9mm Brass Processing

[bamboo633]

How do you guys process your range pickup 9mm?

I have a Dillon 550 and an RCBS Rockchucker. I used to clean my brass, throw it in the Dillon 550, and go but lately the amount of brass with crimped/tight pockets is increasing to the point where I get 5 or so per hundred cases. This stops the loading while I try to get the brass with a half-seated primer out of the press and increases the chance of a loading error.

In addition, I purchased a Springfield Range Officer 1911 which has an unusually tight chamber so the brass must be "bulge busted" first or a full one-third of it will not chamber.

So now I must de-prime, swage the primer pocket, and bulge bust each round before it goes into the progressive press.

Is there a better way? I make thousands of rounds per year so I would even consider purchasing another progressive if there is a way to perform all three of the required actions on it.

Thanks,
Rob

 

[vagrantviking]

Does sound like a lot of extra operations.

I'm not a big volume loader but maybe a hundred round gauge would be useful. Seperate the big ones for use in the gun with the more generous chamber.
Or save a few steps and buy brass from Black Sheep.

 

[JohnnyPython]

Take a look at the Lee APP.

 

[adamg]

I think your pistol is more picky than usual, first of all.

Second, I think you could use a better decap die. My Dillon carbide decap and full length size die has a spring loaded decap pin, which does a good job in ensuring that the primer gets fully ejected and not re-inserted on the second half of the stroke.

Third, there is a technique that allows seating a primer in a tighter primer pocket, where without the technique the primer won't go in.

When I have a range pickup case with a crimped primer, the Dillon decap and size die effectively decaps and sizes such that the old primer is gone, and it fits into my CZ Shadow and Tactical Sports chambers. When the crimped primer pocket case gets to my primer seating spot on my Dillon 650, I feel it not go in smoothly, so I back off, use my other hand to spin the case about 45 degrees, apply a bit of pressure with the ram, back off, spin another 45 degrees, apply a bit of pressure, and repeat until it goes in. 95% of the crimped cases will take a primer with this technique in my press. It will leave an unusual mark on the primer once it is in from the extra pressure, but they still go boom.

 

[snooker]

Instead of considering another press---spend money on processed brass from Black Sheep. You won't be sorry.

 

[bamboo633]

@vagrantviking - Blacksheep's prices are absolutely reasonable but at $300 + shipping + HST per 5000 it makes reloading a losing proposition. I will just switch to buying reloaded rounds if I have to go this route.

@JohnnyPython - Unfortunately, other than having a bullet feeder this won't cut down on the processing I have to do. My Rockchucker will already perform all the functions, I just don't want to handle each piece of brass 4 times to do it.

@adamg - I agree, the tight chamber is a common Springfield issue but I really like the handgun. Even without it I still need to deprime and swage. I use a Dillon decapper and have no issue de-priming the brass only an issue with the new primer jamming on entry. I will try your method of seating the tight primers on the 550 and see if it helps, it might just be the answer. Thanks!

 

[.30/06 FTW]

I’m a bit OCD, so I hand deprime first, wet tumble, and then sort by headstamp. Yes, that’s kind of impractical, especially for 9mm, flame me if you want, but it certainly catches any brass with crimped primer pockets which I can then ream as a batch. It also helps that most people in my club shoot Blazer Brass, And that there’s only a couple of different brands that the police shoot, so there’s not a lot of variety in headstamps and it’s quick to sort.

 

[G_Alan]

I’m a bit OCD, so I hand deprime first, wet tumble, and then sort by headstamp. Yes, that’s kind of impractical, especially for 9mm, flame me if you want, but it certainly catches any brass with crimped primer pockets which I can then ream as a batch. It also helps that most people in my club shoot Blazer Brass, And that there’s only a couple of different brands that the police shoot, so there’s not a lot of variety in headstamps and it’s quick to sort.

Pretty much the same as I do. After dumping dirty cases to be deprimed. I separate oddball headstamps or know brass with tight primer pockets. Adds a bit of time, but way less frustrating to me as to clear a half seated primer.

 

[bamboo633]

Thanks for the advice all. I think it is probably just as fast to de-prime and swage the brass as to inspect it all by hand. I was just hoping someone knew of a set up that could make this less painful.

 

[adamg]

Thanks for the advice all. I think it is probably just as fast to de-prime and swage the brass as to inspect it all by hand. I was just hoping someone knew of a set up that could make this less painful.

It's kind of obvious, but once you have bulge busted and swaged your 9mm brass, if you can shoot and collect only your own spent casings you won't have to do those steps again.

