I was quite happy to pick up some 350 Rigby brass from Huntington's clearance sale, beats the heck out of converting 375 H&H brass. One of the downsides of the Bertram brass however is there are large burrs on the flass holes.

I know there is at least one doohickey out there to clean this up, just wondering what folks prefer for this task, and who makes them.

There are several around, including RCBS and Lyman. I have them both but prefer the Lyman as it is universal and can be used for all cases. The RCBS requires a collet for each caliber.

There are also some high falutin' ones by I believe K&M, and others, but the Lyman has done the job for me very inexpensively. Be sure to uniform the case OAL before you use any of them.

I too use the Lyman with excellent result on cases from .223 to .338. I think it runs about $12 or so from a variety of places. I say give it a go.

I use the Lyman tool with good results. I like it because it is universal, and no extra collets to have around. Simple and fast too, just adjust the tool, and in two or three turns the flash holes are de-burred.

You can go from the $2 hand-held de-burrer (marketed by everyone) to the $75 RCBS Trim-Mate powered model.

Take your pick...I use the electric RCBS unit.

[ 09-03-2003, 20:13: Message edited by: ricciardelli ]

I use the RCBS(didn't know about the Lyman)because if it's good enough for the bench rest competitors then there must be something to it. I do all of my brass even the old 44 or 45LC stuff where accuracy isn't all that critical. derf

The nice thing about the K&M tool is you do not have to worry about case length. The cutter bottoms out when it's finished and cuts/deburrs the same each and every time. It's worth the few extra $'s, in my opinion.

Good Shooting,
Ben H

I have the Sinclair model,..$16.95 is adjustable and works great. It also has a collar around the cutter to bottom out on the case head.

Are you talking about the inside or the outside of the case? Midway sells a tool that removes flash hole burrs on the inside of the case. It works for any caliber and costs about $12 if I remember correctly. If you have flash hole burrs on the outside of the case, I think the Lee Primer Pocket Cleaner would work, although I have not used it for that purpose.

I do use the Lee tool to clean the primer pockets of my cases after every firing. I put the Lee tool in a 1/4 inch electric drill, and then use it to clean the primer pocket.

[ 09-04-2003, 03:01: Message edited by: LE270 ]

Glance at the Sinclair web site www.sinclairintl.com or through their catalog. They have several of the flash hole deburrers. If you buy European cases you'll avoid the task seeing as how they have the good sense to drill out their primer pockets instead of punching them out. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

There was an extensive article in one of the gun magazines regarding deburring. Basically, the data was statistically insignificant.
i've never bothered, but then again i'm not a bench-rest kinda guy. jorge

Thanks for mentioning it, jorje. Burrs around the inside of the flash hole are about the least significant factor there could possibly be in assembling quality ammunition. They just don't make any difference.

Like Ben H I have the K&M flash hole debur tool. Some other areas of interest about this tool is you can use it attached to a drill/drill press and one size fits all so no adapters required for different calibers. What I did to mine was added a sliding stop collar and spring from like a pen above the tapered fitting that keeps it centered in the case mouth. That way when I use it with a drill/drill press it keeps the fitting down against the case mouth so I know things are square. As Ben H pointed out there is a colar at the cutter end that prevents you from deburring to far. However, when using it with a power drive it wants to clog with brass shavings. I carefully drilled out openings in the stop collar above the flute area of the center drill tip. This allows brass chips to pass through or gives easier access to manually clear the chips from the tip area. K&M has my vote

I use Lyman's and the RCBS. They both work very well, but I like the feel of Lyman's wood handle best.

AD

I'm looking for a cutter that runs inside the case, not inside the primer pocket.

While I'm sure that studies show it isn't worth the effort, I'm sure they weren't done on brass that has such severe burrs. You look in every primer pocket, and see a signifigant percent of the flash hole obsscurred by the burr.

I'm not after bench rest accuracy, the gun has the 2-stage military trigger and a 2.5x scope, that said, the burrs are bad enough that I don't want to use the brass in its current state.

Thanks, for all the replies so far.

Paul H

It isn't just about accuracy.

I was trying to size some old Remington 25-20 cases and broke 2 decapping pins. I then decided to deburr the flash holes and was astounded at how much material was removed. Typical crummy Remington QC.

Now I just sit around with a few boxes of brass and use the universal Lyman tool, usually while watching TV. A small tray in my lap so no brass shavings in the carpet.

Regards,

This is about as unscientific as one can get, but it seems that I have fewer fliers when I deburr the inside of the flash hole. If that is actually the case, it could be due to the fact that typically, out of 20 cases, 15 might not need deburring, 2 might need slight deburring,and 3 are just horrible. Since it is a one time only operation, I always debur now before I reload- certainly doesn't hurt anything.