SmallCaliberCentral

When you are reloading fired brass do you clean your primer pocket with the pocket primer uniform bit or wire brush ?

Re-uniform....you'll clean out the pocket, and remove any minute amount of brass that may have flowed during firing. I do it every time I reload the case. If you don't all your primers will be seated at slightly varying depths over time due to different pocket depths, and this will affect consistency; not alot mind you, but some, and I need all the help I can muster.

I have always used the pocket primer tool but I was doing it today and was pondering the thought of if you could take to much out and shorten the life of the brass . I have some brass that I have reloaded 5-6 times and was shooting last year and I had some random very suspect accuracy and I was wondering if some of the brass was just to old and causing the poor accuracy ?

Mark, don't fret about taking too much brass out of the pocket when uniforming. I've got brass uniformed that way that has been reloaded since 1976, and it's still going strong as long as I keep it annealed. (It's old R-P 222 Rem Mag brass formed to 223 years ago.)

If accuracy is a concern, it may be because of varying neck tension. Anneal it, and it will come back to life with proper neck tension.

Rick in Oregon wrote:Mark, don't fret about taking too much brass out of the pocket when uniforming. I've got brass uniformed that way that has been reloaded since 1976, and it's still going strong as long as I keep it annealed. (It's old R-P 222 Rem Mag brass formed to 223 years ago.)

If accuracy is a concern, it may be because of varying neck tension. Anneal it, and it will come back to life with proper neck tension.

Rick,

How many times do you typically reload / shoot your brass before Annealing it to bring it back?
(I'm loading 204 Ruger)

thanks

Do you anneal your brass after or before resizing them ?

Annealing: You'll know when it's time to anneal. It's when your expander ball feels little or no resistence as it's drawn back out of the case when resizing, eithr F/L or neck sizing. If I feel even one case in my lot of 100 starting to give that 'feeling', it's time to anneal the lot. That characteristic is felt when there's no "springback" of the case neck due to working the brass. It can also split at this stage from hardening if not attended to.

I usually anneal either when I get the above going on, or after about six firings, as after that much use, it's pretty much time to get it done. HTH

Thanks Rick I knew you would answer my ?

One suggestion for when you start to anneal your brass, would be to buy an annealing tip for your propane torch. When I first started, I didn't have said tip, and I screwed up some brass. Not a big deal for me, as I had more 223 brass than I knew what to do with, so I practiced on this brass.
RIO turned me on to The Woodchuck Den, Tod Kindler, as a source for availability of the annealing tip. That is where I bought mine from. HTH

I'll add too that the tip Todd K sells works very well. I've used it on all of my 6mm brass, next up is the 204 cases followed by the 20 vt cases after that. To practice, grab some old brass off the range before starting on the good stuff.

One more question after you anneal your brass how often does it need annealed again after your first time ?

majcl5 wrote:One more question after you anneal your brass how often does it need annealed again after your first time ?

The same drill applies.....when you either get no 'spring-back' when neck sizing (lack of bullet neck tension), or if you encounter a split neck. All this depends on how the brass has been work hardened; there's no hard-set rule, but figure you probably need to anneal after about 6-8 reloading cycles in most cases. HTH

You can always get a answer here I had never even heard of annealing before this thanks for all the help guys , Time for all our reloading to start to get ready for rat shooting time