F&S head stamp brass

[mikeatl]

I was depriming some 223 cases that I purchased from kingstrider. I broke a couple of depriming pins and had the pin push up on a Lee die. I found that the brass with the F&S head stamp has a very small flash hole. I had never saw it before and finally found out on the internet that it is Field and Stream brass. If you find any you may want to scrap it.
Mike

[NoZombies]

I think that's brass from the ammo Dick's is being sued over at the moment...

[nicholst55]

Not familiar with that headstamp. The Cartridge Collector's database doesn't list it, either. There are several companies that make brass with smaller than normal flash holes - Lapua being one (for some calibers). Some die manufacturers offer a smaller diameter decapping pin for this situation. Sinclair offers a reamer to enlarge the hole to 'normal' diameter. You could do the same thing with a numbered drill bit set - just don't get carried away.

If I only had a few pieces of this brass, I'd probably just pitch it into the recycle bucket. Otherwise, I would seek a permanent solution, as I described above.

[Thin Man]

I found that CCI Blazer brass in .357 Sig has a really small flash hole. That small hole will allow a conventional small diameter RCBS primer decapping pin to pass through the hole and remove the primer, but then it grabs and holds the pin so tightly that the pin separates from the pin holder. My solution to this was to use a Lee decapping pin for removing the primer, also to remove the decapping assembly from the sizing die. The Lee decapping pin held up with no problems during this procedure. These changes worked well and ended the frustration. I had more than a few pieces of this brass to process on their way to becoming 8mm Nambu cases.