Reloading Military Ball 30-06 Cases

[PhillipM]

I happened across a Herter's swage and neck sizer for $20 at a gunshow a couple years ago, the little button with the swage that goes in the shellholder kept sticking in the case and when I'd remove the case, the button would come out with it. Grrrr! Then I gazed upon the Dillon 550B and put the button in #3 position and let er rip, just don't turn the shell plate out of habit!

[Jim in Salt Lake]

I use the RCBS swager, it works pretty well. I had a batch of Lake City cases, '68 headstamp, that I had an absolute b**tch getting de-primed. Those suckers were in there tight, on every other case, the pin would pierce the primer. I ended up taking the sizing die off and using a punch and hammer. I used a punch slightly smaller than the flash hole and got them out.

[togor]

I use the RCBS universal decapper, with the spring removed and something stuffed in there to keep the pin base against the stem, and have never had a problem or busted a pin when decapping LC brass, or even the crimped KA stuff that is really hard. I also use the RCBS swager, but to be honest, I end up going over it with a deburring tool anyways. With hard brass like KA, the RCBS swager ends up cutting the crimp off sometimes, and it ends up as a loose "ring" of brass in the primer pocket. On small rifle primer pockets, the RCBS swager seems to have better luck, at least in my case.

[psteinmayer]

I've been using a Lee decapper for years and never had a problem with it! As for the swager, I think I'm going to look for the RCBS. It looks easy enough to use, and the price seems to be right too!

[madsenshooter]

The RCBS works for me. When I first started reloading for my Garand, a fellow gave me a couple hundred twice fired LC brass, as he wished to use commercial brass. He'd removed the crimp with a deburring tool, but didn't go deep enough, I was still ruining primers. A knife took care of that. When reloading them Paul, remember that GI cases have less capacity than the cases used to develop most load data you'll find. (Though they are close to Remington cases). That was my buddie's problem, he wanted max velocity, so started with max loads shown in his reloading manual, which were developed in Winchester cases, without working up. All the cases he gave me had some pretty flat primers, and he didn't do very good despite having a Roland Beaver worked on Garand that would shoot very, very good with lighter loads. It isn't how quick the bullet gets there that matters, it's where it hits.

[psteinmayer]

I'm going to be loading 150 Gr FMJ with IMR 4064 (49 grains, I think). I think that will be ok as far as capacity goes. I don't really want to get into max velocities... so I'm going to stick to standard. I tried working one case with a small case reamer, but it's a lot of work and I'm not certain that the cup will properly support the primer at this point. I would much rather use the swager.

[psteinmayer]

Well, I ordered a RCBS Swager set, which should arrive tomorrow. I'll let everyone know how it turns out... I'm very excited to see how well it works out. Now, if I can find a couple pounds of IMR 4064, because I'm out! LOL

[NMC_EXP]

I'm going to be loading 150 Gr FMJ with IMR 4064 (49 grains, I think). I think that will be ok as far as capacity goes. I don't really want to get into max velocities... so I'm going to stick to standard. I tried working one case with a small case reamer, but it's a lot of work and I'm not certain that the cup will properly support the primer at this point. I would much rather use the swager.

Relative to bolt guns, the Garand & M14 have a fairly narrow powder burn rate window. You might want to verify that IMR 4064 is OK for the Garand. Way back when, most folks shooting the Garand in competition used IMR 4895.

If you have not reloaded for a gas gun before be sure to: (1) clean your primer pockets, (2) seat primers below flush, (3) full length resize brass back to zero on a cartridge headspace gage, (4) trim case length to at or below max, (5) clean the chamber.

Because of a heavy, floating firing pin failure to do these things can result in a slam fire. If it slam fires out of battery it will ruin your day.

Regards

Jim

[psteinmayer]

Thanks Jim. Appreciate the sage advice!

Yes, IMR-4064 is one of the recommended powders for Garand (the other being 4895). I also always clean the primer pockets and full length size when loading 30-06, as I think it's imperative (because of headspacing on the taper). I would switch to 4895, but I've been working with 4064 in both 30-06 and 30-40 for almost 30 years now... although I now load 4350 with my 220gr 30-40 competition loads.

Incidentally, I use a #405 nylon bristle tip in my Dremel to clean the primer pockets, which works amazingly well... much better than a small primer pocket cleaner... and no chance of damage to the primer pocket.

[Nick Marciano]

Hands down,the best tool I have is the Dillon swager. I found some 223 brass at the range which had the primer pockets ground out and I reloaded them. Upon firing one of the primers blew out and jamed up my AR by getting in the trigger mechanism. I've done countless thousands of 9,45,223,308 and 30/06 with the Dillon and it does a great job.

Nick10Ring