Reloading Tips According To Dicehorn #17

[dicehorn 38]

The decapping rod on neck and full length dies

 

If you are the sort of reloader that ejects their spent cases into the dirt or shoves them into your pocket along with keys and other lumpy things so that the necks get dents on the rim, you can skip this tip.

 

Now, we all know that the die manufacturers put decapping rods with that expander in both sets of resizing dies - not a problem as the rod removes the primer and resizes the case on the upward movement of the ram. But when you take into account what is actually happening, you will understand that the upward movement of the ram squeezes your case neck and the downward movement opens up your neck - so... your case neck is moved twice in this one procedure then again when seating the bullet. Think about it...........if we could eliminate just one stretching each time, surely our brass has the potential to last that much longer?

 

Ah, but I hear you say ' but if you were to remove the decapping pin from your die not only would your spent primer stay in the case but you would have too much tension on the case neck because it is not being opened a bit more because the expander is not in place?' Very true........ So the primer solution is easy ...I use an Universal decapper die that only removes the primer - does nothing else. Yes the case neck is slightly tighter - on my 6.5 as an example it gave me just 3 thou difference in tension - that's only 1 1/2 thou each side.

 

 

The benefit of this is that I can (virtually) get 30% longer life out of my brass life - I have some 6.5 on their 24th firing - not all down to this procedure but perhaps I dont load hot also helps. I did mention this on another forum and got one chap replying that the expander button on the decapping rod was there for a good reason and I should always follow the manufacturer's instructions and maybe I thought I was smarter than the manufacturer. "Indeed" I replied "I am not smarter but consider this - If we followed the die manufacturer's instructions to the letter we would screw our dies into the press to always resize ALL of the neck when many reloaders know that only say 2/3 rds of the neck may give opitimum accuracy and we would always screw the full length die per instructions when some reloaders only want to partially full length their cases" - he fell silent.

 

Now, I am not saying we should all do this, and certainly not reloaders using the max powder, but for those that like to 'tinker' or who feel that when seating a bullet the tension is looser than they expect to feel, then this could be an option.