Suggestions for depriming crimped brass

[JohnD13]

Do any of you reloaders have a sizing die that will reliably deprime a military case? I have about a hundred HXP .30-06 cases, and so far have broken two decapping rods in my Lee universal decapping die, which works great on every thing else, and three pins in my RCBS set. I've been reloading for a good number of years and I haven't met the likes of these Greek surplus rounds before, Instead of a circular crimp, these things look like they're punched in three places with a chisel. It might be less trouble to toss them in the scrap bucket, but I don't like to quit that easy.

 

[mike720]

Military? Are they berdan or boxer primed? Look in the primer pocket, you may find you are having to break metal to deprime.

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[jcreek]

My guess is you are trying to deprime berdan primed brass. Brass designed for berdan primers do not have a flash hole in the center. They have two or three around the outskirt of the primer pocket. Unlike boxer primers, Berdan primers do not have an anvil. The anvil is incorporated into the brass where the flash hole usually is. If you try to deprime berdan brass with a regular decapping pin you're trying to push the pin through a hole that isn't there. You need to get a special berdan depriming tool.

 

[JohnD13]

I'll cut one down and see what priming system it is, but these are marked as being from the 70's, wasn't the Berdan system gone by then?

Just cut one case open, and it's boxer primed. Took an old .30-06 Lee loader, remember those, and tried to deprime the base with it, bent the pin. I think these are heading for the scrap bin!

 

[noffsinger]

I'll cut one down and see what priming system it is, but these are marked as being from the 70's, wasn't the Berdan system gone by then?

Just cut one case open, and it's boxer primed. Took an old .30-06 Lee loader, remember those, and tried to deprime the base with it, bent the pin. I think these are heading for the scrap bin!

LEE universal de-capping die is what I use to de-cap all of my military brass. I have even accidentaly de-primed a few berdan cases with it.

 

[jcreek]

I'll cut one down and see what priming system it is, but these are marked as being from the 70's, wasn't the Berdan system gone by then?

Just cut one case open, and it's boxer primed. Took an old .30-06 Lee loader, remember those, and tried to deprime the base with it, bent the pin. I think these are heading for the scrap bin!

That's impressive. I've never seen boxer primer brass that resistant to depriming before. I'd do just that and scrap em. Better to just get scrap value out of them than keep breaking pins.

 

[JohnD13]

They are different, that's for sure. I have punched the primers out of Lake City brass, and a couple of other types that have the circular crimp on the primer with the Lee universal decapping die with no problems. These HXP cases have a crimp that is like three small square punches at 12, 4, and 8 o'clock positions around the primer. I'm wondering if theses could have been intended for automatic weapons?

If I used the Lee die on anything else it worked. The first one of these cases caused the rod to move right up through the collet. When I tightened it down, I started breaking the pins. Learn something new everyday I guess.

 

[duke7595]

If theses casings were a rare caliber I could understand you wanting to salvage them, but 30/06 are plentiful. I have heard in the case of rare calibers you can very carefully drill out
the berdan primer with a proper size bit, however, I have no knowledge of this process so take it at face value. Good luck.

 

[Mobuck]

Take a flashlight and look in the mouth of the case. If there's multiple tiny holes in the base, it's berdan.
I've resized thousands of military crimped primers using LEE sizing dies and broke maybe 2 decapping pins. With the LEE its nearly impossible to break the pin unless you're doing something wrong. The LEE locking collet should be tightened with the pin in the flashhole of a case to prevent misalignment.

 

[bk358]

Have run into the same cases,was told they are for full auto use-w- very hard primres once removed they swage or ream out easily.Only good news is Lee will replace the broken pins free.Lee was where the info came from bout 9 years ago.The case head was said to be harder than normal to withstand higher pressures caused by auto fire heat,anyway that's what my sometimers allows. mine were boxer primed.