"Once Fired" LC 308 Dirty, Primed, No Crimp???

P

PBearCO

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I just received 1000 pieces of LC brass from Monmouth Brass. Supposedly it's once-fired, unprocessed and dirty. It IS dirty.

http://monmouthreloading.com/product/lake-city-762/

Anyway, I've picked out about 10 cases from the top of the box and NONE have a crimp. It looks like they are all 05 stamped so far.

Can anyone clue in? The description at Monmouth Brass suggests ALL military brass has crimps that must be removed.

This is my first brass order from them. I previously ordered processed brass from TX Brassworks and liked that. I simply wanted to save 20 cents per piece doing the work myself this time, since I end up resizing and trimming anyway.
 
Never bought from them but I have from Weidners. They sell primed 7.62 LC brass that was from pulls. IIRC it's only about $120 for 500.
 
Maybe I don't know what a crimp looks like. Maybe they really are crimped. I bought a Hornady Primer Pocket Reamer to remove the crimps but it doesn't seem necessary.

I have a primer pocket uniformer, which I understand is a bear to use to remove crimps. It's easy with this brass. EASY! And I don't think the uniformer (large rifle) is even touching the brass. Seems loose.

I haven't tried seating a primer yet.

20150813_211725.jpg
 
Those are crimped

The crimp can be either a halo shaped indentation around the primer pocket (those above), or, a 3 point (rather than continuous) version. I prefer the countersink drill-bit method to ream the primer crimp away.

Your bigger issue will be sizing those. 7.62 is only used in machine guns today, and tend to be puffed out in the loose machine gun chambers making them notoriously difficult to re-size. I like to deprime with a decapper die, and wash well in hot dish soap. Then resize in steps or stages. See the thread below, my post #8 for tips.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=565931
 
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Thanks. So those DO have a crimp? All six are from the same box. I just deprimed three of them.

I use a Lee Decapping Die to remove the primers, then clean with rotary and steel pins. I then size. As they are now, they mostly go in a Wilson gauge.
 
I use a Lee decapper die, too. It never touches the brass; only the pin pushes out the primer. With the primer out, I wash them and they dry better with the primers out. That is one less step to be done with your sizing die. I also remove the expander ball assembly and only size the outside of the case the first time through (with an adequate film of grease type lubricant).
 
So, those cases pictured do have crimps? I just assumed the crimp would be more substantial since so many people talk about it and I got paranoid that I might have very used brass which I don't want for M1A reloads.
 
That is the good thing about 7.62 once fired. If they have the crimped in primers, then they really are once fired. After the processing, they clean-up well and will work great for your semi-auto. You will get a few reloads out of them.
 
Thanks, all!

Metal God, you aren't old until you can no longer reach the floor. In this culture, we have 32-yo grandmothers... DOH.
 
This is Jeff from Monmouth Reloading. I happened to come across this thread, and thought I'd chime in.

Having processed many many pieces of LC 762 brass, the amount of swage required for different lots of brass varies quite a bit. Some require absolutely no swaging at all, and will accept a new primer without a struggle. Some are tight, and while they'll likely accept a primer, it should probably be swaged. And lastly there are those cases that must be swaged. Depending on what equipment or tools you have at your disposal, it is likely going to be faster to swage them all. Alternatively, you could purchase a go/no go swage gauge to aid in quickly identifying the cases which do or do not need to be swaged.

Our product descriptions state the brass will need to be swaged, as it's an industry standard to crimp LC 762 when manufactured.

Processing mil brass isn't so bad if you have a heavy, rigid bench, and enough lube. I had a local customer who convinced himself it was unable to be processed, and he had actually broken his bench trying to process it. I made a courtesy call over to his reloading room to find a tiny little bench, with a top constructed from 1 sheet if 1/2 plywood. The plywood had roughly a 8" overhang. With the amount of force required to resize military brass, the overhang had enough spring, it cracked.

Generally speaking, LC 762 requires a bit more force to resize, but not so much that you cannot single handedly cycle your press.

Jeff
www.monmouthreloading.com
 
Here is the way I process dirty LC brass in 5.56. I take the dirty brass and run them through a tumbler using walnut. I then deprime the brass, swage it and run it through my ultrasonic, rinse, dry and start the priming process and reloading.

During the steps of depriming, swaging, priming, and loading the powder and the bullets I examine each round closely for quality assurance.
 
Yep those in the pic look to be crimped; that ring imprinted around the primer pocket mouth. A lot of reloaders over think (over react?) the simple task of removing a crimp from a primer pocket. Some will spend $$$ to make a simple operation easier (which takes me just 1/2 second). I have used a simple countersink, 60 degree, for many years and have never had any problems with removing too much or not enough metal and never a problem with loose pockets or seating a new primer. I have used mil spec. 7.62 NATO, 5.56, 30-06, 45 ACP and 9mm no problemo...
 
For removing milsurp crimp I've been using my Lee deburring tool. Seems to work nicely. The primer is somewhat unsupported over a very small portion of its upper circumference, but no worse than that.
 
You were old when you had the grand boys da. Congratulations. Asked my brother what it was like being a geezer when he turned 50. He said some very rude things about sex and travel. I was 48 at the time. snicker.
1280 x 720 pixels is too big. Still crimped and your swager will do nicely.
Always nice to see a retailer. The guy's bench have a particle board top? My cheapo bench has a 1" and a bit thick particle board top. Busted on the very first use. Mild steel is your friend.
 
You will definitely know if they are crimped when you try to seat a new primer.
They look crimped to me. I just finished de-crimping 500 of them.

I have found the simplest was is to use the small, sharp, blade of my Swiss Army knife to remove most of it.

Use a hand reamer ( I have CH4D and Lyman ) to remove the rest.
Finish up with the uniformer tool. Don't try to remove crimp with uniformer, it's not made to cut that way...use the reamer first.

CH4D makes a neat swaging tool that mounts in your press and does a pretty good job. I still give pockets a few turns with the reamer and use the uniformer on them but it does make it a bit faster.

Gary
PS...to resize , especially if fired from an automatic weapon, use a big heavy press, and a GOOD lubricant and don't be shy applying it, partial size the first time, screw down die to contact shell holder and fully size ...then screw the die down until it contacts the shell holder and screw it down another 1/4 turn and size for the third time, On the third sizing I would size, turn the shell 180 degrees and run it back in again....After all that they would chamber in a bolt action. I almost stuck the first one, thought I was going to rip the rim off...that's when I started sizing in steps. Be careful.
Gary
 
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