseheads do make maintenance easier. #2, perfect die fit (You've got less than .001 to play with here) and #3, case design.

#1, proper fireforming..... empty cases must go in HARD and once fired will fall out easily. Then go back in after fireforming with no feel at all.
#2, proper die fit..... I make my own but I've used everybody I know of except Alan Warner (we just argued ) and several custom shops can make a good die. I've even used the 12L14 "LeadLoy" shrink-to-fit method.....I will here state, because I think it's the truth, Neil Jones WILL make you a good die. The Neil truly understands sizing. The Harrell's make a good die (using only 3 cases IME, these being PPC/BR/308) but they do have a "weakness" in that they're a "universal button die" and as such can't truly approach the N/S junction as well as other designs. On this note, a factory one-piece die can give good results if you have your reamer cut to it, but the usual result IME is clicky bolt operation because your chamber ends up too small to maintain case-head clearance (case-heads can't be resized except by the severiously talented few who've invested $$$$ in it) and in any case aren't worth resizing......
#3, proper design....... case design is an often overlooked aspect of the paradigm. I could spend hours on this subject alone but suffice it to say that I DO routinely make all my personal designs using (borrowing ) proven design characteristics. "Proven" by the fact that I DO reload cases up to and including 338L basically "forever"...... I recently spent over a month testing a "Carbon Fiber" barrel against 7 other barrels on 4 actions wherein I included 8 barrels chambered by myself in 300WSM. I fired prox 135 groups (5-shot only) using all sorts of loads and I wrecked 7 cases (purposely) finding individual MAX loadings....... and in the end I'd used only 28 cases. And they're all still perfectly usable, in fact I'll be using 5 of them this week to test a new indexable offset tuner design on one of the barrels......I keep them all bagged up in lots of five with some brief notes ("these were fired twice HOT!" and ".335 nk" and .337nk" and such)


BTW "case design" has nothing to do with "case prep." I ain't even gonna' TOUCH "case prep".... cuz flies....and I'm too old, life is tuff and rhymes are hard.....

Case design is just that, the design of the case. The 220 Beggs is a "designed" case. (And it WORKS freakin' automatic!) The 6PPC is a "designed" case and even "Jamison's brainchild" (LOL) the WSM is a designed case.....and the 6BR, the E'tarnal Basis of Paul's website here.....purpose DESIGNED CASE. Back before this site existed, when I spouted on the innertube I was getting "2900fps and endless caselife" from the 6BR pushing 105's I was ridiculed by all and sundry acros't thee lande...... (Paul, you might remember all this I know you do.....)

The 22-250 is poorly designed for proper maintenance, too much taper in the body, too little in the shoulder.
The 338 Lapua is a poorly designed case for proper maintenance for the exact same reasons, as is 30-06
The long-shouldered 40* Ackleys like 243AI and 22-250AI are poorly suited for proper maintenance.... because the shoulders bounce.

Salient design points are as follows;
-nearly parallel casewalls. I use .010 tpi
-an amenable shoulder. I use 35* most gener'ly.
-tight radii on b/s and n/s junctions.

This last, the "radii" subject I'm gonna' be a liddle close-mouthed on because I've been watching this website since't the day it was borne'd and I'm not prepared to "defend" myself here.....but suffice it to say that I've asked Kiff to give me .000 radius, ie "knife-edged" and so far he's refused

I'm still workin' on him though....."he ain't heard the last of me!!"

And regarding the actual methodology of "you must keep the shoulder from slipping"........ again, those that "get it" will get it, and those that don't can ask politely if'n they're interested but I AM NOT ARGUING THE SUBJECT!

I DO this stuff.....

I GET these results......

And I've SPENT the money, on every hare-brained theory ever advanced in any venue..........

And if the shoulder never slips, ie if you reset the shoulder by subtilely collapsing the casewalls instead of extruding thee cases like toothpaste......

You can re-use a case 50-100-200 times, until the flashholes look like cookie cutter molds.....

BOTTOM LINE........ "if you're trimmin' you're suckin'................"

period.








opinionby







al

 

[alinwa]

the harrels do not make custom dies. they have multiple size dies on the shelf and pick one that sizes enough. some cases are not designed to not have donuts- not sure how the vartarg stacks up in this dept. I will say that you'll have a good chance of NOT getting them, if theyre ever not going to get them, by getting a whidden die set made from your fired brass.

