My brass seems to be too soft

[WrzWaldo]

i am a little leary using case lube in the inside of the necks, but i do have some mica and case neck brushes. is mica ok to use on the inside of the necks. my understanding is it will not contaminate the powder or primers.

I use graphite powder.

also i have polished the expander ball with 600 sand paper and then finished with 2000 grit.

How much material did you remove from the ball during polishing? 600 grit seems like it would remove a bunch if you were not careful, you could have bumped your neck tension up a bunch. What does the expander ball measure out to?

[Singleshot]

FT: I have been using powdered graphite for years on the inside of the case necks before I re-size them and it has never caused a problem with powder ignition. I apply it with one of those three brush sets in a small tray designed for this task. Powdered graphite is very messy though, particularly if you are not paying attention and knock the whole apparatus over on yourself and the floor . I have never stretched a case enough with insufficient neck lube to cause it to buckle in the seating die. It sounds like you have an oversized expander ball or a defective batch of brass.

[jo191145]

i am a little leary using case lube in the inside of the necks, but i do have some mica and case neck brushes. is mica ok to use on the inside of the necks. my understanding is it will not contaminate the powder or primers. also i have polished the expander ball with 600 sand paper and then finished with 2000 grit.

The mica (should) work better than nothing but....... Mine went in the trash pretty quickly. Terrible results with the little bit that came with my Forster dry lube kit. Some terrible screeching noises and I thought I was gonna pull the necks right off a few. Luckily I purchased some graphite in the same order so I just dumped the mica without bothering to figure out why it was'nt working. Graphite is the only way to go.
FWIW talcum powder works better than the mica I had. Not recommending it, just a fact.

You can, and I have used graphite on the neck interiors and lube on the outside. I too hate the sticky lube on the inside. Even with tumbling occasionally I'll see powder sticking to the neck.

Next order, get graphite and a shoulder bump neck sizing die. No sticky lubes ever required again unless your switching to a tighter chamber.

[futuretrades]

the expander ball, after polishing measures .203. the vmax bullets check out at .204. one thousands neck tension on the bullet. that is what it should be, isn't it?

The inside of the necks are probably scratched and not letting the bullets slide into the neck. Same as serrating the handle on a ratchet.

i have looked at the cases and they look a little rough in the inside of the neck, and i notice some of the brass needs more pressure to pull die out of the case necks. but when i seat the bullets, they all seem to go in without a lot of pressure. and the brass seems to crush without a lot of pressure

[acloco]

Unfortunately, you are at the point, that you should probably, put this brass in the recycler bin.

I do not have a problem with too much lube in the necks, if you only touch the lube with one finger (enough to put a glaze on the finger tip, but NO excess) and apply to a brush...you are good to go.

The problem CAN happen though...if you have powder sticking to the inside of the case necks. If so, you are using too much lube on the inside of the case neck. Literally, I probably size 1000-1500 cases before needing to lube the brush again.

Takes very little pressure to crush a case, because you are just over the top of the curve of most reloading press' maximum torque and the arm of the press is at the position to allow you to provide maximum pressure from your "Arnold Schwartzen" sized forearms, biceps, & back muscles. (not sure how the arnold info jumped off the keyboard!!)

[acloco]

the expander ball, after polishing measures .203. the vmax bullets check out at .204. one thousands neck tension on the bullet. that is what it should be, isn't it?

Your math is correct, but don't forget to add 0.001" for the springback of the soft metal - brass.

If the insides of the case necks are rough, you will continue to have problems.

[skipper]

I don't use lube on the inside of my case necks. I don't use an expander ball either. I think you should throw the expander ball away. As long as you have enough chamfer to keep the cases from stripping off jacket material during seating, you should be O.K.

[acloco]

Skipper - you are necksizing though...correct?

[skipper]

Yes, I neck size only.

[futuretrades]

its me again. last nite i resized some more win new brass, trimmed and chamfored in and out. maybe i did this backwards, but i used the graphite before seating the bullets. i loaded 36 rounds, with nary a problem. do any of you think i may have screwed up by using the graphite just before seating the bullets, instead of before resizing. i am new to lubing the necks when reloading. heard about it but never, until now, tried it. guess i didn't think about using when resizing anyway thanks for the suggestion on lubing the necks, it worked even if i did it wrong.

[WHISTLEPIG]

There you go! Yes you do need to lube the neck before resizing. Glad you figured it out. Now go shoot a bunch.

[glenn asher]

Mica will work, but not particularly well, at least with MY equipment. I usually take the lubed case, prior to resizing, and about every fifth case or so, take the mouth of the case and put it on the lube pad (I like the old lube pads, I just can't seem to get the right amount of spray lube on the cases) with a little thumb pressure. It's barely noticeable, when pulling the expander out of the case, but it helps a lot. I usually tumble cases after resizing, to knock the lube off the cases (about an hour in my old Thumbler's Model B) and haven't had any problems yet.

[Bad Dad]

I'll bet that you have the seating die down too far and it's trying to crip the necks of your brass. you don't need any crip on 204 back the seating die out a couple of turns so that the crip isn't even close to the case neck. You probably have it set just right for most of your cases then you get one that is just a little long and you crunch it.
g-

[Rugerdogdog]

FWIW, I would try the case mouth brush, I think it was acloco's idea, maybe Whistlepig. I have found that with the 204 I get along fine without touching the inside of the case mouth. However, with the 270 it is extremely difficult to pull the brass back over the expander unless I run the brush in there a few times. No need for lube though. I've tried it both ways and there seems to be no difference so I skip the lube to avoid any chance of ignition problems.
That being said, I've never crushed a case because of this, only because of the die being too deep like Skip said originally.
If you are sure you have the die set correctly then I'm with Glenn, I would give up on that brass. Depending where you bought it they may replace it to keep you Mr. Happy Customer.

[remy3424]

I had the exact same experience with new WW brass and 32 gr. Vmax bullets. I made sure I gave the brass a good inside chamfering and brushed them with mica and it seemed to help a little. To me, it just seemed like the necks were too tight(I never measured any in the batch). This happened with both a RCBS seater and a Lee dead lenght seater. Sometimes it really pushed the neck down and othertimes only a slight buldge would appear. I could usually tell by "feel" when there was a problem. I also lost around 30 pieces of brass in the 300 I loaded. No issues in once fired cases. If it was a neck tension issue, that could be why of the 15 or so groups I shot most were 2" only 1 at a half inch and that happened to be Varget. I guess I need try those loads again in once fired brass and hopefully find a finer Hogdens Extreme powder that will group. I haven't played with it since loading the balance with Varget. On the dawg shoot I was loading for, the 204 didn't get out much due to high winds that day.