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Posted: 5/31/2021 1:27:15 PM EDT
I’m new to reloading so bear with me. I have a Redding Type S full length bushing die. I’m going to use a universal decapper so I don’t need the decapping pin for the sizing step. The die came with the smaller black piece also. Is that what I should use instead of the decapping pin and retainer?
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Proud member of Team Ranstad
Member of the National Rifle Association and the Texas State Rifle Association |
[Last Edit: AeroE]
[#1]
The cap with the pin removed retains the expander ball part of the stem.
The black cap does not include the expander. Look close at the difference, then measure with your caliper. The black cap can be used with a decapping pin or without. The entire stem can be removed if neither cap is needed . |
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Keep your powder dry, and watch your back trail.
The United States of America - Exceptional People, Exceptional Land |
[#2]
That's what I did,used the black cap.
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It"s not the severity of punishment,but the certainty of it that checks crime nowadays. Judge Parker
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[#3]
Originally Posted By AeroE: The cap with the pin removed retains the expander ball part of the stem. The black cap does not include the expander. Look close at the difference, then measure with your caliper. . View Quote Yep the expander is indeed larger. Is it desirable to use the expander when resizing? |
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Proud member of Team Ranstad
Member of the National Rifle Association and the Texas State Rifle Association |
[Last Edit: AeroE]
[#4]
The expander is not necessary and a bushing die is generally used without. Lube is required.
On the other hand, an expander works well to round up necks on the first time used or surplus brass is sized. . |
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Keep your powder dry, and watch your back trail.
The United States of America - Exceptional People, Exceptional Land |
[#5]
Originally Posted By AeroE: The expander is not necessary and a bushing die is generally used without. Lube is required. On the other hand, an expander works well to round up necks on the first time used or surplus brass is sized. . View Quote I’ll be using once fired brass from my rifle so I guess the expander won’t be necessary. Thank you for the info! |
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Proud member of Team Ranstad
Member of the National Rifle Association and the Texas State Rifle Association |
[#6]
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Proud member of Team Ranstad
Member of the National Rifle Association and the Texas State Rifle Association |
[#7]
Why use a universal decapper? Just adding more steps. Put the black pin holder on so you don't open up your neck after sizing and you are fine. I have used those dies for around 20 years and use it that way and it works fine. If the mouth is dented when it goes into the bushing it rounds out. No need to push or pull expander through.
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[#8]
Originally Posted By Rob01: Why use a universal decapper? Just adding more steps. Put the black pin holder on so you don't open up your neck after sizing and you are fine. I have used those dies for around 20 years and use it that way and it works fine. If the mouth is dented when it goes into the bushing it rounds out. No need to push or pull expander through. View Quote Thanks for the reply. To answer your question, I’ve watched several videos where decapping prior to resizing was recommended to give one a more accurate measurement for shoulder bump. The next round I load will be my first so I’ve been trying to soak up as much info as I can. |
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Proud member of Team Ranstad
Member of the National Rifle Association and the Texas State Rifle Association |
[#9]
Originally Posted By MSC182: Thanks for the reply. To answer your question, I’ve watched several videos where decapping prior to resizing was recommended to give one a more accurate measurement for shoulder bump. The next round I load will be my first so I’ve been trying to soak up as much info as I can. View Quote You will learn that a lot of people who load have serious OCD issues where there doesn't need to be. You can make your life super hard and prep time long doing them. Over the years I have done testing and cut my loading down to very limited process which loads very accurate ammo. I have never had an issue bumping shoulder using the die to decap. |
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[#10]
Originally Posted By Rob01: You will learn that a lot of people who load have serious OCD issues where there doesn't need to be. You can make your life super hard and prep time long doing them. Over the years I have done testing and cut my loading down to very limited process which loads very accurate ammo. I have never had an issue bumping shoulder using the die to decap. View Quote Good to know because I’m all about doing things easier. |
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Proud member of Team Ranstad
Member of the National Rifle Association and the Texas State Rifle Association |
[#11]
Originally Posted By MSC182: Good to know because I’m all about doing things easier. View Quote Me too. I usually prep all my brass and prime it and bag it so when I need to I just pull it out and throw powder and seat bullets. My brass prep has condensed to: Tumble Bushing FL size with .001-002" shoulder bump and .002" of neck tension Trim, chamfer, deburr on Giraud trimmer Hit primer pocket with uniformer just to clean out any primer fouling Prime The best thing I have bought in a long time was the Giraud trimmer. Makes life so much easier doing all the steps at once. They make a Tri Way trimmer if you were only loading a few calibers. It will be cheaper but does the same thing powered by a drill. https://www.giraudtool.com/giraud-tri-way-trimmer.html |
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[#12]
Yes, this. If the case mouth is dented, you need the expander to perfectly round it out again. Almost all fired AR brass had dented mouths.
