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Posted: 7/5/2009 5:46:59 AM EDT
| Ok I'm resizing a bunch of once fired LC 08 brass. Its non NATO head stamped. I have my die adjusted correctly and every shell i resize is needing to be trimmed. From my understand resizing brass should be occur every so often. So my guess is.. is this because its once fired military? Is is because of the weapon that fired the ammo? |
| I always trim once fired military. And to put it this way, the last 1000 cases I bought and resized, when I ran it through my Possum Hollow trimmer set to 1.752, there were less than 50 cases that didn't get touched. Granted, that was .002 over minimum, but my sample measurements had most around 1.762 to 1.770. |
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Couple of variables at work here.
1.) Once fired military brass is usually oversize from being fired in well used weapons. So it must be resized, sometimes quite a bit. This will always result in case trimming. 2.) Almost every time you resize, the case willl need to be trimmed. This can be minimized by neck sizing only and resuing the cases in the same gun/chamber each firing and using minimal powder charges. Neck sizing only doesn't always work so well in semi-auto chambers. Full length resize is usually needed for reliable cycling. Full length resize really works the brass and requires even more trimming. 3.) Is your die a standard or small base? A small base die does a maximium resize. It is not at all unusual to have to resize the hell out of unknown once fired brass. |
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Generally brass will grow the most upon sizing after the first firing. But, case length needs to be monitored after every firing.
There's no predicting whether brass can be trimmed after the second, or third, or some other number of shots; if it's long, it needs to be trimmed. I have a feeling you're about to gain deep understanding why most of us detest the job of trimming brass. |
| Oh I detest it. But I did make a smart move... sorta. ordered one of them fancy power trimmers from Guaird or whatever. I gotta wait however until LATE August before i get it. Luckily I'm still working kinks out of my system. I think my die is now set properly, and I'll begin to just start resizing everything and swaging.. that should keep me busy until the trimmer comes in. |
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Quoted:
Ok I'm resizing a bunch of once fired LC 08 brass. Its non NATO head stamped. I have my die adjusted correctly and every shell i resize is needing to be trimmed. From my understand resizing brass should be occur every so often. So my guess is.. is this because its once fired military? Is is because of the weapon that fired the ammo? My red. NO. ___________________ Don't worry about, "WHY." Once fired military cases and ramdom range pick ups was someone elses brass. Most times fired out of GOD ONLY KNOWS what. What's important is, how you're gonna approach re-loading it. ___________________ So......for re-loading for your semi auto. You F/L re-size everytime you re-load that case. It's done everytime. So that your brass will feed and chamber w/o a glitch. Then, measure the brass. That will tell you IF you NEED to trim. That being said..............some people will just trim everytime. They want uniform length. As it helps with getting things consistent. Then, there are some that may not trim..........as long as it's within spec.........it's good enough for them. IF you don't trim an over lengthened case you're asking for trouble. See the article........... http://www.hornady.com/ballistics/internal.php Aloha, Mark PS...........IF you're re-loading for a bolt action. For a first time re-load using military brass or range pick ups (especially fired out of who knows what)............I'd F/L re-size. Subsequent re-loads for the bolt gun can be neck sized. But then, IF you load the a certain cartridge caliber for more than one firearm..........for inter-changeability sake, you may want to KISS and just F/L re-size, making ammo to fit all of them. But, that's for you to decide how you want to do things. |
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