 

[Janeau]

How do you guys process your range pickup 9mm?

I have a Dillon 550 and an RCBS Rockchucker. I used to clean my brass, throw it in the Dillon 550, and go but lately the amount of brass with crimped/tight pockets is increasing to the point where I get 5 or so per hundred cases. This stops the loading while I try to get the brass with a half-seated primer out of the press and increases the chance of a loading error.

In addition, I purchased a Springfield Range Officer 1911 which has an unusually tight chamber so the brass must be "bulge busted" first or a full one-third of it will not chamber.

So now I must de-prime, swage the primer pocket, and bulge bust each round before it goes into the progressive press.

Is there a better way? I make thousands of rounds per year so I would even consider purchasing another progressive if there is a way to perform all three of the required actions on it.

Thanks,
Rob

Your problem is your brass. Not the die or the press. The Dillon 1050 swage primer pocket but does not roll size case. ( no press are doing that ) You can buy a roll sizer - that will fix the bulge issue for good.
https://www.rollsizer.com
http://www.casepro100.com/products.ydev

Cases that have been shoot in Glock are often bulged at the base. You can replace your sizing die with a Lee -EGW undersize sizing die that goes lower than a standard die. https://www.egwguns.com/smithing-tooling/undersize-reloading-dies/
This die will fix 99.% of bulged case - you will still encounter 1 or 2 case by a 1000 that cannot be saved.
There is other solutions for this - bottom sizing die is one...extra steps because of bad brass.

Your gun does not have a tight chamber - the bulge make the brass out of specs and must be ironed in.

Also make sure your sizing die almost touch the shell holder. Paper thin clearance only.
If a sizing die cannot get the primer out without indue force - it is crimped. To fix your primer problem, decap your case before hand with a universal decapper die.

After all, best is to use processed brass..primer removed , primer pocket uniformed - swaged , roll sized, sorted for defect. If you do not - be prepared to do the processing steps yourself before you reload them.

By the way, you do not need another press to process your brass. The 550 can be used as a single station press. You can mount a single universal decapping die in one station. You can also replace the primer system with a swaging unit for uniforming your primer pocket. If you need info on what to get, pm me.

 

[4n2t0]

I sort my brass and only use N.A. manufacturers (Winchester (NT's no good), Federal, CCI, Remington etc. No special dies (all of mine are Dillon) and I get less than 1% failure rate on my hundo case gauge. As per the instructions, my Dillon sizing die touches the shellplate (no, I don't back it off). I do use a MBF powder funnel to help with bullet seating alignment but it's not absolutely necessary.

How did you determine the max OAL for your Range Officer barrel? What bullet brand and weight are you loading? Here's some useful information...

 

[BlackSheepBrass]

As mentioned, you can look at my brass. As mentioned, there is a cost, and I won't deny that it increases your cost for the initial loading. That being said, if you don't want to invest in a RL-1100, and a roll sizer to get the brass to decent shape before you do the initial loading of it, my brass is a good place to start.

It comes checked for cracks, de-primed, sized, base sized, swaged primer pockets and a few other things. If you load it reasonably and get a few uses out of if before you lose or scrap it, that is where you get the value for the Camdex processed brass.

Basically the simple equation is - The value of your time, the cost of the equipment, the cost of consumables to sort, clean and process your brass to get it serviceable is equal to or less then the cost of buying the brass then me, then you know your answer.

Black Sheep Brass

 

[bamboo633]

@Janeau - I perhaps needed to be a bit clearer on what my issue is. My brass is probably out of spec but will still work in my Girsan, Browning HP, CZ Shadow 2, and a CZ-75, it will not work in my Springfield as it has a tighter chamber and the rounds jam near the head of the case. I have a bulge buster system using the Lee bulge buster and 9mm Makarov dies already. The LEE undersize die I have does not take care of the problem as it still doesn't size far enough down the casing. The issue is that I need to handle the brass separately for each step, depriming, swaging, and debulging. If I could do it all in a progressive manner I would be OK with that. I appreciate the mention of the swaging unit that replaces the priming system in the Dillon, this will remove one handling of the brass if I can obtain one in Canada. I will PM you for details. Progress!

@4n2TO - The issue with the brass is definitely the bulge near the head of the case as running it through my bulge buster makes it 100% reliable. I also used a Sharpie to find the binding point in the chamber. I am trying to get away from having to sort my brass by hand. Lately I am picking up Winchester brass that is also crimped. I normally use the Campro 124gr bullets but I have recently switched to the X-Metal 124gr kits as they work great and are really economical, I can reload for 16 cents a round including shipping and taxes.

