Saturday, February 9, 2013

Praxis: Hard-won knowledge at the cost of a decapping pin.

Over the years I have collected much pick-up brass from various ranges with the intention to reload them if, as and when. The same goes for other components. Now that loaded rounds are both scarce and dear, it seemed like a good time to do some reloading. I got together with some friends to pool resources and labor and we are close to loading day on a few thousand .45 ACP (and only because a couple of generous readers chipped in some extra components they had).
The next project is reloading a mess of 5.56. To that end, we have been decapping and polishing the sorted brass (about 10K of various headstamps). Yesterday I was working on Sellier & Bellot and got two rounds into the decapping session when the pin broke. The guilty headstamp was SB 93 5.56 and then the NATO circle/cross. I sorted it into S&B pile based on The International Ammunition Association's headstamp guide. The guide lists four possibilities for the SB code:
1. Arms Corporation of the Philippines, (formally Squires Bingham Co.) Marikina, Republic of the Philippines
2, Empresa Nacional Santa Barbara de Industrias Militares SA, Toledo, Spain
3. Israeli Military Industries, Tel Aviv, Israel
4. Sellier and Bellot, Schoenbeck/Elbe, Germany
I thought it was Sellier & Bellot. Wrong. Subsequently I found this post from 2009 about the same headstamp which the poster notes came from a box marked "Ordinario . . . with Fabricia Palencia."
Also, I should have noticed that the brass primer pocket had triple reinforcing crimps. (See photos.) No wonder I broke the decapping pin. So, a word to the wise is sufficient, right?

11 comments:

LordChamp said...

A Lee decapping die should prevent the breakage at least as they just get pushed up and can be reset.

Anonymous said...

Been there. Done that.

Even a beefy RCBS decapping pin will give out if you try to decap a Berdan primer with it. Keep spare decapping pins, expander balls, and the threaded rod that holds them on hand.

I try to do a visual down the mouth of every cleaned case before I put them in the block. Piece of cake with .45ACP. Not so much with .223/5.56. You can get a battery powered fiber optic inspection light that helps with those.

But even with all that, the more volume you try to take on, the more likely one will slip through the screening process. I have a FN 7.62 NATO case with a decapping pin shoved right through the base and out the primer pocket set aside as an example to show reloading noobies.

Maddawg308 said...

When I actively reloaded 7.62 brass in the late 1990s, I bought PILES and PILES of range cleanup ammo from Paragon (no longer in business). They had lots of 500 rounds of it for $75 advertised. Some was good as is, some required pulling the bullets and reloading. My tactic when reloading brass was, after pulling the bullets and dumping the powder, to stand all the cases upright in a group, and take the flashlight pointing downward, scan the cartridges to find the Berdan primer cases vs. the Boxer primed ones. The Berdan ended up as scrap metal, the rest got reloaded.

Some have had bad opinions of Paragon stuff, but that battlefield or range cleanup mess that I got in the mail by the thousands netted me a LOT of good ammo, brass, bullets, etc. There were even some MG links and stripper clips mixed in, and some misc. rounds as well. Shipped in a 50 cal ammo can, it was like opening a Christmas present, you never knew what the inside held! Ah, good times...good times...

SWIFT said...

Good information. I can easily see where triple reinforcing crimps would be over looked during a re-loading session. Tedious work that.

On another note: like the rest of the country, western Pennsylvania is experiencing the unavailability of ammo in the personal protection calibers. .12 gauge shotgun shells are still readily available in a wide selection of shot sizes and the price has not sky rocketed like rifle ammo. Buy it while you can. The "troubles" may start before personal protection rifle ammo arrives back on store shelves.

Anonymous said...

Yep; never tried crimped primer cases/varnished pockets for that suspected reason. I've also heard it makes the upper land of the pocket out-of-round, which could spell trouble on a hotter load--not that anyone does that...

Anonymous said...

That's most likely a Santa Barbra of spain case, and while I don't have one to check right now, the early 90's cases might have been berdan primed,

BobF said...

Hmmmm. Just where did I put that spare pin, I wonder. Thanks for the heads-up. I've worked some S&B and might hesitate at the 3-crimp, but I'd bet anything I'd go ahead and do it anyway. I've forwarded the post link to several folks who just may save a few bucks, too.

Anonymous said...

All experienced reloaders know to have an ample supply of pins available .How many times have i seen a friend break a pin and order it and 5 days later be able to reload, too many times . Every reloader should have 3 extra pins at minimum because the cost is low. I agree, picking up range brass you just never know wheat your getting and some of that foreign stuff does break pins and even people makeing the mistake of trying to deprime a berdan primed case . One of the cheapest parts one can have on hand is the differance of being able to reload or not!

Scott J said...

The problem is Mike's humble assistant (me) owns a Lyman decapper. It has the poorest design in that you must replace this whole assembly http://www.midwayusa.com/product/139213/lyman-decapping-rod-for-universal-decapping-die-replacement-part?cm_vc=OBv1540542

It claims to be immune from such mishaps but we have proven Lyman's claim wrong.

Anonymous said...

most likely berdan primed, but Lee should save you fro that destruction by design. I've never had issues depriming scrimped brass, only repriming it, if you don't cut out the old scrimp.

Liberty or Death said...

This brass looks to be staked, another form of crimping. I have reloaded staked, crimped, glued, glued and staked and glued and crimped all without issues. I am going to assume this was not berdan primed and say that depriming pins just get tired, wear out and break. I have had it happen several times. Because of this I keep 2 to 3 pins in each box containing my reloading dies just in case.

I was reloading once fired Lake City brass and had one that just didn't feel right as I raised the ram. It ended up being a berdan brass I missed in the sorting. Thankfully I didn't force the issue or I would have been changing another pin. lol

Again, I doubt the triple staking had anything to do with the break, it just most likely wore out.