Remington Brass Quality Surprise

[RonAKA]

With Remington brass the burrs are like a kings crown surrounding the flash hole on the inside of the case. They are almost like a funnel.
They can be difficult to remove with a normal deburring tool and process.
What works best is to take a Lee hand decapping punch and put it inside the case as if you were going to decap it. Give the decapping punch a whack with a plastic hammer to flatten the burr down against the inside of the case head. With the burr petals mashed down they form a sharp angle where they are bent over at the flash hole. This makes them much easier to cut off with the flash hole deburring tools.
You can try deburring both ways and I think you will find that flattening the burrs is much easier.

What about just doing the Lee punch and hammer part and not bothering with the flash hole deburring? There is always some satisfaction in solving a problem with a hammer...

 

[ireload2]

What about just doing the Lee punch and hammer part and not bothering with the flash hole deburring? There is always some satisfaction in solving a problem with a hammer...

Some of the fins are so long they may come off when the rifle is fired. Check them out and see what you think.
I would rather mash them with a hammer than to leave them standing.

 

[Homerange]

Get one of these and use it in a drill:
http://www.sinclairintl.com/reloadi...ersal-flashhole-deburring-tool-prod34127.aspx
I've never found a batch of any brass that didn't have burrs and you can feel the bad ones when held in your fingers...they grab on the cutter.

 

[RonAKA]

Get one of these and use it in a drill:
http://www.sinclairintl.com/reloadi...ersal-flashhole-deburring-tool-prod34127.aspx
I've never found a batch of any brass that didn't have burrs and you can feel the bad ones when held in your fingers...they grab on the cutter.

Yes, that looks like a good one. I need to check the places around our city to see what they have. Living in Canada has it's downsides when it comes to access to more specialized stuff like this. I was looking at the Lyman tool, but have not found it either.. I may have to order it, and that is really painful across the border.

Have started trimming the case lengths and continue to be impressed with this brass. I am using a Lee case length gauge and cutter intended for a 6.5-284 as Lee don't make one for the 6.5 RM. The case lengths are the same, and I just switched the base holder for a magnum size that I already had. So far it looks like it is taking about 1 thou off the cases to give me a length of 2.160", which is right in the middle of the SAAMI spec. Cleanup is about 95%, so I think they will be all good after the first firing.

 

[Homerange]

Yes, that looks like a good one. I need to check the places around our city to see what they have.

I particularly like the Sinclair Gen II as the wings on the sides of the cutter control the depth of the chamfer, you just can't stuff it up.
I've done many hundreds of cases and it's still cutting mint.

 

[mikecr]

Any thoughts as to how best to divide up the batch? Just out of convenience, I was thinking of throwing out the 8 worst outliers, and using them for foulers or whatever. I would then divide the rest into three groups of 50. My longer term plan is to sort them based on volume after they have been fired and trimmed up.

Forget case weight. Don't trim em all too short as suggested. And adopt a plan for sufficient minimal sizing, and extending brass life. If you intend to make straight ammo, and have it somewhat straight after cycles of FL sizing, you need to cull out thickness variance(as seen at the necks) first. This is best done with a depth stopped ball micrometer, and a big number of same lot brass.
I don't keep any brass with new neck thickness variance >.0005".

Truly better standards are independent of brand or cost.
Someone suggested it should all be as good as Lapua. This person is either suspiciously lucky or has never really measured it.
Like all other brass, Lapua varies cartridge to cartridge & case to case & lot to lot in thickness, length, pocket depths, flash holes, weight and fire formed capacity. Lapua is excellent in hardness of brass (brown box),, that's what I pay for there. But I've raked a bunch of money in the trash pickin out the best of em.
Expect to do this in Remington of course.

Unless you have to, don't trim until your brass is fully fireformed & sizing stable in dimensions. Then, trim to correct length, best you can, and toss those short of it. Then, measure H20 capacity, keeping only those matching well enough per QuickLoad.
This should get you maybe 50-80 per 500, but I would think bigger lots of remington brass would be pretty cheap.

If it's an odd cartridge, yours seems so, you'll have no problem selling off the rejects down the road (probably for a profit).
If you'll be replacing brass often, well then your plan doesn't suit maintaining the best ammo, and you could end up buying someone's rejects down the road.

 

[RonAKA]

Unless you have to, don't trim until your brass is fully fireformed & sizing stable in dimensions. Then, trim to correct length, best you can, and toss those short of it. Then, measure H20 capacity, keeping only those matching well enough per QuickLoad.

