Diagnostic help please. De-capping issue.

[Demi-human]

I have the Lee Collator and just the tubes that came with the press. So I taped the collator to the large tube, covered the three remaining drop ports and place it right on the press. I can shake with one hand and work the lever with the other. Alternating to avoid fatigue. A thousand 45 Auto is comfortable in a day.
I deemed the smaller tube tube too thin to hold the collator and .223 brass. But as it was I could keep up fine. I use more pistol brass and leave it set that way.
A small vibrating motor would probably work tii ok move the cases. But I am already there, may as well use both hands!

 

[tightgroup tiger]

I am using 9mm range brass so some of it is mine (S+B primers) and the rest is who knows.
Interesting that CCIs seem to be a problem. Has any one else tied the problem to CCI primers?
Since I can't get S+B primers anymore I started buying CCIs, may need to rethink that....

If you are de-priming on your LNL-AP with a spring loaded depriming die you may not have a problem. If you are using a fixed pin die you will have trouble with CCIs sticking on the pin unless you really work the pin over. That really helps but I never got the problem to stop completely.

As far as falling apart goes, my LNL-AP seems to deal with punching them out, My Lee presses not so well.

 

[packetloss]

One thing that can hang up a primer is just a little corrosion. I had a problem with primers sticking in some range brass. They would not let go. One actually stretched out below the case head, like a bubble. The brass was dry when I picked it up, but had apparently laid on the ground long enough to get damp (overnight). The primer corroded to the pocket on several of the cases. There was evidence of corrosion on all of the punched primers. Just thought I'd mention...

I believe this is the issue. I've encountered this issue with outdoor range pickup brass (some had probably been sitting outdoors for years). About 1 in 25 won't deprime on the first shot. This was with a Dillon spring loaded die and also with a Lee Universal Deprimer. What I started doing was first wet tumble all range pickup cases without pins for about 2 hours. Then lube and run them through sizing/depriming (I gave up on the universal deprimer as it didn't solve the issue) and I look closely at the primer chute to see if a primer pops off. If I don't see one, I double or triple hit it till I see the primer pop out. This solved the issue for about 95% of them (a few still seem to make it through and I find those after I run them through the tumbler with steel pins). In almost all cases where I double or triple hit it, I do see the primer essentially fall apart. I'm fairly certain that some of the primers are corroded and stuck in there a bit more. It's not unique to any one primer or headstamp. Just makes my initial cleanup of outdoor range pickup a bit more time intensive.

 

[Thomas Mayberry]

SC_Dave I am so glad that you posted about this issue, it was very timely for me. I recently got a Dillon 550C and used my RCBS dies to load with. I also encountered a failure to decap which in 40 years of reloading I had never experienced. About 10% rate mostly involving Blazer brass (mixed range brass). The solution had me scratching my head.

Thanks to the information given by the other posters and you I put an angle on the tip of my decap pin, problem solved!

 

[BiknSwans]

I finally had success today. I ground off material from the pin tip to basically move the point of the pin from the middle to the outside. Sort of like a pointed chisel. I smoothed off the surfaces with a fine stone, and was very pleased after decapping 150 cases with no issues.
A friend offered me a Dillon .40 S&W decapper/sizing die which I think would have worked. I'm loading 9mm and didn't want to size in the first die station, so the .40 die should have decapped, but not sized the 9mm cases.