Black hills Brass

perazzisc3

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Dec 16, 2011
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Sunrise, Fl
Having a tough time trying to seat primers in the black hills 308 brass. I have tried using Federal match primers and Winchester primers and have trouble with either.What am I doing incorrectly.
 
Re: Black hills Brass

My last batch of Black Hills ammo had crimped in primers, which was a pain to remove and primers were still tight with some being distorted.
 
Re: Black hills Brass

I can't tell if it is crimped or not. There was no trouble depriming the brass. Seating the primers was extremely tight and there was alot of deforming and fear of the primers going off. I stopped trying to load Black hills brass.
 
Re: Black hills Brass

That sounds like my situation. I fired some of the loads I loaded and pitted the bolt face. I am not an expert but what I think was happening is the primer pockets in conjunction with the crimp are too tight and deforming the primer and allowing the hot gasses to escape. I too have stopped loading the black hillsbrass, I don't have any trouble with the same load in win brass. Then again I am not an expert hopefully someone can help us both.
 
Re: Black hills Brass

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: DamnYuppie</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I had the same issue with mine. Yet after putting them all through a primer pocket uniformer I really haven't had any issues. </div></div>

+1
 
Re: Black hills Brass

You should be able to tell if there was a crimp there or not. There's usually a ring around the primer pocket of material that's slightly depressed. If that's not present I would guess it's not crimped. I bought a few hundred rounds of Black Hills Gold .308 match a few years ago and have reloaded that brass a couple times now with Winchester WLRs. I uniformed the pockets on almost all of them with the Sinclair tool that only cuts the bottom of the pocket. I've noticed no problems at all seating primers with either the Sinclair priming tool or with a cheap Hornady tool in the brass that was uniformed and brass that wasn't. Might I ask what tool you are using and what brass you have to compare it to?
 
Re: Black hills Brass

I am also using FGMM once fired brass,had no trouble priming those. I only deprimed and sized with the Dillon press.I am going to purchase a Sinclair priming tool. Thanks for your help!
 
Re: Black hills Brass

Black Hills uses Winchester brass last I knew. I was reloading some and found that there was even crimped and un crimped in the same 20 round box. I called them, they told me they used primed brass from Win and had those problems. It's good brass, just get a reamer to clean them out. Time consuming because I just did them all, easy to tell once the tool hits it, but still picking the piece up. Good side is, once you do it, you're done until the brass wears out.
 
Re: Black hills Brass

I bought a thousand used Black Hills Match, not knowing that they were crimped. A pain to get the crimps out and still tight. I use Winchester primers and they do better than others, such as CCI. Customer service guy at Black Hills said that Winchester makes their brass and all match ammo since 2009 has crimps. Someone mentioned on another post using the inside case reamer on the primer pocket to cut the crimp...
 
Re: Black hills Brass

Perazzisc3 I recently bought a case of .308 168gr HPBT match from black hills and they are all crimped. If you have plenty of .308 brass dont bother with it but if your like me and cant stand casings sitting around unloaded then you might want to look into a dillon swager. it removes the crimp and the primers will slide in like butter.
 
Re: Black hills Brass

I got an RCBS primer pocket uniformer and am still having the same trouble as perazzisc3. And I apologize if I am thread jacking, just having same trouble.
 
Re: Black hills Brass

They are probably crimped, they are made by Winchster, it's good brass.

If you are going to use crimped brass there are several ways to decrimp. I prefer a Dillon Deswager.
 
Re: Black hills Brass

I just ran into this exact issue myself. I bought the RCBS crimp remover and was thoroughly underwhelmed at its performance. So much so that I'm returning it to get a refund.

So, right now Black Hills is a 'no load' for me until I can get a Dillon crimp remover