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Posted: 4/13/2012 10:27:32 PM EDT
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I haven't needed to reload for rifle in a while, in part because I have been shooting rimfire and in part because I loaded a ton of rifle last time around.
I set up my Dillon 550 for 223 and I converted my Giraud trimmer over to 223. I put a bunch of miscellaneous dies in my new Redding T-7 press, one of which was a Hornady New Dimension FL dies in 223. I set up the T-7 and die for the proper headspace using my Hornady/Stoney Point gage. I sized a batch of a few hundred brass on the T-7 turret - half was mine, half was range finds. Then I noticed a few strange things. The Hornady FL sizing die was taking a shaving of brass off the bottom of a bunch of the cases, not all of them but a bunch. I checked the sized cases for concentricity using my NECO gage and they were just fine, ranging from one to three thousandths runout at the middle of the case. I have never before had a die shave brass of the base of a case. It happened to cases lubed with Dillon spray lube and on cases lubed with Imperial. What gives? The radius at the mouth of the case is fairly small but not sharp. Is the shell holder misaligned with the die? Is there not enough "float" between the shell holder and the die? Another strange thing is the decapping rod on the Hornady New Dimension die. I do not like it at all and would never buy another like it. The stem is adjustable for height, like all other die brands, except it is held in place using the friction of a collet. I cannot get it tight enough to stay in place. If you have to deprime a case with a heavily crimped primer, the stem moves up rather than punching out the spent primer. The other thing that happened was, right out of the box, the pin broke off the stem. It could have been a head ache, as in stopped me cold, but luckily I had a spare. I am very glad I had that spare but now I need to order a few spares. By the way, I found another, previously broken decapper in the box. I guess I used this die before and broke one then, too. This design rots! This is my first use of a non-Redding sizing die. Am I just missing some "tricks of the trade" associated with Hornady dies? If so, let me know. Otherwise, it's Redding dies for me from now on! Enjoy, guys! P.S. - The T-7 is an excellent press. It is rock solid. I even like the priming system it has. I still like my Acculab VIC-123 electronic scale. Both these items were worthy investments. So was the Dillon 550B (which paid for itself in the first month of use over a decade ago). |
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Quoted: Another strange thing is the decapping rod on the Hornady New Dimension die. I do not like it at all and would never buy another like it. The stem is adjustable for height, like all other die brands, except it is held in place using the friction of a collet. I cannot get it tight enough to stay in place. If you have to deprime a case with a heavily crimped primer, the stem moves up rather than punching out the spent primer. The other thing that happened was, right out of the box, the pin broke off the stem. It could have been a head ache, as in stopped me cold, but luckily I had a spare. I am very glad I had that spare but now I need to order a few spares. By the way, I found another, previously broken decapper in the box. I guess I used this die before and broke one then, too. This design rots! You have an older Hornady sizer die, since you're placing an order for spare pins order the zip spindle conversion for your die. http://www.midwayusa.com/product/970340/hornady-custom-grade-new-dimension-die-zip-spindle-kit |
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Another strange thing is the decapping rod on the Hornady New Dimension die. I do not like it at all and would never buy another like it. The stem is adjustable for height, like all other die brands, except it is held in place using the friction of a collet. I cannot get it tight enough to stay in place. If you have to deprime a case with a heavily crimped primer, the stem moves up rather than punching out the spent primer. The other thing that happened was, right out of the box, the pin broke off the stem. It could have been a head ache, as in stopped me cold, but luckily I had a spare. I am very glad I had that spare but now I need to order a few spares. By the way, I found another, previously broken decapper in the box. I guess I used this die before and broke one then, too. This design rots! You have an older Hornady sizer die, since you're placing an order for spare pins order the zip spindle conversion for your die. http://www.midwayusa.com/product/970340/hornady-custom-grade-new-dimension-die-zip-spindle-kit i agree all my dies have the zip spindle and i have no problems with them not pushing out a primer. and i have never broke a pin on my hornady dies now lee that is another story. as far as the shaving goes i have no help for you there. |
 These dies are from 1997, so the old style. After sizing thousands of crimped cases over 10 years, my decapping pin gave up. I called Hornady, talked to the nice lady, and got the new zip spindle sent for free. The pic is with the new zip spindle installed, but before I added the micrometer bullet seater. I have had no problems with the new zip spindle, sizes and deprimes all cases with ease using FA/Dillon spray lube. The only time I have shaved a case sizing it was with my Hornady 308 sizing die. The cases were once fired LC that I picked up at the range. I assumed they were fired from an oversized chamber and recycled them. Do you know if the shaved cases were fired from your rifle? If they were pickups, I would think it's just the brass gods frowning down on you.  There are posters here that say they leave bad/worn out cases lay at the range. Maybe you came by after one of these guys left the range. |
| My forster sizing die shaves brass at the base too sometimes. I assumed it was from hot NATO rounds, or possibly a machine gun that fires open bolt. decapping Military crimped primers is hard on decapping pins and I do not recommend forster for this. I decap with a lee universal then size with my Forster. I have been using a friend's Giraud it is nice. My current set up makes me handle brass 3 times though. I would be nice to handle it only once, so I am thinking of getting a tool head for my dillon 550 to decap, size, and trim with the dillon trimmer. The dillon trimmer will also work on a single stage or turret press but I don't think it will work on a Forster Co-ax. |
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If you're shaving brass, the first thing to do is to look closley in the die to see if there's a build-up of brass in the base of the die.
