Although I have heard about some high quality factory ammo with cases having smaller than average flash holes- perhaps European in origin, I have never seen any first hand. My wife picked some 9mm brass at the local range. It appeared to be a very good quality case. The brand was "NORMA". When I started processing a mixed lot of my own and a few extra range pickups, I ran into a brick wall when it came to these Norma cases. Ended up bending a de-capper pin. The flash hole is very narrow. These appear to be from factory ammo and had only been fired only a few hours before the wife found them. The good news is my wife will do anything to lower my "gun" spending and has embraced reloading! Bad, is these very clean cases seem to be designed with this very narrow flash hole. To be clear, there seems to be no burrs or other debris, no dirt or powder residue. The brass DOES NOT have military crimps.
While it seems the reloading tool companies seem to provide almost every tool needed [and sometimes not so needed] to process your reloads, I could find nothing to address this. A narrower de-capper pin would be much more easily bent and a special purpose de-capping die is not worth the bother. I would like the more experienced reloading members here how they would handle the issue.
I have found several hand tools to remove burrs and create a "uniform" flash hole but almost nothing to directly address this issue. The closest tool I could find is from Lyman. On page 44 of their 2022 catalog, Lyman shows two tools in the case prep tools & accessories section. One is a simple "flash hole cleaner" that appears not to be the answer. But a second tool with the same screw driver form, may have more potential and may be able to "drill out the hole". This is called a "flash hole uniformer"- #777750, price $18.95. From the listing it appears to have a small drill bit at the tip but I cannot tell from the picture if this tool would enlarge the entire hole to US specs. I NO NOT want to get involved in drilling out the hole with a drill press as it I think a error could cause over or under pressures that might cause malfunctions or worse.
Would love to know how you guys handle these abnormal cases. Thanks in advance!