Picking a press to purchase

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Most of those cases appear to be radiused or chamfered, as far as I can see in your picture. The questionable cases might be the two WCC in the second row. Maybe those have already been chamfered if they were not manufactured that way. Most of the WCC I've been working on need some chamfering for smooth priming.

My eye isn't good and it is easier to see with a magnifying glass or jewelers loupe. It doesn't need hardly any chamfer at all, but if the opening is very square-shaped sometimes the primers are hard to start in the hole, especially if the hole is a little tight. I didn't start looking at cases closely til a couple of weeks ago when I was trying to figure out why some of them were difficult to prime.

Most of the cases are manufactured with a slight rounding on the opening.

I've seen some like many of the Win I've been working on, that had a nice rounded edge, but then there is a tiny sharp-edged shelf right below the radius. I think that is why those want to seat with a "bump". The primer enters the rounded area then slightly hangs on the little sharp ledge below the rounded opening.

Maybe that is a sign of something that has been intentionally crimped to some degree in the factory loading, or just a manufacturing artifact. Dunno.

The pockets don't look too dirty to prime good to me. But I dunno anything. Just talking about what I've been trying to figure out.

[dlm37015]

i would toss the a-merc headstamped brass the only brass failer i have ever had was a-merc not just one time but several .i buy brass by the ton if i find a-merc i send it all back.most of the folks i know are rhe same way

[Guest Lester Weevils]

i would toss the a-merc headstamped brass the only brass failer i have ever had was a-merc not just one time but several .i buy brass by the ton if i find a-merc i send it all back.most of the folks i know are rhe same way

Thanks! Didn't know that. Googled "a-merc headstamp" and found lots of threads condemning that brand. I reloaded a few amerc last couple of weeks. Will look back thru and separate those to shoot "carefully". Maybe put them on the top position of a mag so they might chamber before the primer has a chance to fall out!

[Guest]

Most of those cases appear to be radiused or chamfered, as far as I can see in your picture. The questionable cases might be the two WCC in the second row. Maybe those have already been chamfered if they were not manufactured that way. Most of the WCC I've been working on need some chamfering for smooth priming.

Are you referring to the 03 or 05 (or both?) of the WCC cases? What particularly about them that I should be looking out for? I'm wanting to make this stuff dependable, so even though it's just for plinking, I could count on it if I really had to.

Unless you are obsessive about ultra-shiny, the main thing is to have brass free of grit, which can scratch the dies and cause them to mark all your cases. I've also read the theory that fine grit might prematurely wear dies after thousands of rounds, dunno.

I've been getting new-shiny from walnut, followed by a second run of corncob + flitz tumbler additive. But even though they are real shiny with no grit, I get some black on my fingers after handling a bunch of cartridges. Some of it may be new oxidization that starts happening as soon as you pull it out of the cleaning media? No worry about a little black on the fingers.

I got some non-crimped .223 brass that is dirty in the mail today. Lengths of 5 randomly pulled samples are 1.760, 1.7565, 1.7545, 1.756, 1.754. I guess this means by the time they are full-length resized, they are going to need trimmed. Darn (was hoping I'd get lucky.). One guy that runs a reloading store said "no, you only need to trim every 5 or 6 firings" and another said every 2-3.

I guess I'll go ahead and tumble them in the Walnut media and get them ready, even though I have no .223 dies yet. I'm trying out the Lee with 9mm before I commit to a .223 changeover kit.

Edited December 22, 2011 by Guest

[dlm37015]

your brass should all be the same lengh. sometimes heck most of the time its better to trim new brass so the crimps are the same

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Are you referring to the 03 or 05 (or both?) of the WCC cases? What particularly about them that I should be looking out for? I'm wanting to make this stuff dependable, so even though it's just for plinking, I could count on it if I really had to.

Hi BlessTheUSA

I'm not any kind of expert, but all three WCC in your picture appear to have a slight bevel around the opening, unless it is an artifact of the picture or my bad eyes.

