Uniforming .223 primer pockets -- how long does it take you?

HeavyTread

HeavyTread

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Hey guys.

So I've acquired a new batch of IVI 5.56 that I'm prepping up and have just started to tryout primer pocket uniforming. I've already swaged out the crimp and am in the middle of uniforming the primer pockets. I use a Lyman Case Prep Express, which is awesome for chamfering and deburring, but uniforming primer pockets seems to take forever.

I place the case on the primer pocket uniformer and check to see whether or not the bit is 'grabbing' and whether or not the case head sits flush on the flat part of the cutter uniformer bit. If the case sit doesn't sit on the flat part of the bit, I cut until it does (or until it comes close).

Some cases will slide smoothly over the cutter head and sit there with no sign that the bit is removing metal. Other cases will sit with the case head 1 mm or more off the bottom bit while the cutter grinds away seemingly forever.

The problem is that this seems to take forever. For the worst cases, I usually wind up just getting them as close to flush as possible and then giving up. We're talking minutes of work here for the worst offenders. Meanwhile I see YouTube videos for the Sinclair hand-held tool that show the guy spending literally seconds on each.

Am I doing something wrong? Is my bit blunt or defective? Are some of my primer pockets just really, really shallow? For those of you that uniform your primer pockets, how much time does it take?
 
I doesn't take me too long with a hand held tool. Try cutting for several revolutions, then tap the case to remove the shavings and cut again.
 
I use a Lyman hand uniformer but I got sick of reaming and uniforming each case by hand for several minutes each. I took the cutter out of the uniformer's handle and chucked it up in the drill. And like Rosco said, pull it out every few rotations to clear the chips. It takes a few seconds per case to uniform vs. several minutes by hand.
 
Hrm.. I've experimented with chucking up the cutter bit but it isn't really designed to sit in a drill and doesn't work well that way.

I should look into a hand uniformer that I can put in a drill.
 
Lyman has 1/4" hex "power adapters" that any 10-32 accessories will thread into. I use a compact cordless screwdriver for all my case prep. About 7 seconds/pc for uniforming.
 
I use the Lyman Prep Centre as well. I first hit the primer pocket with the inside chamfer tool. That always bites. Then I use the swage reamer, then the pocket uniformer. I find it is harder to get the swage remover to work without first using the inside chamfer tool. For all I know the chamfer tool is all you need to take out the crimp but I haven't tried seating any primers with just doing that step.
I think IVI brass is over rated for the amount of work needed to make it usable.
 
theDuck said:
I use the Lyman Prep Centre as well. I first hit the primer pocket with the inside chamfer tool. That always bites. Then I use the swage reamer, then the pocket uniformer. I find it is harder to get the swage remover to work without first using the inside chamfer tool. For all I know the chamfer tool is all you need to take out the crimp but I haven't tried seating any primers with just doing that step.
I think IVI brass is over rated for the amount of work needed to make it usable.
Click to expand...

I have the Dillon Super Swage 600 thingy so I don't usually need to use the reamer.

But seriously the amount of time I have to spend on the primer pocket tool makes me crazy. Last batch of IVI I had I just skipped that step entirely after struggling with it for a few hours and getting hardly anywhere.

I actually thought I was maybe removing way too much metal, but I looked up the SAAMI spec and then measured the primer pocket depth in several areas on one of the cases that wasn't sitting flush against the cutting bit. Sure enough, it was way out of spec. SAAMI specifies 0.117" to .123" for depth, and the shallowest spot on this one was something like .112".

I do like IVI brass for its heaviness and durability, and the Dillon swager makes short work of the crimp, so it's worth it to me. But this is the first time I've actually tried uniforming the pockets.
 
So I managed to get the primer pocket cutter bit chucked up in my drill.

Does anyone else find that the cutter tends to bind up in the pocket? When I first put the bit in, it chews away for a little bit and then suddenly starts to bind up to the point that I can't hold the case without it rotating in my hand. A few times it was locked up so tight I actually managed to pull the bit out of the drill while trying to get the case off.
 
The brass in the base of 5.56 military cartridge case is harder than commercial .223 brass and "harder" to uniform, the Rockwell hardness is as follows.

The actual measurements were (.062"x100kg, Rockwell "B")

LC 2008 = 96

Lapua 223 Match = 86

Winchester 223 = 69

Remington "R-P" = 49

Above is from AccurateShooter.com posting number 83 by CatShooter.
http://forum.accurateshooter.com/index.php?topic=3843906.75

556hard-a_zps7570e6b0.jpg


Commercial brass was too soft for the M16 rifle and was part of the jamming problem when the rifle first came out, the military set higher standards for 5.56 cartridge cases. The cases could not be made thicker due to cutting down on case capacity so higher hardness standards were set for ammunition made by Lake City and commercial contract ammunition. It is also a military requirement that the primer be seated .008 below the base of the case, so depending on your uniformer you might not remove any brass. On many of my 5.56 cases the uniformer only removed brass from the bottom corners of the primer pocket, meaning the primer pockets were already deeper than the cutting depth of the uniformer.