The Harrell's DO make custom dies based on the 3 cases they work with. They write a CNC program for each design parameter and by now can shelve 99.9% of all designs on BR/PPC/308 variants......BUT, I've got 6 on file with them that are unique to me. In other words I misdoubt they've ever reused the files!

BTW I have my first Whidden die in the works, they agreed to do it my way. I do have a buddy using a Whidden for one of my reamers and they hit it OK.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

The Harrell's DO make custom dies based on the 3 cases they work with. They write a CNC program for each design parameter and by now can shelve 99.9% of all designs on BR/PPC/308 variants......BUT, I've got 6 on file with them that are unique to me. In other words I misdoubt they've ever reused the files!

BTW I have my first Whidden die in the works, they agreed to do it my way. I do have a buddy using a Whidden for one of my reamers and they hit it OK.

I still use actual die reamers and newlon blanks for my ppc stuff but for everything else whidden has done a fine job even off of reamer prints.

 

[dcali]

damoncali.....

Two things are required for truly long case life, first that the sizing die fit the case perzackly (and my personal stats are different than others'...... and the only diemaker on the planet than makes dies to my spec without asking is Neil Jones, in fact Neil suggested it to me 20yrs ago) but suffice it to say that no dimension shall be more than .002 smaller than your tight-fired cases...........and second that the cases don't slip the shoulders when you size them. (This second item you've never heard of, nor thought of ) Because it's never been assigned to print. Except by me, and then only on BRC, long ago. Many folks unwittingly use this method but I don't know of anyone who's ever isolated or explained it.


THE RULES are that first you must make good cases, then more importantly you must maintain them..... this requires forethought.


The characteristics vitally important to extended caselife are three. #1, proper jam-fit fireforming. Reason; this gives you square caseheads. ONLY proper fireforming will yield square caseheads (this can be said to me more an "agg'ing characteristic" but square caseheads do make maintenance easier. #2, perfect die fit (You've got less than .001 to play with here) and #3, case design.

#1, proper fireforming..... empty cases must go in HARD and once fired will fall out easily. Then go back in after fireforming with no feel at all.
#2, proper die fit..... I make my own but I've used everybody I know of except Alan Warner (we just argued ) and several custom shops can make a good die. I've even used the 12L14 "LeadLoy" shrink-to-fit method.....I will here state, because I think it's the truth, Neil Jones WILL make you a good die. The Neil truly understands sizing. The Harrell's make a good die (using only 3 cases IME, these being PPC/BR/308) but they do have a "weakness" in that they're a "universal button die" and as such can't truly approach the N/S junction as well as other designs. On this note, a factory one-piece die can give good results if you have your reamer cut to it, but the usual result IME is clicky bolt operation because your chamber ends up too small to maintain case-head clearance (case-heads can't be resized except by the severiously talented few who've invested $$$$ in it) and in any case aren't worth resizing......
#3, proper design....... case design is an often overlooked aspect of the paradigm. I could spend hours on this subject alone but suffice it to say that I DO routinely make all my personal designs using (borrowing ) proven design characteristics. "Proven" by the fact that I DO reload cases up to and including 338L basically "forever"...... I recently spent over a month testing a "Carbon Fiber" barrel against 7 other barrels on 4 actions wherein I included 8 barrels chambered by myself in 300WSM. I fired prox 135 groups (5-shot only) using all sorts of loads and I wrecked 7 cases (purposely) finding individual MAX loadings....... and in the end I'd used only 28 cases. And they're all still perfectly usable, in fact I'll be using 5 of them this week to test a new indexable offset tuner design on one of the barrels......I keep them all bagged up in lots of five with some brief notes ("these were fired twice HOT!" and ".335 nk" and .337nk" and such)


BTW "case design" has nothing to do with "case prep." I ain't even gonna' TOUCH "case prep".... cuz flies....and I'm too old, life is tuff and rhymes are hard.....

Case design is just that, the design of the case. The 220 Beggs is a "designed" case. (And it WORKS freakin' automatic!) The 6PPC is a "designed" case and even "Jamison's brainchild" (LOL) the WSM is a designed case.....and the 6BR, the E'tarnal Basis of Paul's website here.....purpose DESIGNED CASE. Back before this site existed, when I spouted on the innertube I was getting "2900fps and endless caselife" from the 6BR pushing 105's I was ridiculed by all and sundry acros't thee lande...... (Paul, you might remember all this I know you do.....)

