308 Brass

[carpriver]

I bought 250 308/7.62X51 brass; fired once. I cleaned it de primed, resized it. All I have to do is enlarge the primer pocket. All I have is a chamfer I use to chamfer the brass after resizing. Does anyone here know of a tool that can be used of this task?

 

[SMSgt]

If you're talking about removing the primer pocket crimp on military brass, you need a reamer:
Lyman Products Your Primary Source for Reloading Equipment

After you ream it, use your chamfer tool to clean the remaining crimp from the edges so the primers don't catch when seating.

 

[Nevada Ed]

Enlarging the primer flash hole will cause higher pressures.
Some are a little out of round and may be rounded my some
loaders but only with a minimal diameter drill bit !!!

If it ain't broke, don't mess with it.................

 

[growr]

If your brass is Military and you need to remove the crimp...the best tool I have ever used is the Dillon Swager....incredibly uniform and consistent...easy to use as well.

Randy

 

[Doubless]

That Dillon tool is very nice, but like a lot of Mike Dillon's stuff, to me it is too expensive.

I would opt for the RCBS Primer Pocket Swager-2. About the cost of a set of dies, quick and simple, and comes with swaging setups for both sizes of primer pockets.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

+1 on the RCBS pocket swager! I did a 20,000 round batch of 223 in the 80's and hundreds of 308's with it. I couldn't find it so I bought a second one, the first one showed up when I moved. So I'm now blessed with 2! Ivan

If you have a turret press or a Lock-N-Load system you'll want to leave it set up all the time. Once it is adjusted to the proper depth, you just switch the "shell holder" to switch size primer pockets.

 

[JBoss]

Removing primer pocket swaging, cheap and effective

Even though I have a Dillon primer pocket swaging tool, I have found that a countersink chucked in a hand drill is very fast and effective method of removing the swaged portion of the primer pocket. With a little practice you will get great results.

JB

 

[scooter123]

Enlarging the primer flash hole will cause higher pressures.
Some are a little out of round and may be rounded my some
loaders but only with a minimal diameter drill bit !!!

If it ain't broke, don't mess with it.................

NOT TRUE unless you get foolish about enlarging the flash holes. Ever since I purchased my Thumblers Tumbler with stainless steel pins I've been reaming the flash holes in my cases to 0.083 inch to insure that I don't get a case with 2 pins stuck in the flash holes. Learned that lesson with the first batch of 38 special cases I cleaned in the then new Tumbler, had to poke stuck pins from at least 10 cases.

Recently I picked up 1000 once fired Lake City 223 cases and because my initial batch didn't seem to need that reaming operation I skipped it. Turned out that I was wrong about that. After priming 300 cases I got a bit paranoid about not reaming that brass so put all 300 cases in trays and checked them on a small light box I used to use for sorting slides. Found 3 cases that had 2 pins stuck side by side in the flash holes. That probably would have produced a squib if I had loaded those cases and tried to fire them.

As a result I now ream ALL of my brass, even the Lake City brass of which only about 5% actually needed reaming. I've also learned that there is a LOT of variation in the size of Flash Holes, probably as much as 0.006 or 0.007 inch. Generally Remington, Federal LP, and Starline cases run larger with flash holes quite close to that 0.083 ream and Winchester, Speer, and Federal SP cases having flash holes where you can feel the ream working. BTW, I found that genuine Latex gloves help provide me with enough "traction" to keep the cases from spinning in my fingers when I insert the drill with the ream. Yeah, I do this by hand and yeah, it is a bit of a PITA. Fortunately I only have to do it once.

PS: 0.083 diameter reams can be purchased from Production Tool or MSC Industrial Supply and the Cobalt reams are not cheap at about 20 bucks. They are also way long and I would suggest using a Dremel to cut the shank length down to make them more manageable in a hand drill. Good news is that after many many thousands of cases my ream is still sharp and cutting consitently sized flash holes.

 

[drummer007]

If your brass is Military and you need to remove the crimp...the best tool I have ever used is the Dillon Swager....incredibly uniform and consistent...easy to use as well.

Randy

I agree 100%. I've had mine for nearly 20 years. I've used it to swage 1000s and 1000s of '06, 45 ACP, 9mm and 308/7.62

I mounted mine on a 6.5" length of 2x4 and chuck it into a heavy mounted bench vise when I swage cases. When finished, I remove it from the vise and store it back in its box.

 

[ACP230]

I used a pocket knife back in the day.
Shot NRA high power rifle matches with brass treated that way.
Never had a problem.
Would probably buy one of the tools mentioned above now.

 

[RV4driver]

Dillon Swager if you're doing a lot of brass, otherwise, the other options will work. I FINALLY got the Dillon, and it's been one of the best additions to my reloading set up.

 

[DWalt]

There is a numbered drill correct for reaming primer pockets, small and large. Some years ago I reamed hundreds of crimped 7.62 NATO cases using the drill in a drill press. Very fast, a couple of seconds each. The Lyman hand reamer is probably just as good, but a little slower.