Most all the WCC 9mm brass I've been looking at lately, going thru my big box of old collected brass, had a very sharp edge on the primer pocket opening. Not beveled or rounded. It loaded fine after I primer pocket uniformed it (which can remove the crimp if the crimp is not very big) and added a slight chamfer to the sharp-edged opening.

But maybe some of the WCC comes from the factory with a beveled or radiused opening.

Some of the crimped stuff can also have a little "ring" around the opening.

That circle-cross is the NATO spec symbol. Nato spec 9mm is pretty hot and probably indicated very good quality brass. Most folks say WCC is excellent brass except you may have to one-time ream, swage, or chamfer the primer pockets.

Have read that not all WCC is military or surplus, and have read some tales that not all is crimped. Dunno.

[Guest]

I got a chance to polish some of the .223 today. Polished in walnut media, with a little paint thinner. Added a splash of car polish on a subsequent batch going through the tumbler to see if there was any difference, and it all came out about the same no matter what I did. In reality, as long as they'll be 100% functional in any AR-15, I'm happy no matter how shiny or dull they are.

So now a couple of things to run by the experts.

First is the case openings. Here is what I culled out of the first ~200 I picked up out of the box (I was counting each lot of ~200 by weight). Should I normally expect 24% to have these deformations with brass that is guaranteed to be once-fired? Are any of these actually OK to use, or are they all rejects?

Granted, more of these may be usable than I think, but I think if 240/thousand are not usable, there should be an extra 240 in the box. That said, tomorrow I need to weigh the whole thing and see how many were actually shipped.

Here is what the looked like after about 30 minutes in the walnut media.

Here are a sample of the ejector dents. Are any of these a problem or are they all a "go"?

My next steps at this point are to

(1) determine what cases need to be culled out and which are good to reload.

(2) finish polishing all cases so they will be ready

(3) perhaps deprime them (if I get a die set) and then figure out what method I'll use to trim.

I just want to get steps 1 and 2 kocked out so I know what I'm working with and they are ready to go when I get the die set and trimmer.

Thanks!

Edited December 23, 2011 by Guest

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Folks who reload rifle can answer better.

Pistol brass with non-round openings as in your picture, would work fine. The size die and belling die and the seating of the bullet would make the final cartridge round again no problemo. Maybe it is the same with rifle. Dunno.

Folks have said in the past that the ejector dents will smooth out after the round is fired (though possibly they would just get a new dent to take its place when your rifle ejects the round).

If you are obsessive about shine, a second run of an hour or two with corn cob and a capful of Flitz tumbler additive will make most brass very pretty shiny. Corn cob, in my experience, is not as efficient as walnut for knocking off the "big corrosion" but seems better for polishing.

Processing very old brass, I get maybe 5 percent with some "deep stained" sections which most likely would be impossible to tumble out. I usually shoot em unless there is something about the stained area which looks fatigued or whatever.

One time when I didn't have anything better to do, I took a handful of .357 cases with "deep stained" areas and tried gently polishing them out with a felt wheel on a grinder. It worked somewhat but the stains seemed too deep to completely remove in many spots. Which makes me wonder if maybe that could indicate some kind of "weakness" in that part of the case, if the stain is so deep. Dunno. None have exploded on me yet.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Lester Weevils

[mikegideon]

The ejector dents will smooth out a lot when you full length size them. You may have to take something like the right sized punch to open up a couple of those necks enough to get the expander ball through them. As long as there are no splits in them after they're resized, you should be good to go.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I was web-searching on the topic of spots of deep discoloration on brass, and this thread looks good on the issue (and contains info similar to other threads I found)--

ArizonaShooting.com • View topic - Discolored Brass - Yea or Nay

I get the impression that a very deep stain may cause one to be suspicious or at least cautious. Perhaps a bigger issue with high-pressure cases.

[mikegideon]

I was web-searching on the topic of spots of deep discoloration on brass, and this thread looks good on the issue (and contains info similar to other threads I found)--

ArizonaShooting.com • View topic - Discolored Brass - Yea or Nay

I get the impression that a very deep stain may cause one to be suspicious or at least cautious. Perhaps a bigger issue with high-pressure cases.

