Did I screw myself

Gear Head

Gear Head

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So I'll preface this with the fact that rifle loading is new to me...

I've been prepping a bunch of LC brass to load for an SPR I just put together. Going for accuracy here so I figured I'd uniform the inside of the primer pockets since I only have to do it once for the life of that brass and to rule out another variable. What hasn't clicked in my incompetent mind until tonight is that I've been doing the primer pockets before trimming.... On some cases the tool would dig in pretty good and I thought, "man what a burr" and it finally clicked that that particular piece is just shorter than the others. So now instead of uniforming primer pockets I actually have introduced varying tapers from 0 to ~.020".
 
Good news, brass is cheap right now.
 
If LC brass then the primer pockets were crimped. Are you sure that "burr" wasn't just cutting out the crimped material?

Unless the primer pockets are loose, I'd not worry about it.
 
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Newboy said:
I have uniformed many primer pockets, and I don’t see how the overall length of the case has anything to do with it.
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I was thinking the same thing. If uniforming the primer pocket, the depth is referenced from the case head. Same tool regardless of cartridge.

@Gear Head , you aren't talking about deburring the flash hole, are you? That would be different.
 
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Do you have a photo of your problem?
 
Do Yourself a favor once you get your brass all prepped, shoot groups with brass that has uniformed primer pockets, deburred flash holes, perfectly trimmed, weighed, neck turned etc...

Then shoot groups with brass that has simply been resized & decapped, new primer seated, powder dropped and bullet seated.

Compare the two groups and determine if all that prep was worth it.
As a new reloader, it's tricky to weed out what is required vs what reloaders do to weed out any variables with a payoff that may or may not be measureable.
 
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I doubt you screwed up anything, most flashhole reamers are a center drill encased in a collar that bears against the inter case to stop further drilling. The burr you are filling is just that, a burr, or sometimes the remains of a piece of brass that didn't completely void itself when the punch peirced the flashhole. Good luck.
 
Slacker said:
Do Yourself a favor once you get your brass all prepped, shoot groups with brass that has uniformed primer pockets, deburred flash holes, perfectly trimmed, weighed, neck turned etc...

Then shoot groups with brass that has simply been resized & decapped, new primer seated, powder dropped and bullet seated.

Compare the two groups and determine if all that prep was worth it.
As a new reloader, it's tricky to weed out what is required vs what reloaders do to weed out any variables with a payoff that may or may not be measureable.
Click to expand...

I would tend to agree with this, unless you're shooting competition, at which point, you wouldn't have started with milsurp brass so it's a non issue in that case.

Remove the crimp if needed, resize, trim, and go.
 
I once worked up a fair sized pile of LC match brass to do all the accuracy stuff to it, flash holes, pockets uniformed, neck reamed, etc, and ended up with a smaller pile. For all the work I did, it would've been far easier to just order Lapua or similar match brass from the start.
 
Dave951 said:
I once worked up a fair sized pile of LC match brass to do all the accuracy stuff to it, flash holes, pockets uniformed, neck reamed, etc, and ended up with a smaller pile. For all the work I did, it would've been far easier to just order Lapua or similar match brass from the start.
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Everyone gets to learn that lesson once or twice when we come across a 5 gallon bucket -o- milsurp brass (read: crimped primer pockets) for $100 bucks.
There's a lot of brain damage in that pile. :)
 
MDof2 said:
I would tend to agree with this, unless you're shooting competition, at which point, you wouldn't have started with milsurp brass so it's a non issue in that case.

Remove the crimp if needed, resize, trim, and go.
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Lake City brass is excellent and has held up better than some commercial brands I now cull from the lot. With small based dies and suppressed shooting, I’ve got LC brass I only load 55gr target ammo with on 6 plus loadings
 
11B CIB said:
Lake City brass is excellent and has held up better than some commercial brands I now cull from the lot. With small based dies and suppressed shooting, I’ve got LC brass I only load 55gr target ammo with on 6 plus loadings
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Likewise, it just can be a lot of prep work for once fired. It's excellent brass, relatively uniform from lot to lot and case to case, I just underestimated it on my first few thousand of once fired, crimped, non-annealed.
 
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