 

[muddocktor]

For another choice for removing the primer pocket crimp, you might also look at the swaging kit that CH4D sells right here. I don't personally own it yet, but am about to order it for myself. I presently have the Lyman reamer tool and it works, but I find it is also rough on my hands and wrists if I do a lot of cases. And since I am fighting carpal tunnel, that is definitely bothersome. The Dillon looks to be a very high quality swaging tool, but is also pricey as heck too at more than 3 times the cost of the CH4D swaging kit. As for CH4D, they have been around longer than I have been around. I presently use a CH bullet puller my Dad bought back in the early to mid 60's and it is still going strong and they still make the puller and collets for it.

 

[carpriver]

I contacted Titian Reloading, they sell all things LEE and brass and bullets etc. I asked if they had a tool to removes the crimp. he recommended using a Dremmel sanding drum and put the chamfer on it and rim the primer pocket and finish the a small knife blade. Resized, trimmed, rimmed and primed 40rounds no problems. thanks for the information.

 

[rwsmith]

Question......

Do you really need something except a little heavier use of a chamfer tool to get the crimp off of military brass?

 

[Engineer1911]

I contacted Titian Reloading, they sell all things LEE and brass and bullets etc. I asked if they had a tool to removes the crimp. he recommended using a Dremmel sanding drum and put the chamfer on it and rim the primer pocket and finish the a small knife blade. Resized, trimmed, rimmed and primed 40rounds no problems. thanks for the information.

A solution that has worked for years. Take the Dremmel sanding drum MANDREL (the rubber/steel thingy) and mount the Lee deburring / chamfer tool on it. Use a drill or drill press and just a touch will remove the primer crimp leaving a small chamfer to make primers easy to seat on military brass without damaging the pocket. Works great on large or small pockets. Just finished up 3K pieces of range brass in 5.56 and 200 pieces of 7.62 . The ammo ban fiasco produced a lot of once-fired brass at the outdoor range I use.

 

[hard nose street cop]

I bought 250 308/7.62X51 brass; fired once. I cleaned it de primed, resized it. All I have to do is enlarge the primer pocket. All I have is a chamfer I use to chamfer the brass after resizing. Does anyone here know of a tool that can be used of this task?

Why do you need to enlarge the primer pocket? Are the primers not seating deep enough?

 

[David Sinko]

I also use a countersink and a hand drill. I've done thousands of primer pockets this way and never had a problem. And it's cheap too.

Dave Sinko

 

[fkienast]

I use the RCBS primer pocket swaging tool. It works perfectly!

 

[Doubless]

NOT TRUE unless you get foolish about enlarging the flash holes. Ever since I purchased my Thumblers Tumbler with stainless steel pins I've been reaming the flash holes in my cases to 0.083 inch to insure that I don't get a case with 2 pins stuck in the flash holes. Learned that lesson with the first batch of 38 special cases I cleaned in the then new Tumbler, had to poke stuck pins from at least 10 cases.

Recently I picked up 1000 once fired Lake City 223 cases and because my initial batch didn't seem to need that reaming operation I skipped it. Turned out that I was wrong about that. After priming 300 cases I got a bit paranoid about not reaming that brass so put all 300 cases in trays and checked them on a small light box I used to use for sorting slides. Found 3 cases that had 2 pins stuck side by side in the flash holes. That probably would have produced a squib if I had loaded those cases and tried to fire them.

As a result I now ream ALL of my brass, even the Lake City brass of which only about 5% actually needed reaming. I've also learned that there is a LOT of variation in the size of Flash Holes, probably as much as 0.006 or 0.007 inch. Generally Remington, Federal LP, and Starline cases run larger with flash holes quite close to that 0.083 ream and Winchester, Speer, and Federal SP cases having flash holes where you can feel the ream working. BTW, I found that genuine Latex gloves help provide me with enough "traction" to keep the cases from spinning in my fingers when I insert the drill with the ream. Yeah, I do this by hand and yeah, it is a bit of a PITA. Fortunately I only have to do it once.

PS: 0.083 diameter reams can be purchased from Production Tool or MSC Industrial Supply and the Cobalt reams are not cheap at about 20 bucks. They are also way long and I would suggest using a Dremel to cut the shank length down to make them more manageable in a hand drill. Good news is that after many many thousands of cases my ream is still sharp and cutting consitently sized flash holes.

I find this very interesting... although I don't liquid tumble (yet...), what you are doing goes diametrically against everything I have ever read about stainless pin tumbling, and it also appears to be a LOT of excess work.

What I have read about stainless tumbling is that if a piece of brass has pins in the flash holes, the pins are too large and should not be used. The instructions I saw were to pull the pins with a pair of pliers and discard them so the problem did not recur. Of course, I know that there are a myriad of different diameter stainless pins that could be used for tumbling; it is my understanding that most of the pins that are sold for this are on the order of .065" or so. That would accomplish two things: ensure they easily slip through the flash hole, and make it impossible to stick two side by side in the flash hole for any piece of brass.

But maybe I am wrong...