@BlackSheepBrass - I have heard nothing but outstanding things about your brass, and I am not sure how you even make a profit at the price you sell it for, but it does add cost to each round and the economics of reloading 9mm over just buying new are pretty marginal already. I hadn't though about reusing the brass after I shoot it, that is a good point. I think I might buy some and see if this is the answer. I have to be careful though as everyone who tries it seems to be a fan!

Again, thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond, it is very much appreciated.

 

[4n2t0]

Weird, I've loaded CamPro's (124,147) and Xmetal's (124,147,158) using range brass without any significant issues. Where do you get your brass? Major matches? lol.

Well, I hope you can figure it out.

 

[bigedp51]

Janeau

I have a standard carbide Lee 9mm die, a Lee Undersize 9mm die, a standard carbide RCBS 9mm die and a Hornady 9mm Nitride die. And the Hornady die will size further down the case like the one pictured below. From reading some reloaders cut/grind some of the bottom off the die and others will remove metal off the top of the shell holder.

I buy once fired military Winchester 9mm brass and run it and all range pickup brass through a Makarov bulge buster die. This is because I want to be 100% sure they will chamber in my 9mm and my two sons 9mm pistols. And I do this on a 1973 Rockchucker press and have never owned a progressive press.

Below is a photo from castboolits and post #26 shows how far the carbide ring is recessed in the bottom of the Redding die. A die like this that does not have the carbide ring as recessed may solve your problem.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?202013-Shortening-the-LEE-sizing-die/page2

The die on the left is a Redding Pro Series Titanium Carbide sizing die in 9mm.

You could also have a gunsmith ream your problem chamber larger in diameter "IF" this would not effect accuracy.

Redding also makes a dual ring sizing die but it is very costly and may not fix your problem.

I think removing some off the bottom of a standard 9mm die and removing metal off the top of a shell holder would be the cheapest fix and size further down the case.

 

[adamg]

I think removing some off the bottom of a standard 9mm die and removing metal off the top of a shell holder would be the cheapest fix and size further down the case.

This is a common fix for bulk rifle case processing to get a slightly smaller diameter and ensure the case fits in all variety of guns.

 

[kb007]

+1 for Brian and Blacksheep Brass. I was using range pickup for many years, but frankly my time is worth a lot to me, so cleaning, de-capping then loading is far too much time for me to spend. Even after cleaning first in a Lyman wet tumbler, I would still have cases that had rocks or other #### stuck in them and break decapping pins or otherwise screw up my machine.
A couple of years ago I bought a Dillon 1050 and a auto drive for it. Using range pickup it became even more frustrating when something would go wrong with a #### case. I started buying Blacksheep brass and things greatly improved.

Just because I'm anal, I also bought a roll sizer as I was having occasional issues with very tight chamber on my open gun. The roll sizer was a godsend as it eliminates all bulge or other issues for the 20K or so range pickup I have on hand.

I'm still buying brass from Brian as it means I have no prep to do, just dump in the case feeder and go.

 

[bigedp51]

I bought my bulk once fired military Winchester 9mm brass from a website that only sold brass from military ranges.

When I ran them through the bulge buster over 95% of then never touched above the extractor groove and only contacted and sized many of the case rims. Meaning using a bulge buster was a waste of time and effort on this military brass.

Also, I check all my cases in case gauges that are close to minimum SAAMI diameter. I use the gauge after sizing spot-checking the sized cases and again checking all the loaded rounds. I'm retired with nothing to do and all day to do it, and not loading with any time restraints.

When you use range pickup brass you do not know how many times it was reloaded or how hot it was loaded. And a case that has a bulge from the feed ramp can weaken the case further when resized.

Question, in Canada can you buy bulk once fired military 9mm brass at a good price?????? This could save you time and added steps in your reloading.

 

[bamboo633]

Just thought I would close off this thread with my final solution.

All of you who suggested buying the brass from Blacksheep were right on the money. I purchased 5000 cases to give them a try and they are perfect. Last weekend I loaded 1000 rounds without a single hickup.

It may add a bit to the cost but it also makes reloading so much more pleasureable and reduces the chances of an error when you don't have to stop to fix issues. I have marked all the brass and will only pick up my own at the range from now on. I will be purchasing from Blacksheep again, easy to deal with and an excellent product. I highly recommend them.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice, it is really appreciated.