high velocity with cast.

[Oreo]

I can bear witness about deburring flash holes. I did about five thousand 5.56 cases of all brands a couple years ago. I sectioned a bunch just to see what was happening inside the cases. Deburring flash holes removes a lot of garbage brass from around the hole. I'll never load rifle brass again without deburring.

[geargnasher]

Drill press at 1100 rpm gets it done, too. I also found out the RCBS deburring tools leave a few things to be desired. I really like the Redding "sorta universal" tool with the cone -shaped universal neck pilot and the positive stop that surrounds the cutter and bottoms on the web itself. This really helps when working mixed lots of brass with different internal web contours. You guys may make a believer of me yet, I just haven't seen the difference on targets yet when you're talking just trying to get under an inch at 100 yards. Maybe that will change.

Gear

[cbrick]

Web contours? Conventional wisdom from the bench rest crowd is that you want flat, smooth primer pockets. I'm not familiar with the Redding pocket uniformer, I bout their case length trim machine a few years back and it turned out be complete crappolla. I remember in another thread you & I discussing primer pockets and I recommended you get the Sinclair tools, guess you didn't huh?

And yes, the RCBS primer pocket tool is one of the rare exceptions where I would not recommend RCBS.

Rick

[dtknowles]

I am not going to say it doesn't make any difference if you deburr your flash holes but it might be a difference with no significance and then again it might be significant. All my benchrest brass, 6mm PPC and 30 BR has been deburred but it did not make my groups smaller, neither did cleaning primer pockets but that could all be because I did not uniform the primer pockets or it could be because of my choice of primers but actually I did not see smaller groups from using benchrest primers either. I am thrilled that I can repeatedly shoot groups smaller than 0.250 MOA but I am not shooting anything close to competitively small groups. If you are shooting groups in the 1.250 to 1.750 MOA range, how much effort are you going to put into something that might shave 0.050 MOA off those groups. My experience, yours maybe different, that does not make either one of us wrong.

Tim

[cbrick]

Several years ago I did a side by side comparison of regular primers and bench rest primers. All loads as identical as I could make them changing only the primer. Not a single group, not a single chrono result showed any difference at all between them. The only difference I could detect between standard and BR primers was how fast my wallet emptied.

I started uniforming primer pockets and deburring flash holes for long range revolver competition, open sights & freestyle. Shoot off targets at 200 meters are about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Anything I could do that improved groups by even say a quarter inch at 200 was worth the effort & I did all the BR brass prep tricks I could. Even if improvement isn't a quarter inch at 200 confidence in your equipment in competition is priceless.

Rick

[btroj]

Hey Rick, I think he is talking inside the case, not the primer pocket.

I use a Sinclar primer pocket tool, solid carbide and awesome. Pretty much any tool with the Sinclair name on it has been good to me. Neck turner, front rest, neck wall micrometer, runout guage.

I use an RCBS internal flash hole deburing tool. It does the job well enough for me.

[cbrick]

Yes, I was talking about both. There are two sides to that hole in the case, think uniformity.

Rick

[btroj]

Rick has a good point, confidence in your ammo and equipment makes you a better shooter. Even if it is purely a placebo effect it matters to you and your confidence.

[cbrick]

When your in a shoot off for a revolver match win and you just fired and your spotter looking through a $700 scope says . . . If it was a 45 caliber you would have hit it, it was that close. Then you wonder how much uniforming flash holes and primer pockets might have shrunk the group. Doesn't matter now, ya just lost the match.

Striving for high velocity I feel uniformity will be even more important. Will it turn a sows ear into a silk purse or an off the shelf hunting rifle into a bench rest gun? No, of course not but enough little things added up that help combined will start to turn into a bigger thing. Can only be a good thing.

Rick

[geargnasher]

Brad is right, I was talking about deburring flash holes. The Redding universal deburring tool being really to my liking especially when dealing with mixed brass and different web thickenesses and shapes. The RCBS tool sets cutting deburring depth based on case-mouth-to-web distance, so you have to have uniform case length and uniform web thickness to deburr the flash holes all the same.

As for primer pocket uniforming, I bought the Redding tool for that as well, not sure why I forgot about the Sinclair recommendation. I have no complaints about it, though, it really is needed with most brass and makes the primer seating operation much more consistent and precise.

One other thing I haven't messed with is flash hole uniforming. I know there are tools for that which pilot off the primer pocket and ream the flash holes themselves, which may help ignition as well by helping re-cut off-center holes and make them all the same size. If using premium brass like Lapua or Norma I hear they have the flash holes perfected to begin with.

Gear

[dtknowles]

When your in a shoot off for a revolver match win and you just fired and your spotter looking through a $700 scope says . . . If it was a 45 caliber you would have hit it, it was that close. Then you wonder how much uniforming flash holes and primer pockets might have shrunk the group. Doesn't matter now, ya just lost the match.

Striving for high velocity I feel uniformity will be even more important. Will it turn a sows ear into a silk purse or an off the shelf hunting rifle into a bench rest gun? No, of course not but enough little things added up that help combined will start to turn into a bigger thing. Can only be a good thing.

