So, this evening, I was prepping a batch of brass, 50 pieces of Federal once fired brass, collected from my nephew firing Federal American Eagle .308 rounds. (He was working at the local gun range and got all the ammo he wanted at barely above cost, plus one of his jobs was to pick up the brass from the range. They didn't care what he did with it, as long as it was cleaned up. He would sort it out, give me the stuff that I could use, then recycle the rest.)
Anyway, during the resize/deprime phase, I had several primers that didn't want to pop out. The case would go all the way into the die, but the primer wouldn't drop, and the decapping pin would just push up in the die (Lee dies). I would have to loosen the collar around the decap pin, hammer it down with a mallet until the primer fell free, then tighten and readjust the decapping pin. It was a royal pain in the butt. I've had this problem in the past, but only with military brass with crimped in primers. These cases don't appear to have a crimp around the primer, but they do have a blue.....sealer? around the primer. Is that sealer my problem, or is there something more sinister going on here? The other problem I had, was if I didn't realize the primer hadn't dropped out, and ran the ram back down, the case mouth expanding button would get stuck and pull out of the die....then I had a whole other problem getting the expander out of the case. These cases had all been cleaned in a vibratory tumbler for several hours with walnut hull media and polishing compound, they were shiny as could be on the outside, but the insides for some reason don't get as clean as I would like them too....never do though, and it's never been a real problem. It seems the problem all stems around the primer not popping out, because I never had the decapping pin pull out unless the primer didn't fall out.
At first I wanted to blame the cheap Lee dies I am using, BUT, I've loaded a bunch with this set, as well as sets in .223, and .270 WSM with no problems unless I was using military brass with crimped in primers. In that case, I was able to just tighten the collar around the pin really tight and problem solved. It seemed no matter how tight I made the collar on the .308 set, I had the same problem tonight. I did manage to get them all sized (with the exception of one that I damaged when the decap pin got stuck and I couldn't get it back out), trimmed and deburred/chambered, but a job that should have taken about 30 minutes, took over an hour.
So, what's my problem?
Anyway, during the resize/deprime phase, I had several primers that didn't want to pop out. The case would go all the way into the die, but the primer wouldn't drop, and the decapping pin would just push up in the die (Lee dies). I would have to loosen the collar around the decap pin, hammer it down with a mallet until the primer fell free, then tighten and readjust the decapping pin. It was a royal pain in the butt. I've had this problem in the past, but only with military brass with crimped in primers. These cases don't appear to have a crimp around the primer, but they do have a blue.....sealer? around the primer. Is that sealer my problem, or is there something more sinister going on here? The other problem I had, was if I didn't realize the primer hadn't dropped out, and ran the ram back down, the case mouth expanding button would get stuck and pull out of the die....then I had a whole other problem getting the expander out of the case. These cases had all been cleaned in a vibratory tumbler for several hours with walnut hull media and polishing compound, they were shiny as could be on the outside, but the insides for some reason don't get as clean as I would like them too....never do though, and it's never been a real problem. It seems the problem all stems around the primer not popping out, because I never had the decapping pin pull out unless the primer didn't fall out.
At first I wanted to blame the cheap Lee dies I am using, BUT, I've loaded a bunch with this set, as well as sets in .223, and .270 WSM with no problems unless I was using military brass with crimped in primers. In that case, I was able to just tighten the collar around the pin really tight and problem solved. It seemed no matter how tight I made the collar on the .308 set, I had the same problem tonight. I did manage to get them all sized (with the exception of one that I damaged when the decap pin got stuck and I couldn't get it back out), trimmed and deburred/chambered, but a job that should have taken about 30 minutes, took over an hour.
So, what's my problem?
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