Undersized flashhole in Hornady brass

L

ligonierbill

New member
Never had this happen before, but my education continues. I'm loading .22 K Hornet. When I looked for dies a few months back, Redding were the only ones available, my first from that outfit. I have RCBS .22 Hornet dies, and I've been collecting some fire-formed brass from 2 sources: one box of Hornady 35 gr Vmax commercial rounds and my own loads of 33 Speer TNT over H110 in PPU brass (also all I could find at the time). So this afternoon, I grabbed 20 fire-formed cases and started running them through the Redding sizing die. Second case wouldn't slide out of the shell holder, and there's the decapping pin stuck in the flashhole. Redding provides a spare pin with their dies, which are held by a tiny collet. The pin would push out the spent primer, but stuck tight in the flashhole, enough so that lowering the case pulled the pin from the collet. I had to use a pin punch to extract it. Quickly determined that this only occurred with Hornady cases. Yes, the RCBS pin is the same size. Sorted the cases and finished loading, but I wonder about the Hornady cases. Is there no standard? I guess I can fix the Hornady cases with a drill, but I wonder if anyone else has run into this.
 
You can get flash holes in 0.079" and 0.069". The latter is less common. I know of no certain advantage to the smaller ones, though it is claimed by some to produce lower velocity SD. The Hornet is known to be finicky about too much primer pressure at the start of the burn, and the small holes may be an attempt to mitigate that issue. In your case, you could either call Redding and ask for a smaller decapping pin, or you could simply try running a 5/64" drill bit through to see if that doesn't open them enough to be compatible with your existing decapping pins.
 
The PPU cases work fine, and I only have 25 of the Hornady. Might take a drill to them if I've nothing better to do. Regards primer pressure, that may be why Speer uses CCI 500 small pistol primers in their loads. Their notes say they got lower peak pressure with those.
 
If I were in your position, I'd run the small flash hole cases through a few tests to see if they help improve SDs.
But, that's just me.


The PPU cases work fine, and I only have 25 of the Hornady. Might take a drill to them if I've nothing better to do. Regards primer pressure, that may be why Speer uses CCI 500 small pistol primers in their loads. Their notes say they got lower peak pressure with those.
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At the operating pressure of .22 Hornet, you're right on the edge of what the toughest small pistol primers are designed to handle. But, that does give you one more indicator for when you're pushing things a little too hard.

There have been many loads for my .458 SOCOM and .475 Tremor for which I wished the operating pressure was closer to the large pistol primer failure point (~45k psi). But, running at 36k psi max pressure, I just have to do the best I can and read the rifle (recoil, cycling, feeding, ejection, muzzle velocity, feel, sound) more than the fired cases. If I don't, I'll tear up the rifle long before the primers (and maybe even the cases) show any signs of being over pressure.
 
I always used when preparing brass for uniformity a #2 center drill which will cut to .078 dia. and then it will chamfer the hole to remove the burr.
 
ligonierbill:

I have been loading 22 K Hornet for several years now. My orignal cases were 22 hornet cases from Rem. and Win. and now recently I purchased Hornady 22 Hornet cases. I had to fire form all my cases in my Ruger 77 re chambered for the 22 K Hornet.

I have never found 22 K Hornet cases commercial round. I don't believe there is such a thing. It sounds like you must of made a miss print mistake or I just don't understand.

I have recently received some 22 Hornet cases from Hornady. So I took a hand full and inspected the flash holes and primer pockets with a flash hole deburing tool and a primer pocket uniformer. I found a small amount of flash on the flash holes. Although flash holes were better than any other rifle cases I have previously debured. As far as the primer pockets go the pockets were much more uniform than the Rem. or Win. cases.

I had no complaints with the Rem. and Win. cases. Infact I was looking for them but could not find them at the time. I am happy with the Hornady cases but they are a little more pricy compared to what the Rem. and Win. cases went for.

I started loading 22 Hornet rounds with RCBS dies and Purchased Redding dies for the K Hornet. I haven't had any problems with primer pins being pulled from the mount. Perhaps when you cleaned the dies you got some oil in the pin mount or it wasn't tightened securely.

I suggest you purchase a flash hole tool and a primer pocket uniformer.

If you have any more problems I am open for questions.
 
Thanks. Have the recommended tools. As I stated, I am fire-forming from standard .22 Hornet cases. One source of those cases was a box of Hornady commercial ammunition in .22 Hornet 35 grain Vmax.
 
My 22 hornet RCBS dies de-caps the Hornady and PPU brass just fine. If you are having trouble, there could be a alignment problem.
 
it will be hard to just drill the flash holes out if you cant get he primers out first. I would just chuck my decapper into a drill and put the end to a file until I get the needed smaller diameter.
 
The #2 center drill is what is mounted in several commonly available flash hole deburring tools. Using one of these, the drill enters from inside the case. Unless the anvil has totally collapsed, it should be possible to drill out and simultaneously deburr a case with a fired primer still in place.
 
To close this, I used a worn out 1/16 drill bit as a decapping pin in my die to punch the primers out of the Hornady cases, then drilled the flashholes with a 5/64. Ran all my fireformed cases through my Redding die, with the standard pin, and had no problems.

A couple notes. I usually buy one box of commercial when I am starting to load a new round, just to get some perspective. That's why I bought the Hornady ammo. But I won't buy any more Hornet commercial of any brand, rather load all my own. Using several different loads in the PPU brass, I am splitting half the cases on fireforming. None of the Hornady cases split. So, if you have a choice in brass (PPU was all I could find at the time), it may not be the best. Also, I'm finding H110 to be fast and very consistent. Ran one batch of Li'l Gun, which Speer found to be excellent with 40 gr and up bullets, and got a lot of variation. That was in fireformed cases. That needs some work.

Overall, the little .22 is a joy to shoot, and the Kilbourn version is an elegant round. Thanks for all your input.
 
I have tried several types of primers and found rem. #6 1/2 to burn most consistent with Lil-Gun powder. Lil-Gun being low pressure may not be the best for fire forming. Although after 2 fire forming's all is good and tight.

If you are splitting cases you might try annealing before fire forming. I also think the K Hornet is a good round to learn reloading with.
 
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