Casehardness-a_zps14dbe0fd.jpg


All you need to really know is when uniforming military 5.56 cases if your fingers are not sore and bleeding your not having fun. :bangHead:

Trust me, I had three five gallon buckets of .223/5.56 brass to uniform like pictured below.

bucketsofbrass_zps6927af18.jpg


halfdone_zps8557fc4b.jpg
 
bigedp51 said:
The brass in the base of 5.56 military cartridge case is harder than commercial .223 brass and "harder" to uniform, the Rockwell hardness is as follows.
Click to expand...

Man. Welp. Now everything makes sense.

so depending on your uniformer you might not remove any brass. On many of my 5.56 cases the uniformer only removed brass from the bottom corners of the primer pocket, meaning the primer pockets were already deeper than the cutting depth of the uniformer.
Click to expand...

This is definitely happening for me, but inconsistently. I measured the depth of a number of the IVI primer pockets and found that the shallowest were only about .120" whereas the deepest were > 0.230". In most cases, one side seems to be a little deeper than the other, and the uniformer winds up taking a chunk out of out side before it does from the other side, or it completely eats away at one side until it stops biting and never actually touches the other side.


All you need to really know is when uniforming military 5.56 cases if your fingers are not sore and bleeding your not having fun. :bangHead:
Click to expand...

Hehe.. I'm about 300 cases through a batch of 1250 x 5.56 and 500 x 7.62. By the state of my hands, I'm definitely having fun ;)
 
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I use a Sinclair Primer Pocket Uniformer chucked into a cordless drill. With new brass, or whenever the cutter seems to be grabbing, dipping the cutter into Imperial Dry Neck Lube produces smoother cutting. It might be prudent have one container of dry neck lube just for this purpose, as invariably it will be contaminated with cuttings, even when you try to brush them off the cutter.
 
HeavyTread said:
Man. Welp. Now everything makes sense.

Hehe.. I'm about 300 cases through a batch of 1250 x 5.56 and 500 x 7.62. By the state of my hands, I'm definitely having fun ;)
Click to expand...

Let the forum know when your fingers are too sore to pick your nose, that means you have reached primer pocket uniforming nirvana.......................................or your a gluten for punishment.
 
I have used a fair amount of IVI brass and it is good stuff but takes a few second more to get ready. As someone said before, an inside case neck reamer/chamferer is your friend! I use a standard RCBS case prep center and a hand held VDL case neck reamer. Casing gets the primer punched out and resized. Then I hit it with the flash hole deburrer and the primer pocket gets hit hard on the regular case neck chamferer which cuts out the crimp and opens up the pocket. You will have to try a few to get the hang of it but I will say you need a lot of cutting by this tool to get rid of the crimp and open up the pocket. More than you might think actually. Then I move it to the primer pocket cleaner. If it doesn't go on easily, more of the crimp needs to be removed so I give it a few twists with the handheld VLD chamferer. Once done it goes on the primer pocket cleaner for a quick second. Sometimes its completely cleaned out and sometimes there is still lots of soot in there. If it doesn't cut then all is good and if the soot bugs you(which it shouldn't) it can be removed with a wire brush.
IVI brass is hard so it allows for a little more pressure, which can be worth the trouble when you are pushing bigger bullets out of an AR.
 
Longshot said:
As someone said before, an inside case neck reamer/chamferer is your friend!
Click to expand...

I actually use a Dillon Super Swage 600, although I may also give the case a touch on the crimp remover bit on the Lyman case prep center. Wet tumbling removes pretty much all of the crap in the primer pockets, so I don't usually need to worry about that.

Since starting this thread I've tried a few things that have really helped:

1) As you do, started reaming a tiny bit extra from the crimp after the Super Swage 600.

2) Managed to get the cutter bit from the Lyman case prep center into a power drill (actually a cordless power driver, but the RPMs are a lot faster than the case prep center)

3) Occasionally pull the case off the cutter bit and give it a quick tap or a pass on the pocket cleaner to get rid of brass chips

4) Used some dry lube on the cutter bit to help keep it from binding up too much. This has helped immensely. The Lyman case prep center came with a tub of dry lube powder and a cleaning brush, so I just keep a little powder on the brush and hit the cutter bit with it from time to time.

5) Realized that my expectations are probably too high for quickly processing IVI brass ;)
 
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