Could be. I would tumble the bejesus out of it before I condemned it though. 30 minutes isn't long enough. I run my tumbler for 8 hours or more with walnut sometimes. You may even want to hit one of the stains with some steel wool and see how deep it goes. I'm not a reloading expert, but have seen thicker brass pieces survive in some harsh elements for decades without changing its properties.

[Guest]

The ejector dents will smooth out a lot when you full length size them. You may have to take something like the right sized punch to open up a couple of those necks enough to get the expander ball through them. As long as there are no splits in them after they're resized, you should be good to go.

So even the few that are dented in concave, past just a flat side (the worst ones) will be ok if I open them back up? That is great. I was assuming the neck would be fatigued in that area, leading to premature failure.

Could be. I would tumble the bejesus out of it before I condemned it though. 30 minutes isn't long enough. I run my tumbler for 8 hours or more with walnut sometimes. You may even want to hit one of the stains with some steel wool and see how deep it goes. I'm not a reloading expert, but have seen thicker brass pieces survive in some harsh elements for decades without changing its properties.

Is there a problem with any of my brass in the 2nd photo? Does it need to be polished more?

Thanks!

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Is there a problem with any of my brass in the 2nd photo? Does it need to be polished more?

It looks decently clean as best I can tell.

When web-searching on deep-stained brass, came across this picture of maybe something to consider discarding. Left was pre-tumble, and right was post-tumble--

The commentary on that thread said that the pink area on the case mouth is indicative of corrosion which has leached out the zinc, leaving a copper-heavy section that might be "too malleable".

It reminds of my experience trying to felt-wheel polish out some spots of deep stain near the base of some .357 cases. May be remembering wrong, but some of the stubborn spots did have a copper color rather than a brass color after polishing out, and the wheel removed "too much" material before the stain was gone.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Lester Weevils

[mikegideon]

So even the few that are dented in concave, past just a flat side (the worst ones) will be ok if I open them back up? That is great. I was assuming the neck would be fatigued in that area, leading to premature failure.

Is there a problem with any of my brass in the 2nd photo? Does it need to be polished more?

Thanks!

I think you would have to put a real serious crease in it to create that much fatigue. If you look at the fire forming process to make 6mm dasher brass out of 6 br brass, that little ding in your necks is nothing. Just inspect the necks for cracks when you're done resizing. That needs to become a habit anyway, because it's probaby the main way to tell if your brass is unsafe for reloading.

The second photo looks fine. I was talking about dealing with stains. I tumble the crap out of my brass so it looks good with my shiny new bullets :-)

[mikegideon]

It looks decently clean as best I can tell.

When web-searching on deep-stained brass, came across this picture of maybe something to consider discarding. Left was pre-tumble, and right was post-tumble--

The commentary on that thread said that the pink area on the case mouth is indicative of corrosion which has leached out the zinc, leaving a copper-heavy section that might be "too malleable".

It reminds of my experience trying to felt-wheel polish out some spots of deep stain near the base of some .357 cases. May be remembering wrong, but some of the stubborn spots did have a copper color rather than a brass color after polishing out, and the wheel removed "too much" material before the stain was gone.

That's some ugly stuff. I would still tumble the crap out of it and see if it was just surface discoloration, or if it was structural. I think using a copper case is probably a bad idea :-)

[SonnyCrockett]

That's some ugly stuff. I would still tumble the crap out of it and see if it was just surface discoloration, or if it was structural. I think using a copper case is probably a bad idea :-)

id junk it.........plenty of clean brass out there - not sure what your cleaning it with but I would not want all that

sludge even in my tumbler let alone my gun.........

[Guest]

After sorting the 9mm brass, I only found a couple that had case openings bent in noticeably from a distance, and few that were bent in much at all up close. I think the expanding die should have no problem cleaning these very small deformations, correct?

