Seating bullets after stainless media cleaning

[CZ550]

I am having a tough time seating bullets after stainless media cleaning because the necks are etched or to clean. I have tried steel wool polishing and graphite but
the results are not consistent. A guy mentioned a brush from Flexhone but I haven't been able to pin down exactly which one he was talking about. How can I get butter smooth seating after stainless media
and annealing.

FYI I am running .001-.002 neck tension and using KM arbor with pressure gauge.

 

[mikecr]

If graphite didn't help, then maybe you've over-annealed.

 

[BoydAllen]

I would give Todd Kindler a call. He has a wax based lube that is water soluble that powder will not stick to when it dries. You should be able to put in in your case necks with something like a Q tip, let it dry, charge the case with powder, and then seat the bullet. No, I have not tried this. For the life of me, I cannot see how your targets would show any advantage from having brass so clean, and you have discovered the great disadvantage of having the insides of your necks too clean. Cleaner is not always better.

 

[CZ550]

I agree Boyd, the only reason for the stainless is because I have annealed not so clean cases and did not care for the results. With the stainless media the cases look great after anealing. I would assume anyone who sonic cleans their brass has had same issues.

 

[BoydAllen]

Well....If you find an easy solution, be sure to let us know. I am sure that there are a lot of other reloaders that have and will have the same problem. I appoint you an official field tester.

 

[CZ550]

Boyd I assume you anneal, do you clean the inside of your necks before doing so?

 

[hoverp]

you need to anneal BEFORE you SS media clean.
Annealing causes a oxidizing effect to the brass surface and is very sticky for bullet seating and will cause you grief.

SS clean after annealing and all is well.

also dont forget, after SS media cleaning you need to chamfer the inside of the case mouth as the SS media WILL roll the edge of the brass a bit.

So my procedure which works like a champ is : anneal, then deprime, then SS clean, then resize, then trim chamfer. then load.

easy peasy.

 

[243Mendoza]

One advantage of molied bullets is that you don't have this problem with annealed, SS cleaned brass.

 

[Leaddog]

SS clean first then anneal. I do not anneal dirty cases. After that, I chuck a drill with a nylon bore brush, put the drill in a vise and clean the insides of my necks. Montana nylon bore brushes are the best. I also use 0000 steel wool on the outside of the necks. Just a quick spin.

I always FL size with a Redding S bushing die. Bushing is .002 smaller than my loaded rounds. Butter smooth bullet seating.

 

[mikecr]

You guys create a lot of efforts for yourselves out of all this

 

[gotcha]

I agree Boyd, the only reason for the stainless is because I have annealed not so clean cases and did not care for the results.
[/quote] Having done a bit of annealing I'm wondering...... What were the results that you didn't care for???? Maybe we could help w/ this if you could quantify.

 

[brian427cobra]

This is exactly why I don't SS media clean my precision rifle brass, blasting ammo(AR15 and Pistol) get SS media cleaned, PR brass gets tumbled in Walnut media or just wiped clean with a Krazy Klothe, and necks brushed, dry inside neck lube helps but gives higher ES/SD v brass that has the neck brushed out with a layer of carbon left in it.

 

[Killshot]

I SS clean and anneal after every firing, zero problems seating (Berger hybrids) and fine SDs.
If you're torchhead angles are correct you shouldn't get any significant burnishing on the inside of the necks at all (from annealing).

Talk of cases being too clean? is odd. Do you have any problems with new brass?

 

[hoverp]

I SS clean and anneal after every firing, zero problems seating (Berger hybrids) and fine SDs.
If you're torchhead angles are correct you shouldn't get any significant burnishing on the inside of the necks at all (from annealing).

Talk of cases being too clean? is odd. Do you have any problems with new brass?

Good point Killshot. I anneal on my Giraud, and I don't get flame inside, but I did notice a bit of burnishing regardless, the necks exhibited a higher tension and lack of consistancy upon bullet seating if I annealed after I ss media cleaned..but I did not brush each case mouth with a nylon brush after either.

So I switched the process and found that the ss media would clean the annealed dirty Norma cases very consistent inside and out of the case necks. Now I do shoot HbN coated DTACS and they seat very consistently this way. I do not know the results of seating naked bullets like this though. I think (maybe)the HbN is acting like the carbon does for naked bullets in the seating process.

Interesting topic, please keep the results coming in.

 

[lpreddick]

can cases be too clean? i believe they can. what can happen? a really polished, shiney case look GREAT! i used to do this religiously. the problem comes when the case is fired and it expands. the case should expand against the chamber wall and "grip" the wall, reducing bolt thrust and maintaining a safe headspace. a slippery case in a chamber that may be slightly oily can produce quite a pounding to the bolt face and possibly result in headspace problems. the oily chamber is probably more common than we think. so many "gun oils" are so thin that when run thru a barrel and the gun leaned with the muzzle elevated allow the oil to run into the chamber. how many of us routinely swab out the chamber before shooting?

 

[BoydAllen]

I don't anneal my PPC cases, and have not had to anneal my cases that are used for my varmint rifles, BUT I did help a friend who was having problems with getting a consistent shoulder bump when he sized his 7WSM and .338 Lapua cases. I did the research, picked out the machine, and helped with the setup. Annealing solved the problem. We used three different temperatures of Tempilaq to determine the annealing time, working with a setup case. The cases were pretty much as fired, except we may have cleaned the outside of the necks with 0000 steel wool. With two torches, about 120 degrees apart, pointing at the center of the neck, the time to anneal was something like 6-7 seconds. After annealing, necks were brushed by hand, with a bronze bore brush and the necks were dipped, and twisted in Imperial dry Neck Lube (the applicator with the little balls) just before they were hand lubed for sizing on the outside. RCBS Case Lube II was applied with the fingers and removed with a wet cloth, after sizing, I am sure that there was some residual neck lube in the necks. Shoulder bump range was reduced to a thousandth (from the former several thousandths) and uncoated bullets seated with uniform feel an force that was not excessive. The FL sizing was done with bushing dies, using bushings that gave the slightest feel as the expanders passed through the necks. Concentricity of sized brass and loaded ammo was very good. Seating was done with Wilson seaters and an arbor press.

 

[Killshot]

Lp, I agree with you about not wanting the case surface to be "slick" be it the outside of the case or the inside of the neck.
When I started annealing I did more post-annealing casework; running the cases in a vibratory tumbler with walnut media and buffing the neck insides with a chucked chamber-brush wrapped with 0000 wool. But after a time I did some simple tests of brass done both ways and couldn't see enough difference on-target to merit continuing.
I also follow Boyd's process of dry neck lube and use Imperial Wax on the outside. Works well. I like the results I see from the SS cleaning and annealing, and the Lapua cases wear very well.