Reloading Military Ball 30-06 Cases

[joem]

In one of my older Lyman books they recommned reducing the max charge by 2 gr if you using military cases due to different case capacity.

[Former Cav]

one thing you might be overlooking if you are using a Dillon press.
Where you slide the brass into the 1st station (full length size, decap and prime) their is a little spring that looks sort of like a paper clip. Be sure that is adjusted to the base of the 30-06 brass . Otherwise, the brass is NOT centered over the primer cup.
I've forgotten about this when going from 45 ACP to 38 spcl and all of the sudden I was having troubles seating the primers in the 38 special.
Good luck.

[psteinmayer]

Well... I've received my RCBS Swager and I've now swaged 50 cases successfully. A couple needed to be swaged twice as there was still a little lip that was catching the primers and damaging them... but once I got the hang of it - no problems!

Thanks very much for everyone's help and advice!

[swede49]

The RCBS swager die works great--have done a couple of thousand 5.56 and 30-06 military cases. You'll get a consistent, quick removal of the crimp.

[mikld]

Good that you found something that works for you. As a lifelong machinist/mechanic/electrician when I first encountered crimped primer pockets, my first thought was a counter sink. For about 18 years I have been using a plain old, high speed steel 60 degree countersink (I had a half dozen in my tool box) to remove primer crimps, both round and staked. When I de-crimp by hand, a couple mebbe three twists is all that's needed (no more than a few thousandths, just enough to cut out the disrupted case metal)., and when I have a bunch to de-crimp, I can chuck the countersink in my drill and just a couple seconds with moderate pressure will do the job quite well. I've done a lot of 5.56, some 45 AC, some 9mm, and recently a few hundred 30-06. I think someone would have to try pretty hard to remove enough metal to make the case dangerous...

[hkp7fan]

I had a similar experience when I first started reloading. I had no concept of a crimped primer, and wondered why I had so much trouble seating primers in my once-fired military brass.

I used a Lyman hand tool for awhile, then got the Dillon Super Swage. It is a little tricky to get properly adjusted, but once you get it set properly it works really well, and is very fast.

[Hefights]

''Mike was a USN pilot stationed on the Big E & had to have extensive testing before he was returned to flight status."

Lucky, good lesson learned to relate that didnt have permanent consequences, but a very close call.