Seating primers with CCI brass- PITA

[Luggernut]

Does anyone else notice that CCI brass seems to be the most difficult brass to start seating? It's not the the pockets are tight- but the opening has NO chamfer and doesn't allow for the tiniest bit of misalignment. I'm sure it's not my press being out of index because I have ZERO problems with Remington, Starline and Federal for example. You can actually see the chamfer in the R&P brass the best.

It's a little annoying because sometimes the primer gets caught on the pocket edge and throws off my rhythm.

Anyone else notice this?

My favorite brass for .45ACP is Starline and Federal overall. R&P seem to have crappy brass/cases.

 

[Mr.Revolverguy]

I have enough 45 brass and 40 brass right now that when picking mine up at the range I leave the Blazer brass. What a PITA it is. I have noticed the same exact thing.

 

[FieroCDSP]

I've never had any trouble at all. In fact, I prefer CCI to Winchester brass. Winchester puts a pretty good crimp on their pockets, and they seem to be a lot shallower than the CCI ones, maybe their primers are a different depth. I usually have to use a uniformer on the Winchesters just to get CCI500 primers to sink noticibly below flush, and there is certainly a lot more material removed from the Winchesters than the CCI's. The only complaint O can say about CCI's is that their pockets open up a bit between 6-8 medium loads. They still hold the primer, they just don't have as much resistance.

 

[Spartacus451]

Winchester outsourced their .45 brass for a while and it had a tight pocket with zero chamfer. I think it was made by S&B. I haven't had any problems with the R&P and they seemed to have a good chamfer on the pocket.

Go figure.

 

[bobotech]

I find S&B to be the worst.

Never had much of an issue with CCI.

 

[goon]

The issue might be CCI primers themselves. They are not always the most consistent.

 

[ReloaderFred]

I load it all (except A-Merc) and I'm just glad we're able to in our great country and that's it's available to us. I've been reading on some foreign forums about gun control in other countries and realize how good we've really got it.

Off subject, but that's how I feel.

Fred

 

[Luggernut]

For clarification- I use Winchester Large Pistol only. No CCI primers.

 

[wally]

In addition to the cursed WinNT and other small pistol primer in .45ACP cases on the market now, not to mention .45GAP abominations, I'm starting to see military type crimps in what appear to be new CCI and Federal cases in some of my range pickups. At least these are large pistol primers, but they do stop the presses.

--wally.

 

[whofan]

This is strange. CCI is among my favorites to seat a primer into (.45 ACP).

They just glide in and seat.

 

[Mr.Revolverguy]

I notice with Blazer brass and their primers I have to use extreme amount of pressure to seat them. To the point some times they look flat but they still go bang after fully loaded. I noticed that with blazer brass as well that all of it does not seem to be totally flat almost looks concaved.

 

[ReloaderFred]

When ATK purchased all the assets of Blount, including Speer, CCI, RCBS, etc., one of the things they looked at was making it cheaper to produce cartridge cases. They didn't like the aluminum cased Blazer line, and that was one of the first things they looked at. They found that they could produce brass by eliminating one of the normal steps in the process, thereby making it cheaper to produce brass cases. They found a way to punch the primer pocket at the same time as one of the other steps (can't remember which one at the moment). That's why the base looks concave, because of the way the primer pocket is now punched in that brass.

I've loaded an awful lot of that new brass in 357 Sig and .45 acp without any problems, but I don't prime brass on my progressive press, since I'm really fussy about that one aspect of reloading.

As I see it, I'm glad they found a way to do away with that infernal aluminum cased Blazer ammunition. That was one of the worst ideas to come out of corporate America in a long, long time. At least for reloaders. Every range I've been to is covered with that crappy stuff, since you can't pick it up with a magnet and no one wants to bend over the pick it up, so it lays there for years.

Just prime the CCI brass in a separate operation, or trade it to someone for brass you want, but in either case, it's good brass.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[Luggernut]

At least it's good to hear that some of you folks notice differences in brass as well. I get tired of hearing people say: "I just reload all my varieties of brass and they are all the same". No way are they the same.

I think I can interchange many kinds but I'll separate CCI brass and the others for more consistent reloading. Maybe I'll prime CCI brass with the hand primer. I guess I'm fussy like that too.

 

[The Bushmaster]

Luggernut...I just went into my Gun/reloading room and looked at a set of CCI cases that I have been loading for the last 2-3 years. They have a camfered primer pocket. I looked at some I just got a couple of months ago and the primer pockets are not camfered. I did notice that the newer case heads seem to be just ever so slightly concaved rather then flat like the older ones. I haven't tried to prime these newer cases yet, but I can see where this may be a slight problem. A quick run over a camfering tool may be in order here...

 

[Luggernut]

Bushmaster- yeah looks like I have the ones that are like your newer ones. Concaved case heads too. I noticed that Speers are similar. I think I will just separate the CCI brass and deprime and then hand prime separate from my LNL press. They seem to hand prime a little easier as you get a good feel from only doing one operation at a time.

 

[spencerhut]

The most prominent annoyances with using range pick up brass is that you will always have a variation in primer seating force/feel. To make this less of a pain in my posterior I keep the RCBS Primer Pocket Swagger installed on my Rock Chucker single stage, right next to my Pro2000. When I'm loading if I feel any resistance on primer seating I pull the case and run it through the swagger real quick. This has solved all my rough primer seating problems so far. After a while you end up with a batch of mixed head stamp brass that, for the most part, seat primers with a very similar feel.

Now if I could just keep my range pickups from getting mixed in with my already swagged cases. Nah, that will never happen.

 

[Luggernut]

Thanks for all the replies guys. I appreciate the sharing of your experiences.

 

[Noxx]

I should probably be embarrassed to admit this, but I have such a volume of .45 brass around the garage that I've never bothered to sort them by headstamp and notice the difference.

FWIW with Win LPP, I do notice that some require more force than others, but I haven't blown one up yet.

On a side note, I'm a big fan of One-Shot, I wonder if some of it doesn't get around to the primer pockets and make my life easier without my noticing. Hmmm.