Redding makes a carbide expander that is harder and works better that the stock one. I love the Redding Type S dies. |
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[#13]
Originally Posted By Rob01: Why use a universal decapper? Just adding more steps. Put the black pin holder on so you don't open up your neck after sizing and you are fine. I have used those dies for around 20 years and use it that way and it works fine. If the mouth is dented when it goes into the bushing it rounds out. No need to push or pull expander through. View Quote I use a universal decapper to keep the highly abrasive primer carbon away from my good press and die. I also clean the brass after depriming, even plain walnut media will help knock down accumulated crud in the flash hole. I leave the decapping pin in place when sizing brass, it will push any stuck media out of the flash hole. As far as Redding's bushings dies are concerned, I'm not crazy about them. I prefer Forster full length dies with custom hone necks. I think they work better and are much cheaper. Regardless of which dies I use I still run the expander ball. I usually polish the ball to gain another .001" to .002" of neck tension. I want a minimum of .0015" of neck tension for bolt action rifles, .003' to .004" for semi-auto rifles and I don't use a crimp on either. Bushings, custom honed necks and polished expanders are used to achieve my desired neck tension. Everyone addresses their reloading process based on their perceived priorities and the work flow they want to deal with. There really isn't a wrong way to do this if you are happy with the end results. |
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[#14]
BTW - My cheap Lee c-press that has been used for decades with a universal decapper has developed so much slop in the ram I have to wiggle the ram to get the primer hole to align most of the time. This is an economy press, but the accumulated wear has all but destroyed it.
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[#15]
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
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Proud member of Team Ranstad
Member of the National Rifle Association and the Texas State Rifle Association |
[#16]
Originally Posted By borderpatrol: I use a universal decapper to keep the highly abrasive primer carbon away from my good press and die. I also clean the brass after depriming, even plain walnut media will help knock down accumulated crud in the flash hole. I leave the decapping pin in place when sizing brass, it will push any stuck media out of the flash hole. As far as Redding's bushings dies are concerned, I'm not crazy about them. I prefer Forster full length dies with custom hone necks. I think they work better and are much cheaper. Regardless of which dies I use I still run the expander ball. I usually polish the ball to gain another .001" to .002" of neck tension. I want a minimum of .0015" of neck tension for bolt action rifles, .003' to .004" for semi-auto rifles and I don't use a crimp on either. Bushings, custom honed necks and polished expanders are used to achieve my desired neck tension. Everyone addresses their reloading process based on their perceived priorities and the work flow they want to deal with. There really isn't a wrong way to do this if you are happy with the end results. View Quote Never saw an issue with dies or press in tens of thousands of rounds on the same press and dies. At this point well over a hundred thousand rounds. Still using the same dies from almost 20 years ago and no "abrassive" primer carbon damage. And custom neck is great if you don't change anything and your necks stay the same. Use a different brass or even if your neck brass thins from firing and you have different tension. With a bushing die, any bushing, you can adjust for that. As you said everyone does it their way. |
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[#17]
Now for the whole story.
