military 308 brass

joes

I have around 200 hundred rounds of military 308 brass. As I tried to run them through the dies they get around 90% down and get hung up. In that batch I have lake city and federal and they both go through with no problems, then i switch back to the military ones and the same thing happens. I checked to ensure they were brass and not brass covered steel with a magnet ( they are not). Why do they not full lenght size. Thanks, joe

flyingtorpedo

The other ones may be beredian (sp?) primmed. Take a flaslight and look into the case. If you see 2 holes then they are beredian, and not reloadable. Your LC and Federal military brass is boxer primmed and has only 1 hole.

joes

They do have two holes- so are the cases garbage?

flyingtorpedo

I'd sell those as scrap brass to a local recycle center.

je2140

Sounds like lack of lubrication is what is causing the cases to stick. If the cases have been fired from something like an M60 the 1st time you resize them it will be tough, and you need great lubrication. I use an aerosol that Cabelas sells.

I also don't resize and deprime at the same time, it you get a case stuck it is much easier to get it out of the die it the depriming rod is not in the die

BHAVIN

As stated more than likely shot through a machine gun with looser tolerances. The brass expands more and is very hard to resize. Sometimes you need a Small Base die to do it. Military MATCH brass such as LC MATCH does not have this issue as it is not shot in machine guns. Scrapping what you have may be a good idea as getting a case stuck can be a real pain.

CryptoChief

FLYINGTORPEDO gets the prize. Berdan cases (two flash holes) cannot be reloaded, at least not with the standard decapping/depriming dies we normally associate with reloading here in the U.S. All you will accomplish is breaking off the primer pin in the resizing die.

Vic

flyingtorpedo

It's not often I get the prize. [:o)] However I couldn't remember how to spell berdan and was to lazy to look it up. Still got the point across and that's all I was going for.

I like your quote too CryptoChief.

Wulfmann

Never stick an unknown head stamp in a sizing die without first checking to make sure it has the one (one only!) flash hole.
Some Berdan cases also have a center hole as well as the two tiny snake eyes.
Then there are Cavin 308 cases that are extremely thick but are boxer. However, some recommend not sizing them as they cause excessive wear on the dies.
Berdan cases are now valuable as scrap. I save them and put them in a 5 gallon bucket which is almost full.
I threw away so many 8MM cases before all this went nuts.
Like throwing away nickels!!

Wulfmann

CryptoChief

flyingtorpedo,

Roger that.