Author Topic: FYI- Primers  (Read 491 times)

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Offline carbineman

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FYI- Primers
« on: May 15, 2010, 01:06:23 PM »
Sometime back I did some dealing and received a few primed brass. Being that they were 7.62x39mm and were new, my bullets would seat in the brass but they had little neck tension holding them in. A .310 diameter bullet needs the .3065 expander ball used in the sizing die so a .310 diameter bullet will seat and hold properly.

After resizing and punching out the new primers in the brass, I proceeded to reseat them in some brass I had marked with a sharpie marker so as to designate they were different than the rest. I loaded 10 rounds like this and fired 5 of them them in a slow sequence in my mini-thirty. Examined the cases and nothing seemed a problem so I rapid fired the 5 remaining with no problems either. Seems you can actually use these primers if needed. Don't know why you would, but it is possible.

I know I could have tried resizing in various other ways, but I wanted to try that experiment. The primers appeared to be CCI.

I still wonder why that larger expander ball is included with the Lee dieset. I think I'm going to polish mine down so as to be able to use a .308 bullet if necessary.





Offline mrbigtexan

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Re: FYI- Primers
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2010, 02:02:45 PM »
my die set came with both expander balls

Offline carbineman

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Re: FYI- Primers
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2010, 07:02:38 PM »
my die set came with both expander balls
If yours is a Lee dieset like mine, one of those expander balls is not really good for anything that I can see unless it would work with .311 or .312 diameter bullets. Only the one that is .3065 will work with .310 diameter bullets, the other is a larger diameter expander.

Offline Dand

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Re: FYI- Primers
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2010, 11:41:09 PM »
I thought the 2 expanders w the Lee dies were so you could load .308 or .311 bullets depending on your bore or preference.

I have loaded mostly .308 bullets with my Lee dies.  Its been so long now I don't recall for sure.

Also, I don't recall, could you remove the decap pin then size the cases without removing primers?  I've done it with my RCBS and Lyman dies.

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Offline carbineman

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Re: FYI- Primers
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2010, 04:06:39 PM »
I thought the 2 expanders w the Lee dies were so you could load .308 or .311 bullets depending on your bore or preference.Not with mine. The smallest expander sizes the neck to .3065 or .307 that works with the .310 diameter bullet. The other expander is bigger and if used a .310 diameter bullet is sloppy in the case neck.

I have loaded mostly .308 bullets with my Lee dies.  Its been so long now I don't recall for sure.

Also, I don't recall, could you remove the decap pin then size the cases without removing primers? The decapper pin is a needle bearing from what I can tell, and is pressed in fairly well. I've done it with my RCBS and Lyman dies.