The black cap Redding supplies with their dies is to hold on their after market carbide expander ball. As stated you can use the deprime pin with the black cap if you like. The carbide expander is very smooth and makes neck expanding easier. Many reloaders don't use the expander because the correct size neck bushing will leave the neck the correct size to provide the neck tension you want. Glen Zediker's opinion was to measure your neck thickness at four points. If all are within .001", you are good. Otherwise you might want to turn the necks to make them uniform with uniform tension on the bullet. He also found through experimentation that, if you have thick spots in the neck, the neck sizing bushing will push the thicker parts of brass to the inside. Making peaks and valleys on the inside of the case neck. He found pulling the carbide ball through the neck moved the peaks and valleys to the outside where they could be turned off to make the neck thickness uniform. I only mention this because this is the precision forum and because no one mentioned the real reason for the black cap. Make your own decisions on how far you want to go for the accuracy you want. |
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[#18]
Originally Posted By MSC182: Yep the expander is indeed larger. Is it desirable to use the expander when resizing? View Quote I use the Redding carbide expander in mine, always. The bushing puts me in control of how far under-size the neck gets during resizing. I usually go 0.002-0.003" under the fired dimension. The carbide expander ensures wall thickness variations are on the outside of the neck, not inside. Also, the carbide expander reduce friction pretty dramatically. Try one, you'll like it. |
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[#19]
Originally Posted By borderpatrol: I use a universal decapper to keep the highly abrasive primer carbon away from my good press and die. I also clean the brass after depriming, even plain walnut media will help knock down accumulated crud in the flash hole. I leave the decapping pin in place when sizing brass, it will push any stuck media out of the flash hole. -snip- Everyone addresses their reloading process based on their perceived priorities and the work flow they want to deal with. There really isn't a wrong way to do this if you are happy with the end results. View Quote I do the bold/blue above for exactly the same reasons. Decap, clean, size w/decapping pin in place. Great minds think alike. It might not be necessary, but I like clean and shiny reloads, and I don't want dirty brass in my dies. |
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[#20]
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[#21]
Originally Posted By Rob01: Fixed it for you. View Quote Retards think alike too. I know I am anal about keeping gunk off my dies and presses. That's just me. When I first started shooting HP tournaments in the early 1980's everyone commented on how good my ammo looked. Most people didn't even use tumblers back then. Wipe the case off with a rag, lube it and into the die it goes. My brass was always brand new shiny. |
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[#22]
OP, there is no "one way" to prep brass, there is only "this is how I prep my brass", and I am happy with the results or I am not happy with the results.....I use a separate deprimer only die, a separate neck bushing only die, a separate shoulder die, and a separate mandrel die...Why, simple, because I like to concentrate on one single operation at a time, rather than worry if I have everything perfect to do 4 things at once with one die...The only thing that matters is if your results meet your standard for your loads...I put a lot of effort into my necks because thats where I used to see the most inconsistency in my brass and loads..is it for everyone, nope, doubt anyone else even does it, doesn't matter to me, I feel it is worth it for my loads...Do what You want, figure out what your standard for your loads are and work toward getting that consistency from case to case, and you will be happy with the results...
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[#23]
I’d add that my prep process depends on what the brass will be used for.
ALL of my brass gets hand-deprimed (which helps with inspection), then wet tumbled. From there on, “it depends” is the rule of the day. I may fish through a large pile of clean brass to find all matching headstamps, then start weighing those…. Or I might start weighing random brass to see if it’s worth my time to sort beyond that. This reminds me that I really have to get one of those fluorescent light diffusers that are all squares. That’s a fantastic way to help keep different weights separate. Handgun brass “precision?” It’s a thing. I often work to get identical headstamps for test loads. Typically, handgun brass gets lost before it gets worn out, but after I separate a single headstamp, I go over the stuff carefully to make sure it’s as close to the same as possible. Different headstamp letter size, radiused rim versus beveled rim (I’m looking at you, Remington!), lots of other things can help me make a batch as similar as possible. This technique is also useful with non-GI rifle brass. |
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