If there is, use a pocket knife to scrape it off, and polish with anold bore brush with some steel wool and some bore cleaner in a drill. If not, check to make sure that the die is smooth inside. Dirty or dusty brass can do some strange things to dies. 'Borg |
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Do you know if the shaved cases were fired from your rifle? Some of the cases that shaved were mine (once fired Winchester commercial), some were once fired military brass (LC 09) and there was a bunch of other stuff mixed in with the LC. It was a mixed bag but all types shaved some brass. The cases I ran through my Redding Type S FL sizer did not shave brass, at all. I tried this Hornady sizer because I'd read they performed very well (straight and true FL sizing). Later today, I'll make some measurements of runout produced by my Redding and compare that to the Hornady. |
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I decap with a lee universal then size with my Forster. Doh! I have a Lyman universal decapper. I'll try that. Here's another tid bit on a slightly different topic. I found about 50 pieces of once fired brass with a headstamp of "HP 223 5.56". The primer is crimped in three discete spots, not the full perimeter crimp that I am used to seeing. This is nice-looking brass but when I went to decap it, it seems it has a small flash hole, as the decapping pin gets wedged in there and pulls out of the die's decapping stem. I guess this means it is headed to the trash can. What a shame. Who would do something so stupid (make it non-reloadable despite designing for Boxer primers) and why? |
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Hornady FL sizing dies are pretty much small base dies since they are very close to the lower sizing limit, they do shave brass when sizing some cases that are swelled from hot loads.
I stopped using a Hornady Comp. FL bushing die for this reason, Hornady honed it out so it stopped shaving brass but it still sized the base smaller than I liked which was hard on the brass so I replaced it with a Redding Type "S" FL die and have been using that for about 4 years now with no problems. EWP ETA: Hornady will hone it for free to fix the brass shaving, just give them a call. |
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I decap with a lee universal then size with my Forster. Doh! I have a Lyman universal decapper. I'll try that. Here's another tid bit on a slightly different topic. I found about 50 pieces of once fired brass with a headstamp of "HP 223 5.56". The primer is crimped in three discete spots, not the full perimeter crimp that I am used to seeing. This is nice-looking brass but when I went to decap it, it seems it has a small flash hole, as the decapping pin gets wedged in there and pulls out of the die's decapping stem. I guess this means it is headed to the trash can. What a shame. Who would do something so stupid (make it non-reloadable despite designing for Boxer primers) and why? I'm assuming this is some form of military brass (I've seen 7.62x51 with that style crimp), and the manufacturer expected it to lay on the battlefield of be swept off a rifle range. Being designed to hold Boxer primers is a manufacturing process, and doesn't imply they had reloading in mind when they produced it. |
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Quoted: Quoted: I decap with a lee universal then size with my Forster. Doh! I have a Lyman universal decapper. I'll try that. Here's another tid bit on a slightly different topic. I found about 50 pieces of once fired brass with a headstamp of "HP 223 5.56". The primer is crimped in three discete spots, not the full perimeter crimp that I am used to seeing. This is nice-looking brass but when I went to decap it, it seems it has a small flash hole, as the decapping pin gets wedged in there and pulls out of the die's decapping stem. I guess this means it is headed to the trash can. What a shame. Who would do something so stupid (make it non-reloadable despite designing for Boxer primers) and why? What I have done in the past with some tight flashole brass is use a Lee universal decapper. The secret is to lube the decapping pin with case lube. I use Imperial for this. I lubed every third case. Once this is done, case will decap normally next time.
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I suppose I might be able to use my flash hole deburring tool to open the flash hole, too. I think I should just can them. It's only about 50 pieces, is a major PITA (relative to their low value) and I have a lot of other brass.
Honestly, though, why would the designer do such a dumb thing. Even if they expect their brass to lay on a battlefield, at the very least, they had to specify non-standard tooling to make their cases. They had to have non-standard tooling to do this crimp, too, which makes cutting the crimp off more difficult. What the heck were they thinking? Does anyone know who makes this HP 223 5.56 brass? |
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Hornady FL sizing dies are pretty much small base dies since they are very close to the lower sizing limit, they do shave brass when sizing some cases that are swelled from hot loads. I stopped using a Hornady Comp. FL bushing die for this reason, Hornady honed it out so it stopped shaving brass but it still sized the base smaller than I liked which was hard on the brass so I replaced it with a Redding Type "S" FL die and have been using that for about 4 years now with no problems. EWP ETA: Hornady will hone it for free to fix the brass shaving, just give them a call. After looking over my supply of 223 brass, I've decided this "small base" die is a good thing. Several years ago I ordered a huge lot of once fired commercial (non-military) brass. What I received was a shipment of once fired, mixed headstamp military brass*. Given the prospect that at least some of this mixed bag may have been in a sloppy machine gun chamber, I think I'll clean it all and size it down using this die. See, it's a good thing. Now, all I need to do is clean, size, trim and and decrimp the stuff. Just thinking about it makes my fingers hurt. * The supplier said to keep the brass and credited my account for the full amount. Gun guys are great!, aren't they? After hearing that offer, I ordered a batch of commercial brass while still on the phone. |
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