Star line brass

M

Micro man

New member
Bought a couple of bags of new Starline brass several months ago and as a treat decided to make up some 38 special reloads with them today. I was using my Lee Turret press to prime them and had difficulty seating the primer in 2 of the first 20 I reloaded. The primers are definitely too high for safe use and I am wondering if there is a safe way to deprime these 2 pieces of brass for reuse.

I have not had this problem in the past since I have always used fired brass before. Any ideas would be appreciated .

Micro man
 
You can decap them in the press. Just go slowly and wear hearing and eye protection, both, in case of an ignition.

Afterward, check the cases for gouging in the primer pocket. I've never had an issue with Starline brass so this surprises me. You can always use a primer pocket profile reamer or a primer pocket swager, if you have one, to open them up a bit.

If your primers are foreign made (Wolf, Tulammo, S&B) the ones I've had tend to function very well, but their cups have some burrs and they are a tight fit. I find Federal are easy to seat, but YMMV.
 
slowly and carefully decap them in your press. They need a sharp hit to detonate them. Once decapped soak them in water with a little dish soap and cut them in half with a pair of snips.
 
I strongly recommend you DO NOT TRY TO CUT THEM IN HALF! We've had folks soak primers in everything from kerosene to penetrating oil to water that still went off and functioned fine after soaking for two weeks. It depends on the primer maker and how they sealed it, but there is no known soak yet reported that is guaranteed to successfully decommission all makes of primers. Also, they may come out intact and still be usable. If you don't think you can shoot these after decapping them and don't want them around, police or fire department folk will usually dispose of them for you.
 
This:

You can decap them in the press. Just go slowly and wear hearing and eye protection, both, in case of an ignition.
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Wear hearing and eye protection. That said, I've deprimed bunches of live primers and never had an ignition.

When in that situation, I keep and re-use the primer. Have never had one fail. I do however, only (re)use a de-capped primer for low-power target ammo.

I've never had an issue with Starline brass so this surprises me.
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Surprises me too. I bought 2000 pcs of *-* 38 Special and have used them all - several times over. I've had no issue with primer seating. For 38 Special, I use almost entirely WSP primers, and sometimes CCI 500's. I've also used Federal Match primers. No issues. (I also load a lot of Winchester 38 Spl brass and their pockets are tighter than *-*.)
 
As mentioned above, go slow and you should be just fine (wearing eye and hearing protection of course).

I've reused improperly seated primers and have never had a problem with ignition.
 
I am using CCI primers.. Per your advice I was able to deprime with no accidents. As an aside I received an RCBS hand primer for Christmas and decided to give it a try. Some of the primers went into the pocket easily and a few others I had the same issue as on my Lee turret press.

I've decided to stick with using the Lee to prime. I only have 200 pieces of new brass and after I load them I want to try the RCBS hand loader on already fired brass.

Micro man
 
Some CCI/Starline brass combos are tight. (My BeoWOOF comes to mind).

In that case the RCBS handprimer replaced my Lee and everything worked fine.
 
Starline is very consistent and correct on primer pocket depth.

If you're worried about depriming live primers, put a few drops of oil in the case and wait a day, or soak the brass in water. No worries after you deactivate them.
 
I've never had an issue with Starline brass so this surprises me.
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It happens.
...And isn't as uncommon as one might think.

I've had major issues with Starline .44 Mag, .458 SOCOM, .32 H&R, and .32 S&W Long.
Most issues involve excessive neck tension, or zero neck tension, from no annealing process after final forming; combined with stupid-small neck diameters (such as .447 for .458 SOCOM, with up to 0.025" thick neck walls) or stupid-big neck diameters (like 0.318" for .32 H&R and .32 S&W Long).
Second to that, I'd say primer pockets and/or flash holes improperly formed.

I've also had minor issues with all of the above, plus .480 Ruger and .444 Marlin.

Even Starline screws up.
And, sometimes, they do it on purpose.

In 2003, Tony Rumore (Tromix) had a production run of .458 SOCOM brass come in with the shoulder so far back on the cases that they split when fired (one of his reasons for offering case gauges now... :rolleyes:).
As Tony tells the story, he contacted Starline and they were so arrogant as to tell him there's no way they could have shipped out-of-spec brass, because 'all of their products are perfect'.
The next time they ran .458 SOCOM for him, he made sure to request proper case dimensions. They sized so that the shoulder was 0.040" too far forward and the necks too long, so that he could fix it himself.

Quality. ;)


From Starline's own website:
Another unique step in Starline's manufacturing process is our close quality control and hand inspection between each step. Our quality control personnel inspect each case for cosmetic defects and sample cases dimensionally with micrometers and precision gauges to ensure the tightest tolerances possible.

Every case is run through our final inspection machines to guarantee 100% flash hole presence, correct length and diameter. Our tight quality control system means every caliber is inspected a minimum of ten times during the manufacturing process! Sure, multiple inspections and holding tight tolerances increase production costs, but Starline will never waiver in our commitment to quality.
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That being said...
Last year, I was given a sample of pre-production .444 Marlin brass.
I fired and resized one piece 62 times with a full power load, before I gave up on trying to make it fail. It was work-hardened like a son of a boondoggle, but didn't fail before the shooter's arm was jello.
 
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