Case Prep Recommendations

[AZ_Five56]

Don't take this as a knock or an insult because 95% if people, including myself, are in the same boat, but I think at this point the best way for you to shrink groups is to spend as much time as possible behind a rifle practicing good mechanics and learning the wind. Take the time you're willing to spend cleaning and deburring primer pockets and spend it dry firing instead. I guarantee you'll see more results downrange doing that than you will messing with primer pockets.

Go to a PRS match and see who is shooting factory ammo....you won't see many.

That would be my suspicion as well. At that level of competition, it seems to make sense to do every microscopic thing to better your chances. It makes it easier too if you're not pumping out a huge number of rounds.

I just wanted to confirm that deburring flash holes wasn't common for your standard range ammo, and I wanted to see if anyone could vouch for its value based on experience. Thanks again for the input!

 

[QuietM4]

Unless you are removing a military crimp on a 5.56/7.62,etc. you most likely will not need to debur a flash hole.

My brass prep station has 4 rotating attachments; chamfer & debur the case mouth, clean the flash hole (still a little carbon left after wet tumble) and a nylon case neck brush.

A clean primer pocket is important...it will get difficult to seat primers to the correct depth if the pocket isn't clean...not spotless, but clean.

 

[High Standard]

I’m kinda OCD about cleaning primer pockets. In the order you are prepping brass you are cleaning then depriming. That will leave most primer pockets dirty. I find it easier to deprime first then clean brass. But that is just my OCD talking.

I think I'll always do bulk batches in this caliber which will probably keep me in a similar workflow of doing the initial cleaning with the primers in. At this point, I'm still planning on doing a follow up cleaning after depriming and resizing, so that should take care of it.

Do you have any suggestions on whether or not deburring the flash hole is necessary? I don't know if that's only reserved for ultra-long-range shooting, or if that a good general practice.

I don’t run into burrs in the flash hole very often. Once in a great while I find one. Chances are I have probably missed one here or there. I doubt it but I’m only human. If you are looking for precision loading you can always make checking for burrs or even running a deburr tool whether or not it needs it. I have different complete processes for each type of brass I am prepping and the type of round I intend to load. Precision loaded brass gets an extra QC check during the process. I run the brass through the deburring tool whether I see one or not.

Like I said I’m pretty OCD about my brass. Even if it is only for practice or plinking.

 

[Suck My Glock]

I prefer to deprime before resizing, but not for the same reasons most others cite.

In the past, I used to be a brass hound at nearby shooting spots. I'd be the guy out there Monday morning picking up whatever was left laying around after the weekend. Sometimes I'd encounter a new spot I hadn't combed through before, and I'd find brass that had been out in the weather for a few weeks or months (maybe years) that had turned a dark gray to nearly black.

Before wet stainless steel pin tumbling became a thing for cleaning brass like this, I discovered Iosso Case Prep chemical wash. You dump the range-blackened brass into this low-acidic mix and watch the tarnish nearly instantly vanish.

However, brass tarnished this badly had essentially corroded away a micro layer of zinc. (Brass is essentially a copper and zinc alloy, with zinc being the sacrificial anode to electrolysis.) And so while the brass is no longer black, neither is it yellow, and has turned to pinkish matte color, revealing the copper where the zinc has corroded away.

This pink brass is perfectly fine to reload. The micro layer of zinc that is gone has not been deep enough to affect structural integrity. And after resizing and tumbling in walnut media (for longer than most brass), most of the pinkish color has been polished down enough to reveal more zinc and return the brass to a yellow color.

But the Iosso case cleaner is acidic, as I stated previously. After dunking and swirling the dark brass in the solution, and then removed, it now has to be rinsed with water to get rid of the remnant acid. If not,...then you end up having a different corrosion problem. And this is why you do not want to dunk the brass in there with primers still in the pockets. It will trap the solution in the pocket and you will have a devil of a time getting it all washed out or properly diluted.

Fortunately, in the summer like now, just set the brass outside on a towel after rinsing and it will all be dry in 30 minutes or so. Then you can resume processing by resizing or dumping them into a tumbler. I find that sizing them first smoothes out the matte rough texture the solution gives the pink brass and actually makes for a shinier and more yellow color after finally tumbling them.

 

[TheAccountant]

Don't take this as a knock or an insult because 95% if people, including myself, are in the same boat, but I think at this point the best way for you to shrink groups is to spend as much time as possible behind a rifle practicing good mechanics and learning the wind. Take the time you're willing to spend cleaning and deburring primer pockets and spend it dry firing instead. I guarantee you'll see more results downrange doing that than you will messing with primer pockets.

