223 decap and trimming?

G

g Bo

New member
I just finished (resizing ) decapping about 500 rounds of 223. Then put them in the frankford tumbler to wash and remove all the case lube.
They came out nice and polished but I still had to check the length to see which ones needed trimming too.I assume about 10% needed trimming after measuring them on my Lyman E-Zee case length gauge.

As I started on the next batch of 500 I thought I’d check the length before I decapped and sized them. I realized only about 1 out of 100 needed trimming ??? These were out of the same bucket of brass as the previous 500 where about 10% needed trimming, so I assume when you resize and decap they may stretch a little?
So I assume I need to check the length after they are decapped and resized in the press??

Tapping into you all’ expertise
Thanks
 
Yes they will "squinch" upward and become slightly longer when full length sized. Checking case length should be done after sizing. Any stretching of the case wall occurs upon firing unless your expander button drags considerably which can pull the neck up a bit and possibly change the shoulder angle some.
If you are using military brass be sure to either ream or swage the primer pockets to remover the military crimp before trying to prime them.
 
Originally Posted By: HellgateYes they will "squinch" upward and become slightly longer when full length sized. Checking case length should be done after sizing. Any stretching of the case wall occurs upon firing unless your expander button drags considerably which can pull the neck up a bit and possibly change the shoulder angle some.
If you are using military brass be sure to either ream or swage the primer pockets to remover the military crimp before trying to prime them.

How do you determine if they are military brass? What tool do you use to ream or swage the primer pocket? Where do you get the tool and do you do all the cases? Or how do you determine which ones need it?
 
Originally Posted By: crapshoot

https://www.amazon.com/RCBS-Primer-Pocket-Swager-Combo-2/dp/B07PXD5LVB Originally Posted By: crapshoot

https://www.amazon.com/RCBS-Primer-Pocket-Swager-Combo-2/dp/B07PXD5LVB

Thanks for that video,
I’ve been in inspecting my decapped brass and there are quite a few that look like that. I’ve been separating them. My friend has a Dillion 600 swage tool he’s going to let me use. I reloaded 1000 last week and didn’t even know about this and probably had a half a doz failures that wouldn’t accept primers. That is probably why. I guess you don’t want to swage them all just the ones who look suspect?
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
 
Yes, the action of "working" the brass by sizing it will stretch it. It is more pronounced in bottle neck cartridges than in straight wall cartridges. Likewise, firing it will also stretch it. Its not usually a significant amount. Lower the pressure, generally the less stretch. On my .223 brass, I rarely trim unless its pretty bad or has a lot of firings. I know one specific batch I went 4 or 5 reloads before annealling and trimming. I still have most of that batch and its on reload 7 or 8 now. I keep reloading them for my "plinking" loads cause if i lose them in the grass, I got my use out of em.
 
re: swaging/reaming primer pockets to remove the crimp

please do so with caution. you can over swage/ream and ruin them in the process.


balistic tools has a swage gauge (go/no go) set for like $20 so that you can tell exactly when you've got the swage just right to get rid of the crimp without over doing it. that $20 set is both the large and small primer tool

https://ballistictools.com/store/small-and-large-primer-pocket-gauges


also - you can get a swaging die for a normal press so that if you choose to do so you can handle it yourself. they're relatively cheap the RCBS 9481 swager combo is what you're looking for
https://smile.amazon.com/RCBS-9481-Primer-Pocket-Combo-2/dp/B0063IDAX2/

you can also ream the pockets out with their military crimp remover

this is the small primer one
https://smile.amazon.com/RCBS-90386-Military-Crimp-Remover/dp/B0063IDE6A/

you can chuck that up in a small hand drill (i use an old bosch 12v) or any other powered case prep center (its a standard 8-32 thread). for the hand drill i use an old primer pocket cleaner (lyman i think) as the stem for the hand drill to use





i did find when i used to use that regularly that my case prep station RPM was a bit slow and would sometimes cause a case to catch. also it was a slower process too at only 400 rpm. when i went over to the bosch at roughly 1300 rpm... boy what a difference.

the nice thing about reaming with one of these is because of the design with the shoulder its pretty hard to over ream a pocket without going "full yehaw" on it anyway. everyone knows that with enough ambition that even with the proper tool you can screw stuff up lol


you can also use a inside neck deburring tool to do this, but theres a serious risk there of over reaming as there's no guide/stop shoulder like there is with the RCBS military crimp remover. i do sometimes do that if ive picked up one or two stray peices and the cases just need a touch - but those are also done by hand, and usually only need a half turn or so to get the burr or whatever out. i just recently did that when i was priming some 300 blackout cases that i bought pre-processed and there were a few with tight pockets. they just needed a light kiss as they were already mostly swaged, just got past the QC check from the vendor.

hth
 
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