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Posted: 10/5/2011 2:56:50 PM EDT
| I thought I would share my experience with my newly acquired Lyman flash hole deburring tool. It adapts very easily to different calibers with the turn of an allen wrench. I started deburring my .308 brass collection. I was very surprised with the amount of brass I was shaving off. There were quite a few cases that had some severe burrs in them. I had to almost force the tool to turn. I'd tip the case over and a good amount of shavings would tumble out. Post treatment, you could look down in the case and see a nice clean flash hole. I figured cases would have burrs, but not to the extent that the tool proved! I didn't purchase the tool expecting group sizes to shrink, rather I wanted to add every bit of uniformity in the hopes that the combined effort would make the most accurate ammo possible. I paid $12 on Ebay for the tool. Overall I am impressed and recommend it to those contemplating it. |
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I have one and have used it on all my 223 brass, I can't really tell the difference in accuracy, it was good before and remains good. Does it really make any difference? Frankly I don't know... I might add that some of the brass had some pretty good chunks on the inside, you could really tell it when you ran into one like that. I have the Lyman, you can unscrew the shaft from the handle and chuck it in a drill, makes it very fast and easy to use, and of course you only have to do it once for a piece of brass. |
| Many people say that a flash hole deburring tool is just a way for companies to sell you something to make money...that it isn't needed at all. While they may be correct on the accuracy part...here is one instance of where it is needed. I regularly purchase, find whatever mass quantities of 5.56 Lake City and I use an RCBS Primer Pocket Swage die...it puts a button in the primer pocket to roll in the military crimp and to uniform the primer pocket dimensions. In order to press this button in you need to have something on the back side...which is a nice sturdy steel shaft that pushes down on the inside of the brass and forces the button into the primer pocket...if you have the occasional mass pile of brass shavings standing up...it won't bother your firing for factory loads...but if that steel shaft presses the shavings down over the flash hole you can get either fail to fire, a hang fire, or some other type of problem. I've personally witnessed a hang fire that happened 4-5 seconds after the trigger was pulled and the guy was about to pull the charging handle back to eject the round when the rifle suddenly fired....scary to say the least. |
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I've deburred all my brass for a while now. Whether or not it makes a difference is debatable, but it does make me feel better. Plus, its one of those things that's only done once, so its not as though you have to keep repeating it with each resize. Most all of your commercial brass punches the primer pockets and flash holes (from what I understand), and burs are a typically left. Personally, I run a primer pocket reamer and flash hole deburring tool on all my brass.
There are a couple of points that you need to consider, though, before you blindly go reaming brass. Its important that all of your brass is the same OAL. Otherwise, you won't get the same amount of ream if you have one piece miking at 2.005 and the next at 2.010. I only deburr after I've trimmed cases. Furthermore, if you are getting a lot of shavings after reaming, you may have the cutter set too deep. You aren't trying to make a funnel inside the case, just barely ream of the interior edges to ensure that all the burrs are gone. I use the Lyman and RCBS tools. The Lyman has the tapered neck, so it will work on different calibers interchangeably. The RCBS uses collets, so you must purchase the correct size for your brass. Both work perfectly in an RCBS Trim Mate, which is probably the best $110 I've spent on a piece of reloading equipment. |
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Quoted:
I have one and have used it on all my 223 brass, I can't really tell the difference in accuracy, it was good before and remains good. Does it really make any difference? Frankly I don't know... I might add that some of the brass had some pretty good chunks on the inside, you could really tell it when you ran into one like that. I have the Lyman, you can unscrew the shaft from the handle and chuck it in a drill, makes it very fast and easy to use, and of course you only have to do it once for a piece of brass. Sir, I can only relate my own experience as regards flash hole deburring in combination with other forms of brass prep to illustrate why I believe there is some benefit to deburring and other case prep steps. Like you I was largely satisfied with the accuracy of my handloads but I was persistantly plagued with one or two shots from a ten shot group that seemed to consistantly be apart from the group. I noticed this mostly in the rapid fire stages during high power competition because almost all of my shots would be consistantly inside the X or 10 ring but one or two would be inexplicably outside the 10 ring. As typical with most shooters I would ascribe these errant shots to shooter error. However as I progressed I began to realize these errant shots may not be due solely to shooter error so I began re-examining my reloading processes. About that time Glen Zediker published an article in the NRA magazine Shooting Sports USA titled "Loading for the M14". After reading his article I realized there were a number of steps I could employ in the preparation of my brass that would likely make each piece more uniform, in other words each piece was more exactly alike another as I could make it. I bought a Sinclair flash hole deburring tool, primer pocket depth uniformer, VLD case mouth deburring tool, and a NECO gage. I also use an RCBS flash hole deburring tool on the outside bottom of the primer pocket. The use of all of these tools seemed to make a difference in the accuracy of my reloads such that when I had an errant shot during the rapids I now was able to know what it was that I had done that caused that shot to be errant. In other words my groups were tighter and as long as I did my part in my role as jerk behind the trigger I had confidence that they would all be inside the ten or X ring! It wasn't long afterward in my development as a shooter that I shot my first "10X clean". Does flash hole deburring make a difference? By itself, probably not. However when done in combination with other forms of case prep I personally believe it does make a difference. FWIW Mr. Zediker has a web site that, the last time I looked, included the article that I referred to above. It is also included in later revisions in some of his books relating to the AR-15 and reloading which I also highly recommend. HTH, 7zero1 out. |