Looks like a rough breakdown of the brass is as follows:

WIN: 30%

WCC: 20% various years, 80's through present

RP: 15%

FC: 13%

P-D 13%

PMC 2%

WCC +P+: 2% As I understand, it's the same as WCC, just indicates it was loaded to +P

Fiocchi: 1%

Along with a handful of the following each:

MM

*--*

*I*

S+W

AMI

W-W

Blazer

OBC

A-Merc

NNY

S&B

CCI

Frontier

MRP

If I want this ammo to be very reliable, should I still use the odballs that a few of each were included, or is there any reason I need to toss them? Other than the A-Merc, do any of these headstamps vary from the Win and WCC?

Thanks!

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hi BlessTheUSA

Dented case mouths usually work fine. It would be good experience to try everything you have to get a feel for what your press can handle.

On the brass, I'm maybe neurotic but do not like having to mash the snot out of a case to seat the primer. It makes me nervous. Maybe irrationally nervous.

Your priming may go different than my experience (different press and different brand of primers). I'm complaining about previous experience having trouble with maybe 1 case out of 100 just not priming right, and having to take extra time seating some primers because they don't "feel right" going in. Perhaps the proper least-effort solution is try to use everything and just throw the spoilage in a jar and throw them away and not even worry about it.

Out of your list, from my limited experience that you may discover completely different on your gear and primers, the ones most likely to prime easy are FC (Federal), WIN, RP (Remington), *--* (Star), Frontier (Hornady), Blazer, and *I*.

The WCC, PMC, and S&B, if the company that supplied your brass has worked on the pockets, might prime easy. Otherwise they can vary from tight seating up to near-impossible seating unless you ream or swage the pockets (one time then you are done). Those brands can be very good brass, just may need some work to prime easy. About all WCC is likely real good brass. Some PMC is really good and some supposedly are not so good. Supposedly nowadays the Koreans don't make all of it anymore. Some people say S&B is good except the very tight primer pockets. I've read that large-primer S&B isn't as much a bitch to prime.

Dunno anything about the other brands on your list. You can google the different headstamps and find lots of threads discussing it.

I've been processing a few thousand cases over the holidays, and noticed an occasional RP, FC and Win brass that seemed a lot tighter than average. Maybe those companies crimp the loads they sell to police, and the crimp is what I've been noticing when they are tight? Dunno, just a guess. The tight ones often have a little impressed "ring" around the primer pocket, which may be an artifact left by some crimping techniques? Have read some people say that not all crimps are equal, and some crimped brass is not crimped very much and works ok without reaming the pocket.

[mikegideon]

I have been waffling on ordering the Giraud for months now. Finally, last week, I did. He said two weeks until it would ship. OK. I thought, at least maybe it will come in between Christmas and New Years… It shipped the same day and I got it Thursday.

Wow. Just wow. I trimmed almost 2,000 .223 cases Saturday. I randomly selected a few and mic'ed them. They were identical. This is as as good of a piece of equipment as I have ever purchased.

Just a followup... I reread and rethought all of this, and the Giraud is the right decision. I'm sure the Gracey would last a good while with a patient man. But, I would most likely beat it to death with a framing hammer midway thru the first caliber change.

When you consider the easy caliber changes, the better precision, and the meplat uniformer option, it's really the only sane choice for me. Now, I just have to find the money. My flip floppin' is over.

[Guest]

Finally getting around to the loading phase. I notice the case trim length for 9x19 is listed in the Hornady manual as .749 with a maximum case length of .754.

I am reloading winchester headstamps first, and pulled five random cases out of the bag. Here are the lengths of the once-fired roll-sized cases before I do anything to them.

0.7410

0.7395

0.7430

0.7440

0.7450

Are cases often shorter than the trim length?

And how much do I need to worry about the length affecting the crimp? I assume since the brass in this small sample is four to eight thousandths below the trim size, it's a somewhat logical assumption to assume that I might also have brass that varies perhaps up to 10 thousandths? Is this normal, and what if any cautions do I need to exercise?