Go to a PRS match and see who is shooting factory ammo....you won't see many.

I never said anything about shooting factory ammo, so please tell me, what's your point?

 

[Harrier]

Flash hole burrs are not important at all for most ammo. It's only when your trying to squeeze the most long range accuracy out of your system...

The reason I ream the holes is so they all are uniform in size and primer ignition of the powder is not impeded at that point and is consistent. The burr just happens to get removed at the same time... you only have to do it once so might as well do it the first time you prep a case. Run a batch of each over your chrono and see what the SD/ES is.

Some foreign 5.56 have very small holes (ie HB) and the de-capping pin will get stuck and pull out of the die- then your down fixing that issue. Enlarging the hole fixes that problem before it happens.

I can't see where military crimps have anything to do with the flash hole size, unless it is the fact that you have to deal with that too... so while your at it...

 

[AZ_Five56]

Some foreign 5.56 have very small holes (ie HB) and the de-capping pin will get stuck and pull out of the die- then your down fixing that issue. Enlarging the hole fixes that problem before it happens.

That's something that I hadn't considered. I'm separating out a lot of the brass by headstamp, so it should be pretty easy to figure out what's giving me issues for most of it, but I still have a large sum of what I considered lower grade that was all mixed headstamps. I guess I should double-check all that stuff to make sure I don't run into issues with the small flash holes. At least I have a spare decapping rod that I can use as a gauge.

 

[High Standard]

Some foreign 5.56 have very small holes (ie HB) and the de-capping pin will get stuck and pull out of the die- then your down fixing that issue. Enlarging the hole fixes that problem before it happens.

That's something that I hadn't considered. I'm separating out a lot of the brass by headstamp, so it should be pretty easy to figure out what's giving me issues for most of it, but I still have a large sum of what I considered lower grade that was all mixed headstamps. I guess I should double-check all that stuff to make sure I don't run into issues with the small flash holes. At least I have a spare decapping rod that I can use as a gauge.

I recently ran into .223/5.56 cases with a headstamp of F&S that has a flash hole that my decapping pin broke due to it being too small. Keep an eye out for those as well.

 

[Harrier]

Typically you decap the case before you enlarge the flash hole...

Different brands of dies use different pin retaining methods- one reason I don't use Lee dies is that its not replaceable on some, if you break it you have to order a whole new stem.
Some brands use a friction fit holder (which can pull out) while others use a T pin that stays put and can be replaced. I found that one brand is much thinner than another but will still work in the holder - so I can decap a smaller hole before having issues. Also watch out for off-center holes- they will break any pin setup.

With some cases that have very small holes (IIRC... PMP, DNL) I use a hand flash hole reamer to enlarge the hole... before I decap... with the primer still intact, your grinding on the anvil, so it's harder on your hands but saves a lot of stuck/broken pins.

 

[High Standard]

Unfortunately you usually have to decap the case before you can enlarge the flash hole...

Different brands of dies use different pin retaining methods- one reason I don't use Lee dies is that its not replaceable on some, if you break it you have to order a whole new stem.
Some brands use a friction fit holder (which can pull out) while others use a T pin that stays put and can be replaced. I found that one brand is much thinner than another but will still work in the holder - so I can decap a smaller hole before having issues. Also watch out for off-center holes- they will break any pin setup.

With some cases that have very small holes (IIRC... PMP, DNL) I use a hand flash hole reamer to enlarge the hole-before I decap... it's harder on your hands but saves a lot of stuck/broken pins.

Will you share that brand of the thinner pin? I would be interested in trying it. Thanks!

 

[Harrier]

It's been a long time since I bought a pack of pins but IIRC the thin pins are Lyman and I put them in RCBS dies... Both have a larger diameter head like a T in section, and go inside the screw-off mouth sizer button.

 

[AZ_Five56]

Unfortunately you usually have to decap the case before you can enlarge the flash hole...

Different brands of dies use different pin retaining methods- one reason I don't use Lee dies is that its not replaceable on some, if you break it you have to order a whole new stem.
Some brands use a friction fit holder (which can pull out) while others use a T pin that stays put and can be replaced. I found that one brand is much thinner than another but will still work in the holder - so I can decap a smaller hole before having issues. Also watch out for off-center holes- they will break any pin setup.

With some cases that have very small holes (IIRC... PMP, DNL) I use a hand flash hole reamer to enlarge the hole-before I decap... it's harder on your hands but saves a lot of stuck/broken pins.

You mentioned off-center holes... Does that tend to be random, or is that typical on certain brands of cases?

