.223 Brass prep - decapping problems

[sidnal]

I am using my RL1050 to prep .223 brass. I'm driving it with an autodrive so I have the potential to prep a lot of brass if I can stop breaking the decap pins.

Station 1: RCBS SB full length resizing die

Station 2: Swage

Station4: Trim using dillon trimmer

Station 6 RCBS X-Die to clean up after trimming and ensure

Saturday I had a lot of trouble breaking decapping pins with mixed brass. Today I processed 1000 rounds of RP non-crimpped brass. About every 200 rounds a pin will snap off. It is necessary to have them adjusted very far down in the die to make sure the primer gets pushed completely out.

I can lighten the pressure on the autodrive but then 1 in 20 won't resize. So I crank down the resistance and break pins.

I've loaded a lot of pistol ammo but find that Brass Prep for .223 is a PITA.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Landis

[DougCarden]

Landis, without the PW unit I order 20 decap pins at a time from Redding....and that is from mixed brass with BERDAN cases in there.....Check for media or try another decap die...maybe a universal unit?

Good luck,

DougC

[pjb45]

I had the same thing happen.

I did several things. I brought extra decapping pins for my die.

I brought a Lee decapping pin and holder which was guaranteed for life. I used it on some brass that I noticed would not decap in my press. I broke the pin and bent the bar. Sportsman's Warehouse replaced it the next next.

I also purchased a Universal Decapping Die.

The bottom line is: there will always be some brass that will break a pin, no matter what kind you use. For me, the key is now I do not try to muscle it with my 1050. The 1050 gives me lots of leverage and too much muscle ends up breaking some tool. Now I just throw that piece of brass away.

[Powder Finger]

Also run a case into the die. loosen the decap stem rotate back & forth a little then retighten while the pin is still in the flash hole.

[ExtremeShot]

I have just a little bit of experience reloading .223 so I'm not an expert....but....wouldn't you want your X-Die to be first (in Station 1) since it's designed to prevent the case from growing (this assumes you are reloading brass that has already been initially trimmed before being shot)? If you do your initial resizing with a regular die (like you describe above), it would allow the case length to grow.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the purpose of the X-die is to prevent a previously trimmed case from lengthening during the resizing process.

Darren

[sidnal]

I have just a little bit of experience reloading .223 so I'm not an expert....but....wouldn't you want your X-Die to be first (in Station 1) since it's designed to prevent the case from growing (this assumes you are reloading brass that has already been initially trimmed before being shot)? If you do your initial resizing with a regular die (like you describe above), it would allow the case length to grow.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the purpose of the X-die is to prevent a previously trimmed case from lengthening during the resizing process.

Darren

I'm not an expert on .223 reloading either but I'm following the recipe from a shooting friend who is. After messing with dies I've decided that it's not really necessary to push the shoulder of .223...at least until after it's been shot a few more times. I've been using the x-die to help regularize the edge of the case after trimming. Seems to work pretty good.

It would be helpul if someone would comment about pushing the shoulder of 223 brass...I'm not brave enough to do that b/c it changes the shape too.

Edited September 13, 2010 by sidnal

[sidnal]

Thanks everyone for the comments. Have the decap pins covered, bought 50 of them at a local shop a couple of weeks ago.

I figured out what most of the problem was. Most of my loading on the 1050 has been for 9 Open. I cut a couple of coils off of the spring below the indexing ball (beneath the shell plate) to keep it from throwing powder everywhere. The shell plate didn't quite index all of the way but one of the big indexing pins would allign it. I think that sometimes it didn't get alligned exactly and the pin was hitting outside of the flash hole...make the pins nuke!

Since I didn't have an extra spring I measured the ball (.5' exactly) and went up to the hardware store. I found 3 washers that were the same size and put them underneath the spring. Now it indexes very positively and I stopped breaking pins. I resized and trimmed about 500 rounds yesterday without breaking any pins. Have to call Dillon for a spring.

I also tried the idea of making sure the die was centered with the pin the the flash hole. I like the idea of a universal decapping die too, will have to investigate this more.

A combination of these things has me up and going. I'm preping about 6000 rounds of 223 brass while my Open gun is getting revamped. That should be enough .223 brass to last me a while!

Landis