Thanks

Edit:

OK, I got the bullet seating die adjusted for bullet depth. 1.065 to match the Hornady XTP that the bullet closely resembles. See image below. However. how do you tell if the crimp is sufficient? I adjusted the die as per Lee's YouTube instructions, but can't really see any deviation in the case wall from straight... on my cases or the Hornady factory-loaded stuff.

My next step once I know the crimp is correct will be to get primers feeding, and then finally adjust the powder measure. Getting close! Is 5 rounds at each powder charge (by 0.1 grain) enough to tell? I was thinking of loading 10 at each grain and firing 5 in each of two guns, just to be safe. Starting with the minimum charge of 4.0gr Unique, that's 100 bullets, as the max charge is 5.0gr.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Guest

[myg30]

I have not read all of this thread but this last page. Most reloaders dont waste time trimming pistol brass.

Seat the bullet to length [OAL] you want and be done.

You dont want to over crimp brass as to reduce the bullet diameter. Some pull a bullet and check the dia. on the projectile to see if it was over crimped. Your caliper measurement at the case mouth should give you a good idea of the crimp amount. FMJ's,jacketed bullets are more forgiving than lead boolits are.

I always loaded 10 of each load checking for feed as well as accuracy. A few double taps for feed ate up the last 4-5 rounds.

I would work with one pistol at a time depending on how particular you want to make a load.

Good luck,be safe.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hi BlessTheUSA

Advice I've seen on setting crimp for 9mm, is to adjust the crimp until you see the barest hint of a shiny burnished line on top of the case mouth. That is what I usually do. In my die set, the bullet seater removes all of the bell resulting in a completely straight cartridge wall. So the crimp just narrows the very top of the case mouth a little more than that.

9mm cases often hold onto the bullets real well. That style of bullet and OAL you are using, holds onto the bullet pretty tight, at least with the genuine XTP item. The bullet style puts a lot of lead inside the case to grip the case nicely. Which in my experience makes the 124 gr genuine XTP's resistant to setback if they get slightly abused when the slide rudely slams them into the chamber.

If your bullets are soft-lead plated, maybe it won't hang onto them quite as good as XTP's? That is an ignorant guess and nothing more. Dunno the hardness of the lead in XTP jacketed. Maybe genuine XTP's are harder than soft lead, and maybe the copper jacket tends to hold onto a case better than copper plate, dunno.

I was reloading the 124 gn round nose Rainiers, which measure slightly bigger diameter than the XTP's but don't seat quite as deep in the case, but pretty deep. Using the "bare hint of a bright line" crimp. Shortly after starting in on the Rainiers, accidentally dropped one and noticed a little bit of setback. The Ramshot Rainier recipe calls for 1.16" OAL and however the bullet managed to impact the concrete floor had set it back to 1.15". So I pushed on some of the loaded rounds and they were pretty tight but could be setback with firm hand pressure. So I very slightly increased the crimp until the case mouth just barely dents into the lead. If I hold the case in the light I see a light reflection of just the slightest radius of the bullet where it meets the case mouth.

Maybe that is too much crimp, but I'd rather not have a bunch of ammo subject to setback. That slight increase of crimp did make the bullets tighter and more resistant to setback, but the XTP's seem more immune to the problem. I'm guessing harder lead, because you can see the bullet line impression in the brass with XTP, but not with the Rainiers, though my last batch of XTP's measure slightly smaller than 0.355" and the Rainiers measure bang-on to slightly larger than 0.355". So the soft lead Rainiers must be resizing down a little bit when forced into the case.

If you use excessive crimp, the bullets may have overpressure problems, but the biggest hazard is that excessive crimp can make the bullets looser, not tighter.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Guest]

If you use excessive crimp, the bullets may have overpressure problems, but the biggest hazard is that excessive crimp can make the bullets looser, not tighter.

Not sure I understand the last part of that sentence.

I set the crimp to several thousandths in diameter. I guess I'll test those for the setback issue you mentioned.

