Several months ago I purchased 500 rounds of "once fired" 30-06 Lake City brass from the DCM. While preping the brass I've noticed that approximately 85-90 percent of the flash holes are off center. Is this normal? Anyone else discovered this problem? How will this affect accuracy? Comments?

How off center are they? Had they already been deprimed? Or did you deprime them. The reason I ask is if they can be deprimed using a normal depriming/resizing die, they can't be too much off center. I don't think they will affect your accuracy at all.
Why not segregate say 10 or 15 of the centered ones and prep and load them and mark them and prep and load 10 or 15 of the off center ones. And see how they compare accuracywise. Maybe put them all in a sack and shake them up (gently) and draw them out without looking at them one at a time and shoot them at a common target and see how they group. Only look at the case after you've fired it. Or have another person fire them without knowing which group is which.

Won't hurt a thing in the accuracy department. May give problems if you decap in the sizing die and they are very far off center.

I used LC brass for years for match shooting (1960's headstamp) and there was not that high a percentage off center, but some were off quite a bit. Since I did not decap in the sizing die, it didn't bother me.

Regards,
hm

I have also noticed this problem with Lake City military brass from CMP ammo except for the brass I've processed the off center percentage has been more like 40% to 45%.

Unless someone has done some objective study on the issue of off centered vs centered flash holes, I think it's a bit presumptuous to say that this won't hurt accuracy. It would seem to me, though I'll admit that I haven't done a study either, that an inconsistent primer flame could result impairing accuracy. My practice is to discard the brass with the off center flash holes. The Lake City brass I've used following this procedure has provided very accurate loads.

And by the way, I can attest that a flash hole can be WAY off center and still be deprimed easily.

By the same token, it would be presumptive to say it would.
It is hard for me to imagine the pressure not being equal no matter how the burn progressed. Thus my suggestion of a blind test.
And too, what level of accuracy are we seeking?

quote:

Unless someone has done some objective study on the issue of off centered vs centered flash holes, I think it's a bit presumptuous to say that this won't hurt accuracy.

While I would not consider it an "objective study", my statement is based on a considerable number of rounds fired over a period of nearly 15 years using unsorted LC 67 DCM brass in NRA cross the course match shooting. Firing at least 100 rounds per week in practice or matches consumed thousands of rounds. Using this ammo, I managed to attain High Master classification which requires maintaining a 97% average score for 120 shots at ranges from 200-600 yards. Perhaps I should have stated accuracy is not materially affected instead of "won't hurt a thing" .

My best guess as to the % of off center flash holes would be maybe 5%. Obviouslys much lower than what is being experienced today.

Regards,
hm

I'd just trash those cases with badly off-center flash holes. They can result in broken decapping pins. What is a few cases thrown into the trash versus a lost reloading session because your decapping pin broke-- and it's 20 miles to town to buy a new one? I used to use Lee dies and had this problem. Now I use RCBS because the pins are available in 5-packs for a pittance. You can also remove the pin and use just the die with the expander ball to resize a case from which you had to remove the bullet. Saves trashing a primer...

You know, I've been reloading a long time and I've used store-bought, milsup, range-scavaged, and just about every other sort of brass I could beg, borrow, or steal and I have never, never looked to see if my flash holes was off center. IMO, dicking around with flash holes is just another thing that people do that have too much time on their hands.

Early on, before cyberspace could spread a technique around the country in a couple of days, I weighed cases using a Ohaus 10-10 and weighed bullets and trued my primer pockets and cut little logs of 4350 in half to load precise loads and did all the neat things one did for precise ammo. I spent a lot of time in the shop tinkering with ammo and setting up little "test" for me to shoot. I didn't have any sorts of target rifles or super optics. They were just sporter rifles but they were shooting against themselves so it was equal and I was shooting against myself so that was even.
I noticed as I shot more and more of these "test", ALL of my groups got smaller. Sad to say, I learnt that some of the things I was doing in the shop as mandatory had no effect on my groups at all. They were just chicken soup.

quote:

noticed as I shot more and more of these "test", ALL of my groups got smaller. Sad to say, I learnt that some of the things I was doing in the shop as mandatory had no effect on my groups at all.

Nothing like trigger time to improve groups, is there?

Regards,
hm

I just purchased 100 of the Nosler .264 Win Mag brass and all had eccentric flash holes; almost all off enough to see it just by "eye-balling" them. Nosler just said they were aware of the issue and are working on it. The brass appears to be manufactured by Remington but Nosler won't confirm.

I guess that I could tolerate this with surplus brass but not with cases that are close to $1 each.