Today i was decapping some brass and hit my finger on the pin. It went right threw and made a nice mess. Then later on about 2 hours later i got all sorts of 308 and 223 today like 2000 rounds atleast. They are all LC, federal and winchester military brass. I used the LEE decapping die that is "guaranteed unbreakable decapper easily removes crimped in primers." Well 1 hit, shoots the decapper up, and i re-adjust no biggie. The second try the thing breaks like nothing, not even moving the primer a smig. What shall i do about these stuborn primers?

Pics are here..........

About all you can tell from the pics is that you have a decapping rod that no longer has a decapping pin. I know close-up photos are difficult. These just don't help much.

I have a Lee Universal Decapper that I have used for thousands of various rounds, at least 1,000 of those were once-fired .223 military crimped-in primers. Never a problem, but obviously they CAN break.

Actually, what I REALLY wanna' hear is how you got your finger with it.

Those pins thru the fingers sting don't they?
So does a 3/16" drill bit!! Tried it once, that was enough, next time had to try with a 1/2" and cut a plug out of a knuckle. Just taped it back in place and good as new in a few days.

Send that broken pin back to Lee, they'll send you a new one. No explanation needed. Take my suggestion and send a check for a few extras so you're not out of business til they get replaced.

Use RCBS, at least you can replace the pins when something goes wrong like this. Call them up and they'll send a pkg of them too, n/c.

I've pushed out Berdan's with them, thru the brass and all.

George
George

My reccomendation is to get a universal decaping die, and replace it's decaping pin assembly with a very long bolt with all the threads ground/filed off. Lock it into the top, and good to go, you'll never break it.

mike

I know alot of people never have problems with Lee dies,but I've had the decapping pin break on me pretty easy.I finally just stopped buying them and pay a lil' extra for RCBS or Hornady's.It's real hard to break a RCBS one.

I have the LEE and like georgeld, I've decapped a Berdan case with it, wondering why that one was so tough.

best I can tell you is to use a hammer and a hand punch. I've never found anything in any sort of a die that would consistently take out military primers without breaking. even then you'll find that with a hand punch there will be some which refuse to punch out and you end up just punching a hole through them. De burring is your next problem.. Either swage or ream the pockets out.

Shortening the decapping pin so that it just barely expels the primer helps a little.

At one time Lee made a tool for decapping mil cases. I have one for the .308, and it works wonderfully well. It is designed to tap the crimped in primer out, and then you cut the crimp out of the pocket, and you are good to go.

Take a look at the Lee site and see if they still offer this tool. (They used to make one for the .30-cal as well as for the 223...)

I have broken several of those Lee Decapping pins on LC brass... I just called them up and they sent me a replacement...

They are cheap enough I have 3 universal ones, so If one is waiting for a new pin, I am not down at the reload bench...

cheap investment...

cheers
seafire