A real head scratcher...

[Dkcampbl]

Don’t post much but been reloading for 50 yrs and had a first this afternoon I thought I’d run by y’all.

It was time for a run of 9mm ammo so set up the Dillon 550. Right away on 25% of the rounds the primers wouldn’t seem punch out. The press was running normally with brass seating into the carbide RCBS die all the way. I couldn’t figure how the hell the brass could go into the die without punching the spent primer. After 30 min of messing with adjustments and such I finally changed out the decapping pin and presto problem solved.

Turns out the spent primers we’re sticking in the old pin well enough to suck them back up and reseat into the brass. I’m still blown away. This is mostly once fired brass of varying brand, pockets were fine... Anyway I ran a bunch more without further problems.

I’ve loaded tens of thousands of rnds and this was a first. Just thought I’d share it and see if anyone else has seen this???

 

[m1match]

I've had that happen before mostly in pistol calibers. In rifle calibers, it seems that the cases get pressurized as the case is forced into the sizing die and the air pressure in the case is enough to push the spent primer out and off the decapping pin. In pistol calibers that doesn't happen as much. However, the problem for me went away almost entirely when I switched to Dillon carbide sizing dies. The decapping pin on the Dillon is floating on a circular leaf spring that gets compressed when the pin is pushing the primer out. When the primer is free of the case, the spring throws the decapping pin down to bottom of it's travel which throws the spent primer off the pin 99.9% of the time.

Try using fine sandpaper to polish the old decap pin and see if that takes care of the problem

 

[Dkcampbl]

This set of dies have seen many thousand rnds over the years with no issues till now. If it happens again I’ll sure checkout those Dillon dies. Every Dillon product I’ve used has been great for sure.

 

[99106]

You probably just wore the the pin down to where it was sticking into the anvil. Flip it or put a new one in.

 

[m1match]

Like 99106 said- cheaper and easier to replace the decap pin

 

[Dkcampbl]

Yea was a no brainer when I finally figured it out. I looked the pin over pretty well and it was a fairly new pin, virtually no wear on it. Interesting

 

[Steel head]

It happens.
polishing the tip can really help.

 

[dzander]

I've loaded thousands of,9mm,10mm,45 ACP. Never had that problem .
Thanks for the story though. May come in handy some day.
But I mainly re load rifle on a rockchucker, but I may get back into some more pistol when I'm retired.

 

[Cascade Hemi]

That's pretty common. Take a file and cut an angle into the tip of the decapping pin.

 

[supercorndogs]

I have a 6.5 creedmoor die that does it. It stumped me until this thread. Thanks.