TIGHTEN PRIMER POCKETS, here's how.

[Pdvdh]

I made a little nipple on the end of the bolt or punch to center it in the flash hole.

In fact, I don't want any part of the face of the bolt in contact with the base of the primer pocket. The best design on the end of the bolt face would be a slightly concave face, in my opinion. I may take a dremel burr and use it to concave the face of my two bolts slightly, to help ensure they don't make contact with the center/base/flashhole section of the primer pocket.

The most important design consideration is that the outer diameter of the hardened bolt face extend well beyond the diameter of the base of the primer pocket. Otherwise you'll blow out the flashhole and ruin the casings.

 

[tbrice23]

In fact, I don't want any part of the face of the bolt in contact with the base of the primer pocket. The best design on the end of the bolt face would be a slightly concave face, in my opinion. I may take a dremel burr and use it to concave the face of my two bolts slightly, to help ensure they don't make contact with the center/base/flashhole section of the primer pocket.

The most important design consideration is that the outer diameter of the hardened bolt face extend well beyond the diameter of the base of the primer pocket. Otherwise you'll blow out the flashhole and ruin the casings.

Absolutely right. I inspected my bolts to insure that thay were concave for that exact reason.

 

[tbrice23]

Finally got around to tightening up some primer pockets with this method today. Works much better than the RW Hart Tool.

I used a 5/8" ball bearing. Purchases a 10-pack months ago. I drilled a shallow indentation using a 1/2" drill bit into the surface of a 1/2" thick piece of plate steel that's only about 3"x3" square. This indentation served as a pocket to hold the ball bearing somewhat captive. Then I placed the 1/2" thick 3"x3" plate steel on top of the anvil type surface on my bench vice. That's where I hammered the primer pockets tight.

Also, I've been using a block of OAK as a base for my Ball Bearing. It settles a small depression to cradle the Bearing.
The best reason for oak is it absorbs excess vibration ( less of a chance of distorting the case if it is s sloppy hammer strike).

 

[Pdvdh]

Also, I've been using a block of OAK as a base for my Ball Bearing. It settles a small depression to cradle the Bearing.
The best reason for oak is it absorbs excess vibration ( less of a chance of distorting the case if it is s sloppy hammer strike).

Yeah, my setup isn't perfect. I did have to chase the ball bearing around more than a few times. I tightened up the primer pockets on about 15 casings and probably had to chase down the ball bearing 20 times.

I think I'll hollow out the surface of the steel plate a bit deeper with a carbide burr in my Dremel tool. And then tack weld the ball bearing to the surface of the steel plate. That will keep the ball bearing from jumping up and off onto the floor after striking the bolt with the hammer. No way will the ball bearing AND small piece of steel plate bounce together - too much weight combined for them to take off into space.

 

[tbrice23]

LOL.
I've chased that little bastard way too much.

 

[Wedgy]

" The inside of the cartridge case is concave "

Phorpath, I didn't find this to be the case as when I would hit the bolt on the ball bearing it would tend to bounce around inside the case and not center. I would move it back and forth to settle it in but it wouldn't seem to find a low spot. For the hell of it I just cut a case off to see what it looked like. Sorry but I'm not at the shop so I tried to drive the primer out with a nail(as you can see the disfigured flash hole) and it didn't work so I cut it the other way. As I seemed to feel it's flat. That's why I made the nipple.
BTW I chucked the punch and spun it against a file to cut the nip.

 

[tbrice23]

Not winchester.

 

[Wedgy]

Way better than my "had to know now" cut.
LOL

 

[Pdvdh]

" The inside of the cartridge case is concave "

Phorwath, I didn't find this to be the case as when I would hit the bolt on the ball bearing it would tend to bounce around inside the case and not center. I would move it back and forth to settle it in but it wouldn't seem to find a low spot.

I meant except that one... I've examined quite a few and all have been concave, to the best of my memory. That's the first one flat as a pancake I remember seeing. And I've examined lots of them from 223 Remington up to 378 Weatherby, by shining a flashlight down the case mouth to check for impending case head separations, and because I run a K&M flash hole deburring tool into almost all of my flashholes, so I've examined many of the flashholes down the case neck - again by flashlight. Concave would produce a case head with tougher primer pockets because of the additional brass material/cross section to resist the pressures. So I'm curious, which brand casing had the flat bottom? You don't need to cut any more apart. If they're .277 or larger case necks, just examine the interior with a narrow beamed flashlight. Once you get up to .308 and larger caliber case necks, it's even easier to examine the interior surface of the case heads.

The larger the diameter of the bolt head the better to keep the bolt centered, because the better the chance it will contact the concave shape surrounding the primer pocket, causing the bolt to self-center.

I used a 1/4" bolt in one of my Lapua 30-06 cases and it wobbled around in the bottom of the casing to the point I blew out the flat bottom of the primer pocket. When I enlarged the size of the bolt face to a larger diameter (one of the bolts I ground down to barely clear the case neck), then the larger bolt face self-centered in those same Lapua casings and all was good.

 

[Wedgy]

I was using a punch in a 6.5x284 Lapua and it didn't seem to want to center, and I kinda didn't want to hit unless I felt it was centered. That was some kind of .308 brass I grabbed out of the bucket that had that had that non centered feel. I'm not scrapping the Lapua stuff just yet.
Thanks for your info, I'll try bolts again on other calibers if I need to.