The 22-250 is poorly designed for proper maintenance, too much taper in the body, too little in the shoulder.
The 338 Lapua is a poorly designed case for proper maintenance for the exact same reasons, as is 30-06
The long-shouldered 40* Ackleys like 243AI and 22-250AI are poorly suited for proper maintenance.... because the shoulders bounce.

Salient design points are as follows;
-nearly parallel casewalls. I use .010 tpi
-an amenable shoulder. I use 35* most gener'ly.
-tight radii on b/s and n/s junctions.

This last, the "radii" subject I'm gonna' be a liddle close-mouthed on because I've been watching this website since't the day it was borne'd and I'm not prepared to "defend" myself here.....but suffice it to say that I've asked Kiff to give me .000 radius, ie "knife-edged" and so far he's refused

I'm still workin' on him though....."he ain't heard the last of me!!"

And regarding the actual methodology of "you must keep the shoulder from slipping"........ again, those that "get it" will get it, and those that don't can ask politely if'n they're interested but I AM NOT ARGUING THE SUBJECT!

I DO this stuff.....

I GET these results......

And I've SPENT the money, on every hare-brained theory ever advanced in any venue..........

And if the shoulder never slips, ie if you reset the shoulder by subtilely collapsing the casewalls instead of extruding thee cases like toothpaste......

You can re-use a case 50-100-200 times, until the flashholes look like cookie cutter molds.....

BOTTOM LINE........ "if you're trimmin' you're suckin'................"

period.


opinionby

al

Great info. I admit to paying little attention to sizing. I’m more of a bump .001 with a factory die kind of guy. But the idea of preventing shoulder slipping is interesting. Have you tried different die materials (aluminum even?), finishes or selective lube to achieve that? Seems like with enough friction, you would have more flexibility in shoulder angle.

 

[alinwa]

Great info. I admit to paying little attention to sizing. I’m more of a bump .001 with a factory die kind of guy. But the idea of preventing shoulder slipping is interesting. Have you tried different die materials (aluminum even?), finishes or selective lube to achieve that? Seems like with enough friction, you would have more flexibility in shoulder angle.

I have tried a number of different finishes and hardnesses and am firmly convinced that 320-ish and file hard is mandatory for a good die. I know, it makes no sense on the surface but I've DONE IT......(Well, not AL, LOL) I still make my own dies when need be and have purchased two heat-treating furnaces for this purpose since I'm on my third heat-treating company, from Mass to Tx I've tried 'em....

What I do know works quite well, and some of my best dies are done this way, is vacuum heat treatment BUT, I've waited for months in the past and remember one die that had to be made 3 times because the heat treater kept warping the finished dies.

Neil Jones' hardened, ground sleeving method is arguably the BEST method I know of, and his die-making ability is stellar..... but I like to have options, for reasons of my own, mainly timeliness issues. I've currently got 7 unique prototyping projects going, several utilizing brass conversions that may never see any sort of big time usage..... basically it's been 20yrs since I've fired a factory or SAAMI chamber for effect altho most of my iterations will accept factory brass in a pinch. Some projects, like my subsonic 50 can easily be "converted" to something more readily available like 50AK or Whisper, I just want to avoid the arguments while developing the platform.

But enough, I'll crawl back under my rock.

Ohhh, and BTW, YES I've every lube known..... in fact I've recently bought several types I'd not used because of information from this forum (That Stupid "Weapon Shield" Scam Cost Me 37 Bucks For One Squirt Bottle LOL!!) and long-story-short I generally use TWO lubrication methods while sizing......

#1- for un-hardened dies I use die wax, VERY sparingly and I grease only the lower 1/2 of the body, and the neck, trying to completely avoid the shoulder and deltoid area.
#2- for good, hardened dies I often use 50/50 Shooter's Choice/Kroil (the Olde Schoole BR mix) or Montana Extreme Copper Killer or even 50/50 Butch's/Kroil (again, the old red stuff..... I've got over a gallon)

Don't ask. (but when I'm done I often throw a squirt on the floor for good measure..... or dose the trash can, for my private air freshener...)

And I'M NOT ADVOCATING FOR use of an ammonia-based solvent for brass maintenance.

You did ask though! LOL

And I'm just sharing information, MY information, I ain't teaching, preaching nor arguing A'Tall....