How do you guys deprime your military brass

[andrewjs18]

With a new AR build in the works, I'm going to start reloading .223/5.56 brass. I got thousands of rds of brass that needs to be deprimed and tumbled, but I keep breaking the damn Lee manual decapper and at $5 per decapper it ain't a fun thing to do. The only good thing is, Lee replaces any broken decapper, but still...I'd rather finish all my brass with 1 decapper than get a free replacement.

[fingers80002]

I had some 9mm milsurp brass, my sizer/decapper die worked fine. had to remove the crimp, but everything worked.

[Xringshooter]

I deprime just like I do any other round. I use a Lyman press and dies. I go slow and steady and the primer pops right out. I then run the military brass through a swager to take the crimp off and reform the primer pocket. I haven't had any problems and I've resized military 5.56, 9mm, and 45acp. Just make sure that the rifle brass is lubed correctly and when the decapper hits the primer just keep a nice even pressure, don't try to slam it out.

Oops, just reread the question, using a manual decapper may be the problem, you're smacking it with something and if the decapping pin hasn't been hardened correctly or the decapper isn't correctly vertical, it could snap it because the primers are in there pretty good. I wouldn't think that a crimped primer would do that though, yes it takes a bit more to get it out, but if it's routinely breaking pins somethings definitely wrong.

[762xIan]

I got thousands of rds of brass that needs to be deprimed and tumbled, but I keep breaking the damn Lee manual decapper

All I can say is wow, Lee has one of the best/strongest de-capping pins around in my opinion. I use the generic dedicated Lee de-capping die myself, deprimed thousands of rounds with it including lots of military brass with hard to remove primers.

No idea on a fix, everying is OK with your press? Everything tight and nothing bent? How about your technique? Are you using steady even pressure until the primer pops out, maybe to fast and hard on the handle?

I am about out of ideas....anybody else?

[rwilson452]

Yep I got a Lee universal de-capping die. I don't think you will break it. used properly of course. Watch out for those belden primers. I seem to recall the universal de-capping die sells for 10-12 bucks. Good investment.

What brass are you trying to de-cap?

[Steve in PA]

The regular RCBS die works fine for me. I've deprimed tons of military brass with crimped primers.

[mauser]

If you're talking about this tool, (and I think you are), it shouldn't break:


My dad showed me one of those tools many years ago. I promptly made one of my own. I used a piece of drill rod and an RCBS decapping pin, it looks like this:


Between us we've punched out a metric shitload of crimped primers and neither tool has failed.
You shouldn't be breaking it on crimped Boxer primed brass, there's something wrong.
The only decapping pin I've ever broken was in a Lee RGB sizing/decapping die, and that was because there were a bunch of Berdan primed brass in the lot I was processing. I thought I had them all picked out but I missed quite a few.
When the pin broke it stuck in the last case I sized. When I looked at it I saw that it broke on a Berdan primed case. I looked through the brass I had done and found more than a dozen that the pin punched a hole in and pushed the primers out. I was impressed that it didn't break sooner.
That would be my first guess as to what your problem is, Berdan.
A lot of people aren't aware that there are different types of primers, or what the differences are. Here's a cutaway view of 3 cases, 2 are Berdan primed, the one on the right is Boxer:

With a small flashlight or a bore light you should be able to see into the cartridges and sort them accordingly.

If the pins are breaking on Boxer primed brass there's another problem and we'll need more information about your technique or other circumstances to help you figure it out.

[shooter357]

The only problem I had with my RCBS dies was that the locking screws were coming loose and breaking the pin. Other than that I have removed thousands of primers from crimped brass without fail.

[andrewjs18]

I am talking about the decapper tool from Lee:
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpag...eitemid=636747

I've never broken 1 on standard handgun brass (knocked out thousands of primers now), but I've broken at least 1 on .223 brass that's crimped in.

Maybe the best option is to use the decapper die that comes with the die set. I'll give it a try!

[topshooter]

Just sell it. and use the money to buy some of the fully processed brass from GSS Competition. http://www.gsscompetition.com/ there brass is all ready to load and is better then new brass. It saves hours doing the processing and the price isnt bad for what you get concidering how much work is done for you.