Running the rocket style deburr tool backwards ?

[Tozguy]

Everything I know about sharpening, dulling, and lapping prevents me from wanting to run a rocket style chamfer tool backwards in the neck as suggested in the Daily Bulletin. The chamfer tool should work best and make the smoothest cut if it stays sharp. Running the tool backwards in the neck will not do any good to the cutting edges of the tool and will likely harm them. If there is any smoothing of the neck to be done after using the chamfer tool as designed, it would be preferable to use a different tool or technique.
Using a dull rocket tool to chamfer the neck will only increase the need to deburr the neck. My .02.

 

[treeman]

The smoothest cutting deburing tool I have found is a bullet shaped rotary file made for a die grinder. they are very sharp and make a smoooth cut

 

[kelbro]

As long as you are turning it by hand, I don't think that brass is going to dull the rocket style debur tool no matter which way you turn it.

 

[ridgeway]

Try it...you might like it. Been doing it for years by hand. I only use a rocket style to debur the outside of the case mouth after trimming.

 

[M-61]

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/

 

[BoydAllen]

I run into this all the time. Instead of trying something that is simple and easy to do, that has worked well for someone else, fellows will reject it out of hand, because it does not fit their preconceptions. I am a big believer in actually trying things, and then making up my mind.

Let me give you an example. When I first heard of firing a .22 caliber bullet down a 6mm barrel to fire form 6PPC brass, it was in something that James Mock wrote. It sounded all wrong, but I respect James, and so I tried it, and it worked really well. For my chamber, I have to cut onto the shoulder when neck turning, for the bold close effort to be reasonable, and no matter how carefully I would expand cases up to 6mm, the necks would be cocked, resulting in an uneven cut on their shoulders. By expanding and turning to .010 at .22 caliber (an improvement on James' method that I thought of), and then loading a cheap 55 gr. bullet in front of a case full of any powder that would work in a 6PPC, I got beautifully straight cases that only had to be slightly expanded to finish turn at 6mm, and the cut on the case shoulder came out perfect.

Now before you say that you have done it another way for years, with no problems, I am not saying that this is the only way to do this particular operation, just that it is one way, and that it is a method that, at first glance seems to make no sense, that I tried it anyway, and which worked very well, in contrast to my first reaction.

Getting back to the subject of this thread, the editor has chamfered a lot of cases using the method that he described, with excellent results, and no damage to his Forster tool, and unless you have seen the same tool damaged by the same procedure, perhaps you are over applying a generalization, when you could have simply tried it, to see what happened. Personally, I like trying new things, and think that when I become so set in my ways that I don't, that it will be strong evidence that my mind has become as old as I hope my body will. ;D

 

[Forum Boss]

Guys I have been doing this for years, and my Forster tool is just fine. In reality most of the Rocket tools (including Midway, Lyman, RCBS) are pretty dull to begin with. The Forster is sharper out of the box. And after ten YEARS of use, and many thousands of necks it is still sharp with no gouges or nicks in ANY of the cutting flutes. Understand that the reverse spin is just a quick LIGHT 3-4 reverse 1/4 turns to smooth off the sharp edge of the cut. You are burnishing the cut NOT using pressure to cut backward. So the cutting edge is actually just trailing behind.

By a factor of probably 15:1 most of the problems I have seen with guys chamfering are caused by guys who remove too MUCH brass, leaving a knife edge on the case mouth.

If you have a rocket tool. I suggest you try the technique on 3-4 cases. If you don't think it makes a difference, just stop doing it. The advantage here is that the tool is already in your hands, rocket nose in the neck, and you can just easily (and GENTLY) spin the tool back to smooth the cut before you do the next case.

One fellow shooter, who measures seating force with a K&M Arbor with force gauge, touched up some brass this weekend using the light back-spin after chamfering, and he said he noticed the bullets seated more smoothly and the gauge was more consistent.

A Forster rocket tool now costs about $16 (I think I paid $9 a decade ago). I suppose it might wear out after another ten years of use, in which case my annual tool cost is about $0.45 (forty-five cents) a year.