 

[LRSickle]

I vaguely remember, many years ago, taking some rifle brass with loose primer pockets to a friend and having him run them up and out through a pistol die. This "squeezed" the casehead and primer pocket back to where the primer fit like it was new brass. 300 RUM brass is hard to find and very expensive when you do find some. I bought some once-fired brass off Gunbroker.com a while ago and they wouldn't chamber in my .338 Edge. By all appearances the brass was as advertised by the seller. I tried to size them in my dies but they wouldn't size the base down to under .549. If I screwed my dies down until they touched the shell holder my headspace was WAY too much. If my bases are over .549 they chamber hard and a couple that were over .550 stuck in my chamber. Apparently the gun these cases were shot in has an oversized chamber or over pressured(?). So now I'm into 100 brass for $150 and I can't shoot them.
Larry Willis makes a collet-style base resizing die for 300H&H based belted cases. For $98, if it works, it should pay for itself the first time I use it. I contacted him and he said his dies wouldn't work on 300RUM cases. Dang! After many emails we came up with a plan. I would make a pass-through style die that I could force a case up through the bottom and out of the top. Larry's only caution was to watch out for "plowing". I guess when you resize down to the bottom of the base, the bottom of the die will sometimes push brass down to the base. Even though mine aren't belted, he wondered if that might happen and I would end up with a seized case.
Sooooo, I thought I'd try to make my own. I took a 1" stainless bolt, and a lot of time, and made a pass-through die. This obviously wouldn't work with belted cases.

I used a 300WSM chamber reamer to get a tapered bore. It was tricky getting the exit exactly .548. I alternated running a telescoping bore gauge and lightly reaming until I finally got it.

I know the bore inside the top of the die looks pretty rough but there's a shoulder about halfway down that I polished while it spun in my lathe with 500grit, steel wool and lapping compound on a cloth. It came out mirror smooth. It's not carbide but I'm hoping stainless will hold up if I use a liberal slathering of Imperial Sizing Wax.
Well, by dang, it worked!! All my cases came out at .547 - .548", had tight primer pockets and all of them chambered nicely too.

 

[Rich Coyle]

No way! That is too cool! Congrats on a good idea working out bigly.

 

[Wedgy]

Of my three RUMs the stock Sendero did to the with the factory RP 150 grain loads. I picked up four boxes at $30/box. Drove my nuts trying to figure it out. I ground the shell holder down and they still wouldn't chamber and the shoulder was way too far back. Not sure if I still have them but I know I had a pile going.

 

[ta406]

I vaguely remember, many years ago, taking some rifle brass with loose primer pockets to a friend and having him run them up and out through a pistol die. This "squeezed" the casehead and primer pocket back to where the primer fit like it was new brass. 300 RUM brass is hard to find and very expensive when you do find some. I bought some once-fired brass off Gunbroker.com a while ago and they wouldn't chamber in my .338 Edge. By all appearances the brass was as advertised by the seller. I tried to size them in my dies but they wouldn't size the base down to under .549. If I screwed my dies down until they touched the shell holder my headspace was WAY too much. If my bases are over .549 they chamber hard and a couple that were over .550 stuck in my chamber. Apparently the gun these cases were shot in has an oversized chamber or over pressured(?). So now I'm into 100 brass for $150 and I can't shoot them.
Larry Willis makes a collet-style base resizing die for 300H&H based belted cases. For $98, if it works, it should pay for itself the first time I use it. I contacted him and he said his dies wouldn't work on 300RUM cases. Dang! After many emails we came up with a plan. I would make a pass-through style die that I could force a case up through the bottom and out of the top. Larry's only caution was to watch out for "plowing". I guess when you resize down to the bottom of the base, the bottom of the die will sometimes push brass down to the base. Even though mine aren't belted, he wondered if that might happen and I would end up with a seized case.
Sooooo, I thought I'd try to make my own. I took a 1" stainless bolt, and a lot of time, and made a pass-through die. This obviously wouldn't work with belted cases.

I used a 300WSM chamber reamer to get a tapered bore. It was tricky getting the exit exactly .548. I alternated running a telescoping bore gauge and lightly reaming until I finally got it.

I know the bore inside the top of the die looks pretty rough but there's a shoulder about halfway down that I polished while it spun in my lathe with 500grit, steel wool and lapping compound on a cloth. It came out mirror smooth. It's not carbide but I'm hoping stainless will hold up if I use a liberal slathering of Imperial Sizing Wax.
Well, by dang, it worked!! All my cases came out at .547 - .548", had tight primer pockets and all of them chambered nicely too.

Great idea. I ran into the same problem with some once fired 300 RUM brass that I had purchased but took a little different approach but ended up with the same results. I used a standard RCBS 300 RUM FL die and removed the seating stem and bored the ID until the shoulder was removed. Then I kept cutting material off of the bottom of the die until the base of the brass was squeezed down far enough to chamber in my rifle. Worked like a charm. I tried using imperial wax but ended up using some type of bearing grease that I had laying around. Kind of messy but it worked well. I was able to salvage 50 pieces of brass for the price of a inexpensive FL die. I do like your approach better.