Depriming Problem

Before wet tumbling, I deprime 9mm and .45ACP cases on a Lee Breech Lock single stage press. Quite often it takes more than one ram stroke to completely remove the primer. I'm assuming the primer is partially removed because the case will not come out of the shell holder. I'm at the point that I just go ahead and raise the case into the depriming die twice. I have used a Lee Universal depriming die as well as a RCBS deprime/sizing die. I have adjusted both every way I know how with very little, if any, improvement. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Your decapping pin is most likely puncturing into the primer a little and sticking and then pulling back into the case enough to cause a problem. What I have done is to dull/round the point on the pin a little and that should really help. Obviously make sure that you have your pin far enough down.

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Originally Posted by Flyeralan

Your decapping pin is most likely puncturing into the primer a little and sticking and then pulling back into the case enough to cause a problem. What I have done is to dull/round the point on the pin a little and that should really help. Obviously make sure that you have your pin far enough down.

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That makes sense. I will try dulling the pin. What is puzzling is that I used to reload with the RCBS die on a Redding T7. Never had this problem then.

Two things, each brand of primer is different in its construction. Some specific designs of anvils are much worse for this issue than others. Secondly, I would think the pin would wear a little as well depending on how hard it is used.

I checked the die again and noticed that the decapping pin was not tight on the little shaft that goes through the die. I tightened it and it was better - probably 1 out of 10 were a problem. Then I removed the decapping pin, put it in a vise, and dulled the end. This fixed the problem. This morning I decapped about 300 cases without a problem. Thanks Flyeralan.

Glad to have helped a little.

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Originally Posted by Baldwin

I checked the die again and noticed that the decapping pin was not tight on the little shaft that goes through the die. I tightened it and it was better - probably 1 out of 10 were a problem. Then I removed the decapping pin, put it in a vise, and dulled the end. This fixed the problem. This morning I decapped about 300 cases without a problem. Thanks Flyeralan.

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