I should also add that I keep my rocket tool in its little plastic case covered with oil. I am 100% convinced that most people will either misplace their rocket tool or toss it because of rust long before doing a gentle "burnishing backspin" (with almost no pressure) will hurt it. Remember, we are not talking about a $175 chamber reamer used to cut steel at high speed.

 

[Tozguy]

Paul, I take it that you are the author of the article. No disrespect was intended by my initial post. I accept your statement that the suggestion might bring some sort of improvement to bullet seating quality for some of us.
I have been using a Forster rocket tool also for many years and so far have found that it works well enough just going forwards but that's just me.

Boyd, you have a very special way of talking down to us or was your post just intended for me?

 

[CatShooter]

Boyd, you have a very special way of talking down to us or was your post just intended for me?

I didn't think Boyd was talking down to anyone - his remarks were very cogent to the subject.

Sometimes, nice people will disagree with you.

 

[BoydAllen]

I was only pointing out that saying something is a bad idea without trying it has become too common. If you felt talked down to, I am sorry to hear that. The things that I write about, generally, I have experienced. A lot of what appears on the internet is conjecture, and repeated conjecture. I was speaking to that issue. We all get to make decisions about how we perform the various tasks of this hobby. Just because I don't do something a particular way does not mean that it is inferior or won't work. As a matter of fact, I have no experience with burnishing a chamfer by turning the tool backward, but if I were going to object to the idea, given lack of severity of potential consequences, I think that I would have tried it first, but then that's just me. No one can contradict how a person feels. We are each the absolute authority about what our own feeling are. Personally, I will always tend to rise to the defense of my friends, if I think that they have been unjustly criticized, and plan on continuing with that practice. That was the reason that I posted.

 

[Forum Boss]

After cutting and chamfering cases, many guys find that the bullets actually slip in a bit more smoothly after the case is fired a couple times. On reason is that the angle (or lip) at the bottom of the chamfer cut blends into the case neckwall. "Rolling" the edge of the cut with a back-spin (or steel wool if you prefer), simply speeds up that blending process. For me, the difference was noticeable.

Having a smoother transition (from chamfer cut to neckwall) is one reason some tool-makers have gone to very long-nosed tools. However, in practice I have found these tools are tricky to use and can ruin your case-necks very easily.

I have talked with a couple of tool-makers about making a caliber-specific radiused chamfering tool that would provide a smooth, continuous "blend" from case-mouth to the point where full caseneck-wall thickness is reached. Hard to do with metal, but we have considered making chamferers from ceramic or some other material so the profile of the tool could have a curved neck like this:

Modified photo of a vase -- imagine a neck-entry profiling tool that looked like this -- maybe with a fine ceramic, like a polishing tool.

 

[gotcha]

Now thats an interesting idea! I've got an assortment of Cratex rods cones, bullets, etc. somewhere in my shop. I think I'll do a little experimenting & see what happens. Those little curls of brass at the transition of the chamfer to the inner neck wall, using bullet style chamfer tools, have been driving me nuts for YEARS! Has anyone ever tried the Cratex? ....... Just curious.

 

[Old Navy]

Guys I have been doing this for years, and my Forster tool is just fine. In reality most of the Rocket tools (including Midway, Lyman, RCBS) are pretty dull to begin with. The Forster is sharper out of the box. And after ten YEARS of use, and many thousands of necks it is still sharp with no gouges or nicks in ANY of the cutting flutes. Understand that the reverse spin is just a quick LIGHT 3-4 reverse 1/4 turns to smooth off the sharp edge of the cut. You are burnishing the cut NOT using pressure to cut backward. So the cutting edge is actually just trailing behind.

Well Boss, I don't have a rocket tool. I do have an RCBS #09349 burring tool (just what is on the box) made by L E Wilson. I bought it over thirty years ago and it will still cut you if you are not careful. Never oiled it and it never rust. Don't know how many tens of thousands cases I have used it on. Have been running it both ways as long as I have had it. Nothing new in this topic. It works as described. Later! Frank