 

[Harrier]

If you scrounge brass like I have you eventually find all kinds of oddball stuff.
Usually it is with foreign made brass... so if it isn't one of the big names, I give it a double take.

IIRC I only have encountered off center hole a few times and they were foreign head-stamp. If your decaping pin is rigid, the hole has to be pretty much center - if your pin has a little wiggle to it then it can move a littleif the hole isn't dead center... combine a small slightly off-center hole with a rigid pin and...

Thing to really check when sorting headstamps is that no Berdan get mixed in- I recall there is at least one brand milsurp that had both kinds so I couldn't just look at the head-stamp, I had to look inside every one. A lot of this stuff isn't imported anymore but you might run across it at some shooting site where someone is burning off old stock.

 

[Flash]

Different brands of dies use different pin retaining methods- one reason I don't use Lee dies is that its not replaceable on some, if you break it you have to order a whole new stem.
Some brands use a friction fit holder (which can pull out) while others use a T pin that stays put and can be replaced.

If you break a Lee decapping pin, it's because you set up the die incorrectly. They're made to slip upwards from the collet when they encounter too much resistance and therefore not break.

Some people don't set them up correctly and they break or they slip upwards, thus defeating the purpose of the design by not setting up properly.

It's one of the many reasons I use Lee dies pretty much exclusively.

 

[Harrier]

To each his own... It's not that the slip/friction nut adjustment has to be just right or has to be redone so often, it is that when something like a berdan case slips in and the pin breaks... everything stops until you send for a replacement- or you have to buy spares to keep on hand.

 

[Flash]

I repeat, if it's set right, the pin won't break when a berdan case slips in. I don't even bother looking for those cases because I've had them slip in before and I know it won't break the pin as I set them right. The adjustment doesn't have to be redone from time to time either, it just needs to be set right the first time.

Things need to be set up and used the way they were designed to be. If someone doesn't do that, he has no one but himself to blame for his problems.

 

[Clickoops]

I load 1000 5.56 at a time, i alluded to my process in another thread but since this thread seems more apropo i will elaborate.

First things first: Im not a clean freak with 5.56 or 9mm. I also dont care how shiny the cases are.
I dont individually "inspect" my cases beforehand, UNLESS im sorting out by headstamp for load development or personal defense loads. No appreciable difference in accuracy and precious little in reliability makes any dedicated inspection a waste of time. I let the process itself sort out the weak links....er casings.

So i get about 6.2 kilos of brass (1000ish) and start em through the dry tumbler about 200 at a time. First tub is about 30 mins per batch with a small dash of soapy water just to get em ready for the decap and size. I cannot believe people are decapping without sizing, its a whole added step i dont understand. Especially since you need them sized in order to trim.
While im working at the press the tumbler is going non stop in the back so its not like im sitting around waiting for it. I am extremely impatient so i dont have time for a wet tumbler. I have a large kitchen colander and bucket it fits nicely into and i give it a few tosses to clear 97% of the media in a matter of 30 seconds.

Once theyre clean enough to get through the sizing die without gunking it up and getting stuck cases, I get a big ass cookie sheet and throw em on there and hit em with my spray lube and roll em around. IMPORTANT: For the 1st case and any time i feel resistance in the sizing die i lube that case with Redding case wax.
I put 2 (more if i had em) sizing/decap dies on my turret plate so when a case gets stuck i can keep going. PRO TIP: Keep extra decap rods, locknuts and shell holders(turret press) on hand. Once both are jammed ill clear them and clean them and keep going. After this process youll have weeded out your weak case rims (theyll get stuck in your die) and smushed mouths (wont go into your die), and bad flash holes (decapping rod will let you know). I ruin about 20 cases per 1000 which seems like an appropriate amount that would have been discarded anyways.

Ive never used an on-press trimmer so i cant comment to that. Ive used a bench mounted trimmer with a drill attached, great for accurate sizing at low-medium volume. My go to for volume is the possum hollow drill mounted trimmer. Its inside of .005" for me which is fine.
After trimming I use a 45* HSS countersink bit in another driver to cut out the crimp and very lightly chamfer the case mouth. I believe that for bulk ammo, dicking around with the pocket or flash hole is a total waste of time. During the remaining processing youll eliminate further compromised cases as they come.

Now, instead of individually deburring or gently caressing them, they go back in the tumbler with some polish to get deburred and prettiful. About an hour seems fine, it takes about that long between the other processes going on.

Then its time to load. Any remaining case problems become readily apparent in that stage and that case goes into discard or back into a raw batch. If there are any questionable cartridges during loading they go into a "Junk" box for plinking use. Doing this process I end up with very accurate and reliable bulk ammo