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I don't see any accuracy improvement that I could perceive from it. I no longer do this. A rifle that is sufficiently accurate to discriminate the difference is required. Sir, how appropriate! Not that some of us don't realize it but apparently there are those that either ignore the fact or don't realize that not all rifles are created equal. I believe Creighton Audette was once quoted as saying "only accurate rifles are interesting" or something like that. How very true in my experience! 7zero1 out. |
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Sir, my server will not allow me to open the page you have linked. I assume you are referring to Mr. Zediker's web site. I usually just google Zediker and a whole list comes up. 7zero1 out. |
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Quoted: I let my decapping pin on my sizing die do the deburring for me From what I have seen, the burrs are on the side of the primer hole i.e. peeled back and lining it like a crown. As a result, the decapping pin will just pass it by and never touch the burrs. |
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Quoted: Quoted: I let my decapping pin on my sizing die do the deburring for me From what I have seen, the burrs are on the side of the primer hole i.e. peeled back and lining it like a crown. As a result, the decapping pin will just pass it by and never touch the burrs. If you ever use a primer pocket cleaner tool you'll clean those burrs away. But the decapping pin when resizing will deal with any burrs in the actual hole itself - not to Camp Perry championship standards, but for everyday reloading, it's not a factor. If the burrs outside the flashhole interfere with primer seating then yes, deburr, but if not, not an issue. Burrs outside the flashole will almost never interfere with primer seating if you're using once fired brass, otherwise it would of interfered with the brass after 0 fireings, e.g. factory new ammo. |
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I let my decapping pin on my sizing die do the deburring for me From what I have seen, the burrs are on the side of the primer hole i.e. peeled back and lining it like a crown. As a result, the decapping pin will just pass it by and never touch the burrs.
If you ever use a primer pocket cleaner tool you'll clean those burrs away. But the decapping pin when resizing will deal with any burrs in the actual hole itself - not to Camp Perry championship standards, but for everyday reloading, it's not a factor. If the burrs outside the flashhole interfere with primer seating then yes, deburr, but if not, not an issue. Burrs outside the flashole will almost never interfere with primer seating if you're using once fired brass, otherwise it would of interfered with the brass after 0 fireings, e.g. factory new ammo. The reason to deburr flash holes is to make the hole round again after removing the primer pocket crimp by swaging on a Dillon Super Swagger 600. The Super Swagger flattens the flashhole burr thereby closing up the flashhole. I use the Redding Univeral Tool with a built in stop and it works great on my $10 Harbour Freight Power Drill with the power adapter. Considering I have 5000 Wolf SRM Primers to use up with the brass cups that don't always go bang I need every advantage I can get...LOL |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I let my decapping pin on my sizing die do the deburring for me From what I have seen, the burrs are on the side of the primer hole i.e. peeled back and lining it like a crown. As a result, the decapping pin will just pass it by and never touch the burrs. If you ever use a primer pocket cleaner tool you'll clean those burrs away. But the decapping pin when resizing will deal with any burrs in the actual hole itself - not to Camp Perry championship standards, but for everyday reloading, it's not a factor. If the burrs outside the flashhole interfere with primer seating then yes, deburr, but if not, not an issue. Burrs outside the flashole will almost never interfere with primer seating if you're using once fired brass, otherwise it would of interfered with the brass after 0 fireings, e.g. factory new ammo. I think you are thinking of a different burr than what the "flash hole deburring tool” we are talking about is made to take out. The tool in question is made to take out burrs that are located on the inside exit of the primer hole that is not affected by a primer pocket cleaning tool which affects the outside exit of the primer hole. Here is a scan of two images from page 89 of Zediker’s book "Handloading for Competition”. The photo on the left shows the "crown-like” burr (red arrow). The right photo shows the effect of the "flash hole deburring tool” on the web after it takes out the burr and forms the chamfer (red arrow).  |
| I'd say the picture on the left is being quite conservative from the experiences I have had with my tool. Some commercial brass has some serious burrs in it requiring a good deal of force to eradicate. I read (and cannot source) a posting in a forum where a guy said he did some extensive testing and appreciated velocity gains post treatment. The individual was articulate and seemed to be genuine. Regardless, it adds another element of uniformity to my cases. |
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