Rick

I am not going to beat this to death, it certainly does not hurt and may help. I did not see mention of uniforming the holes, not the pockets, do this before deburr, do you do it and what drill size do you use?

Tim

[dtknowles]

Brad is right, I was talking about deburring flash holes. The Redding universal deburring tool being really to my liking especially when dealing with mixed brass and different web thickenesses and shapes. The RCBS tool sets cutting deburring depth based on case-mouth-to-web distance, so you have to have uniform case length and uniform web thickness to deburr the flash holes all the same.

As for primer pocket uniforming, I bought the Redding tool for that as well, not sure why I forgot about the Sinclair recommendation. I have no complaints about it, though, it really is needed with most brass and makes the primer seating operation much more consistent and precise.

One other thing I haven't messed with is flash hole uniforming. I know there are tools for that which pilot off the primer pocket and ream the flash holes themselves, which may help ignition as well by helping re-cut off-center holes and make them all the same size. If using premium brass like Lapua or Norma I hear they have the flash holes perfected to begin with.

Gear

Well, I guess my question was late.

Tim

[btroj]

Flash hole uniforming would be one of those minutuae things I won't consider.

My primer pockets get uniformed every reload. Heck, I do that on all rifle loads. Flash hole deburing is quick and simple, one time thing. It is done on almost all rifle cases for me.

The end of the drill portion on my RCBS deburing tool is broken so I may just get the Sinclair. With no handle it is under 20 bucks, that is hard to ignore.

Now this SS pin tumbling thing, I gotta see Gear. Rick wants me to get a borescope, you want me to get a SS pin tumbler. I have no problems spending my own money guys! You two are worse than women!

[Love Life]

SS makes shiny brass, but can peen case mouths. Just keep that in mind. I do not SS clean my match brass...just cuz. Even with Norma and Lapua brass, material is removed from the primer pockets when uniforming, case necks have thickness variations, etc.

[tomme boy]

In my 308 shooting jacketed, Federal Gold Medal Match will shrink the groups up to a 0.3" smaller than Winchester. But, it does the same shooting the regular Federal primers. It just likes Federal over others.

One of the shooting TV shows showed the making of the FGMM primers. They are the exact same as the regular ones. It was one of the most experienced people they had that was making them. So the consistency was supposed to be better.

Has anyone tried the use of different types of primers with the lead bullets yet at the faster speeds? Or is it too early in the testing to try switching them?

[Love Life]

I've seen a few groups/loads posted that are at the point where it is time to start experimenting with seating depth, neck tension, and primers.

[btroj]

I haven't gotten around to trying different primers yet. I have standard, match, and magnum match Federals, CCI match, Rem standard, Win standard and Win magnum. That makes for 8 different primers, with just one load it makes for a full day of shooting.

Omce I get a better handle on powder and alloy I will look at primers but they are a fine tuning thing. I'm not ready to fine tune yet.

[geargnasher]

SS makes shiny brass, but can peen case mouths. Just keep that in mind. I do not SS clean my match brass...just cuz. Even with Norma and Lapua brass, material is removed from the primer pockets when uniforming, case necks have thickness variations, etc.

If the correct drum size, load proportion, and RPM are used, the mouths don't get peened at all. The 17 lb rock tumbler that SSTM sells is perfecto. The FA unit that Midway sells, not so much, it turns too fast and throws the brass across the top rather than rolls it around. I know you made a huge barrel tumbler back when you were in the brass business, did you have any issues with it, or with smaller units?

Gear

[cbrick]

Flash hole uniforming would be one of those minutuae things I won't consider.

My primer pockets get uniformed every reload. Heck, I do that on all rifle loads. Flash hole deburing is quick and simple, one time thing. It is done on almost all rifle cases for me.

The end of the drill portion on my RCBS deburing tool is broken so I may just get the Sinclair. With no handle it is under 20 bucks, that is hard to ignore.

Now this SS pin tumbling thing, I gotta see Gear. Rick wants me to get a borescope, you want me to get a SS pin tumbler. I have no problems spending my own money guys! You two are worse than women!

No Brad, I didn't ask you to get a borescope, I simply mentioned how much I value mine and you seem to have interpreted that into gotta have. If you do get one pop the money for the longer one. I was shooting primarily handgun and bought the 17 inch scope. That works perfectly for all rifles up to 34 inches EXCEPT actions like my M1A where you can only look from the muzzle meaning only half of the bore can be seen with it. I dearly wish I could see the chamber on that rifle.

I've never uniformed the size of the flash hole, I uniform the primer pockets and debur the flash hole on the inside of the case. I do carefully check all new brass for centered flash holes and over the years and many thousands of pieces of brass I have found a few off center but it's pretty rare.

Rick

[Oreo]

Out of the 5k cases I deburred, it was two or three decapping pins I broke due to off-center flash holes. Those cases were tossed in the trash. The rest were deemed good enough.