As far as how particular I want to be; This is not competition ammo, so I just want it to be as accurate as factory ammo and 100% reliable. I'm not going to get into any customizing for each gun - just like I would run any normal factory 9mm ammo in any 9mm pistol, I want my reloaded ammo to work the same way.

As far as the Lee 1000 press, their YouTube instructional videos are way more useful than the printed instructions. The videos really help.

That said, although the press was pretty easy to use, I have two slight dissapointments.

* The first is that the powder charge uses the molded cavities to dispense powder. With Unique, I had to make jumps 0.2gr at a time. Not the end of the world in my case as I can still chose a safe charge, but if I was loading for accuracy or velocity (and pushing the charge) it gives you fewer options. That said, if you were that serious about it, you could order an extra set of the cavities and modify them....

* My charges didn't seem to be very consistent. Perhaps 4.7gr, then 4.6, then 4.8, then back to 4.7. This may be something that I need to work on my technique. I only loaded around 50 rounds today. I'm going to figure out what's causing this variation and work it out of the process before I load lots of rounds.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hi BlessTheUSA

If you overkill crank down on the crimp, the bullets can get loose. They may not get loose enough to fall out, but can "rattle" a 16th or 8th inch back and forth within the crimped area. Maybe there can be other symptoms, but that is what I saw when I was having trouble getting a bullet tight in a .380 load and played with many crimp settings. Other people have advised that too much crimp can make the bullet loose, but that is the only time I've personally seen it.

The issue with no crimp or insufficient crimp-- Some kinds of bullets stay firmly in-place in some kinds of cases without any crimp at all. To test, you can take a loaded round and press it firmly against your work bench to see how easy the bullet can be pushed down into the case.

If the bullet takes very little hand pressure to push farther down into the case, then that round is more likely to get setback, at least in some pistols. Some pistols are rougher in chambering the ammo. If the bullet gets pushed into the case too easy when the slide slams it into the chamber, then the shorter OAL of that setback cartridge can develop dangerous pressures and possibly cause a real bad day, especially on weak pistols or pistols with poorly supported chambers.

So you want the bullets pretty tight in there, but on the other hand it might be a mistake to do something like glue the bullets in with super-strong Epoxy! Then you might have a tiny pipe bomb waiting to go off.

Maybe somewhere on the internet there are instructions on how to decide if a bullet is "tight enough". I've just been trying to get em tight enough that the bullets won't push down into the case if you press a round by hand against the workbench "pretty hard".

====

My cheap digital scale takes a lot of baby-sitting and I'm not a skilled operator. On individual measurements I don't have any faith that the scale will be repeatable any closer than +/- 0.1 grains. Maybe the scale's jitter is even worse than +/- 0.1 gn. Or maybe it is better than I think.

Just sayin, at the moment, for example if I throw three different powder loads and they all happen to be slightly off in different directions-- I don't have any way to determine whether the powder measure is throwing inconsistently or whether the scale just has some measurement jitter.

That is why I'd eventually like to spend a few hundred bucks on a "cheap" student-grade milligram-resolution scale. It would still require careful operation and would not eliminate all jitter, but at least it would be a little easier to count on.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Guest]

Hi BlessTheUSA

My cheap digital scale takes a lot of baby-sitting and I'm not a skilled operator. On individual measurements I don't have any faith that the scale will be repeatable any closer than +/- 0.1 grains. Maybe the scale's jitter is even worse than +/- 0.1 gn. Or maybe it is better than I think.

Just sayin, at the moment, for example if I throw three different powder loads and they all happen to be slightly off in different directions-- I don't have any way to determine whether the powder measure is throwing inconsistently or whether the scale just has some measurement jitter.

Couldn't either one of us just take a case, whether empty or full, and set it on the scale, measure, remove the case, and repeat with the same case a number of times? That tells you if the scale measures repeatedly. I didn't think to check that when I was loading, as the scale is spot on with my 50-gram check weight. Every time it hits the exact same weight. That said, its accuracy could be different at 60 grains than 50 grams, so perhaps performing the test with a case is a good idea.