What is causing gouges on case during resize?

[ky-moonshiner]

Sizing factory 300BLK and resizing 5.56 to 300BLK, both cases are having gouges cut into the case about halfway down and depending how fast/hard I run the case it cuts deep all the way down the side and leaves a small flake of brass.

I'm using the pad/roll lube method to add lots of lube, and forster bench rest die set.

At first I thought not enough lube, then I thought it may be a dirty die, or possibly a effective die with some kind of abnormality on the inside?

[Hickory]

Pictures?

[smokeywolf]

You've likely got a burr or burrs in your sizing die. Take it off the press, inspect it with a light, run a q-tip up the ID and check to see if it's catching on anything.

[GRUMPA]

There's only 3 things it can be that I've run into making or forming 300BLK cases.

1) Dirty brass

2) Bad die.....which can easily be repaired with fine steel wool on a small dowel rod and spun with a drill motor.

3) Burrs on the case mouth that can and will embed themselves in the die.

[ky-moonshiner]

[ky-moonshiner]

I just purchased a bench source, would you recommend i anneal prior to reforming, or after? I'm only now realizing I would have been better off buying brass than making my own, I've got some cash in this stuff now.

[GRUMPA]

Your not getting what I thought it was, normally it's at the neck/shoulder area of the case that gets the gouges. From what I can tell you have something going on with the die itself. If it were me I would remove the die, and look very carefully, there seems to be a protrusion in the die causing that.

Annealing can go both ways, it wont make a difference since the modification to the case itself is what I would call slight. My stuff I anneal very last to leave what I call a witness mark to prove they were annealed.

But I form all the cases in a 2 step process basically forming the neck twice to remove any spring-back during the forming process. And if your using more than 1 head stamp or foreign brass you might as well be banging your head against a wall, they will never react the same and the brass thickness varies considerably.

[ky-moonshiner]

I'll take it apart and inspect the die, I dove headfirst into casting a while back and figured I may as well have the whole set-up. I'm trying to stockpile my own 300blk once I figure out what I want to stockpile and how to bang it out reliably. I'm using an NOE 247grain, and just ordered an NOE 218grain mould.

I have 2, pending 3 rifles in 300 BLK, as soon as I can test them to see what they like I'll start mass producing; however it looks like I may have to take up forster on their lifetime warranty, or change dies.

[GRUMPA]

If I were you I would work with what you already have, just find the cause and correct it. Nothing better in my mind than learning things like what is the problem and how do I correct it on my own, I've always been that way.

Then once I felt I have a handle on it I would work with 1 head stamp and that would be LC 1x fired and stick with it. Wont matter as far as the year just so long as they're LC. For your loads I would go a step further and get the cheaper blanks in LC which for the coin are great.

Lastly I would make my own lube, I use/make my own that I use for swaging.

It's nothing more than a 50/50 mix of Anhydrous Lanolin and Vaseline, real simple to make and cheap and your not dependent on anyone for lube.

[ky-moonshiner]

I have a stockpile of LC and blanks already at least enough to figure out what i'm doing, do you use that for case lube? I was reading on here about a lanolin/alcohol spray mix? I'm going to try and make a DIY tumbler that was also stickied on the forum. I've reloaded for years, but nothing on a large scale, maybe 100 rounds at a time for hunting/plinking. I'd like to try to try and use my hornady AP for rifle ammo, which i've always done on a rock chucker.

Thanks for the help, I'll post whatever it may be that I find out with the die. MY only reason for replacing it would be to maintain die integrity, most of mine are RCBS with hornady lock rings, it took me a few minutes to figure out the mechanics of the bench rest forster seating die, coming from the RCBS.

[GRUMPA]

Glad you thought ahead on the cases. For the lube yes it works and works well with the alcohol just get the right alcohol. I use the stainless pins and a tumbler made by a member here which does 10lbs at a time. I get comments on the brass all the time and what others thought was clean is dirty by comparison.

Me??...I don't like the smell of alcohol at all and just simplify my life by using my recipe.

And in an average month I make 20-30k of them, so the way I do things I've worked out all the kinks associated with the 300BLK.

[uscra112]

Me, I love the smell of alcohol. Old Weller, good cognac, Old Bushmills. . . . . the list goes on.

'Course, I'd never waste good likker on making case lube. (I'm still using up a lot of RCBS that I got at an estate auction years ago, anyway.)

Those gouges look like a badly burred die, or grit on the case.

[Mk42gunner]

You could have a bit of brass stuck to your die that is galling the occasional insufficiently lubed case. You should be able to see it when you look into the bottom of the die.

If that is the case, steel wool will remove it and a good case lube will prevent it from reoccurring.

Robert

[fred2892]

I occasionaly get exactly the same on my 303 brass. It is caused by a sloppy shellholder allowing the brass to walk out of centre slightly and scrape the wall of the brass on the die mouth. I just went through the various makes of shellholders until I found a good fit.(RCBS)

[ky-moonshiner]

Current shellhlder is either Lee or RCBS, I have a Lee kit, but the unmarked ones I have are RCBS.

I've ID'd the problem, but the fixes haven't worked thus far. There is a deformation on the inner bevel of the die, it looks like if you were to drop it on something hard and put a slight hangnail to it. I began with steel wool on a dowel, and it cleaned up but the deformation was still there.

I then tried a countersink "reamer" by hand, it either wasn't sharp enough or isn't as hard as the carbide had no effect. Tested it after each attempt to fix using some cases I cut too short initially, and it still left gouging marks. I'm tempted to try a round file but could end up ale the problem worse.

[ky-moonshiner]

It's right on the inside edge to the right of center in the photo, there are other similar marks, in total i've been getting one big scratch and 3 faint ones.

[btroj]

A split rod with some 600 grit paper will remove it. Go very slow and get just the spots with the issue. Be sure to clean the grit out of the die after doing this so you don't scratch anything else.

[GRUMPA]

Well.....now you know for sure what the problem was. Everything you did apparently was correct, seems Q.A. was lacking when they made it.

That is a relatively easy fix, first I would try what btroj recommended and go from there. That is what I would be doing first anyway, if that didn't provide acceptable results I would go on to another method but I would be giving it a try at least.

And that die isn't carbide, just some rather very hard heat treated metal. An abrasive is the best at doing that type of work.

[prs]

When I had similar trouble it followed resizing very clean 45 Colt brass in Lee carbide die. A few bits of brass bonded to the carbide ring, scoring very deeply subsequent cases. Steel wool wrapped around a dowel and soaked in bore solvent along with generous elbow grease took care of the contamination. Sinse then, I have applied very light coat of water soluable case lube to my still wet washed and rinsed brass. Once dry, the brass processes very easily and no more gouges.

prs