I've already done the trim step, but I didn't take any more than 0.001" off them. There were a few that almost nothing came off, but in whole the batch was extremely consistent in length. We'll see what happens after they are fired. SAAMI case in a SAAMI chamber, so I'm sure it will grow.

This weighing was probably more on curiosity than anything, and for a rough sort. The brass origin was a mystery and I was wondering if there would be more than one identifiable batches in the mix. I think it is one batch, or at the most two.

I will measure case volume after firing with some fine powder to do a second sort.

 

[ireload2]

Have you checked the case length to the shoulder and compare it to your chamber. Belted brass is notorious for being short at the shoulder. This affects how much it stretches on the first shot.

I've already done the trim step, but I didn't take any more than 0.001" off them. There were a few that almost nothing came off, but in whole the batch was extremely consistent in length. We'll see what happens after they are fired. SAAMI case in a SAAMI chamber, so I'm sure it will grow.

This weighing was probably more on curiosity than anything, and for a rough sort. The brass origin was a mystery and I was wondering if there would be more than one identifiable batches in the mix. I think it is one batch, or at the most two.

I will measure case volume after firing with some fine powder to do a second sort.

 

[RonAKA]

Have you checked the case length to the shoulder and compare it to your chamber. Belted brass is notorious for being short at the shoulder. This affects how much it stretches on the first shot.

My Hornady case length bushings should be here on Monday, and I will measure up a few cases out of curiosity when I get them. Yes, they probably will be short. OAL was 0.009 short of SAAMI max., so I wouldn't be surprised to see the case length to the shoulder short by about the same amount. The barrel does not exist yet, and won't for a few months, so all I know about it, is that it should be SAAMI compliant. That does not narrow it down much though!

 

[RonAKA]

Have you checked the case length to the shoulder and compare it to your chamber. Belted brass is notorious for being short at the shoulder. This affects how much it stretches on the first shot.

Got my Hornady case length to shoulder gauges today. The cases are about 0.011" shorter than the maximum allowed by SAAMI. The SAAMI minimum is 0.007" shorter, so they are actually 0.004" under the SAMMI spec. They are going to stretch 0.010" or more depending on the chamber I get... But, they are pretty consistent at +/- 0.001" though.

 

[ireload2]

You cannot use the Hornady tool to make absolute measurements compared to a SAAMI drawing unless you have a standard to set them.
The SAMMI datum circle is formed by a theoretically sharp corner of the gauge.
The Hornady bushings have the edges broken about .005 to .007 so they will measure your cases shorter than they really are.

For a rimless bottle neck case you can use a gunsmith's head space gauge to set the Hornady tool to a known number.

With the 6.5mag with the belted cases all you can do is compare a fired case or a 7mm Rem Mag (cut off and formed to be a drag fit in your chamber) to one of your new cases and to cases FL sized in your dies.

It looks like you might have meant to say your cases are shorter than the SAAMI minimum case length. It is a little confusing what the max and min dims are and what your case measures.

Got my Hornady case length to shoulder gauges today. The cases are about 0.011" shorter than the maximum allowed by SAAMI. The SAAMI minimum is 0.007" shorter, so they are actually 0.004" under the SAMMI spec. They are going to stretch 0.010" or more depending on the chamber I get... But, they are pretty consistent at +/- 0.001" though.

 

[RonAKA]

You cannot use the Hornady tool to make absolute measurements compared to a SAAMI drawing unless you have a standard to set them.
The SAMMI datum circle is formed by a theoretically sharp corner of the gauge.
The Hornady bushings have the edges broken about .005 to .007 so they will measure your cases shorter than they really are.

It looks like you might have meant to say your cases are shorter than the SAAMI minimum case length. It is a little confusing what the max and min dims are and what your case measures.

I probably did not describe it as well as I could have. The SAAMI spec for the 6.5 RM case is 1.7592", plus zero, minus 0.007". My measurement with the Hornady gauge came out as 1.748" or a minus 0.011". In other words they are shorter than the spec allowed by SAAMI. Point taken about the rounded edges on the Hornady gauges. They may not be all that accurate in doing that kind of comparison. Perhaps measured with a sharp edge gauge they are within SAAMI spec. The other issue is that the diameter on the shoulder that SAAMI measures to is 0.440, while the gauge is a 0.420. I did my math and corrected for that part though.