I decap mil brass with my RCBS small base resizing/decapping die. I just slick on a thin coat of Hornady case lube (pure beeswax-- it works great!) and ram it up the die. Pop goes the primer! I then ream out the pocket with a 82-degree chamfer tool I bought at Sears (Craftsman p/n 67165). It is bright steel, has five cutting surfaces and will remove that pesky crimp in two shakes of a lamb's tail. I put together a threaded shank, an old pencil sharpener base, an old drill chuck, a few nuts and washers to space it all out properly and made myself a fine & dandy case turner that I use to ream the pockets, scrape the primer residue out and trim the cases to length in a wink. It's one of my favorite tools. It was real cheap, too. The best tool I've found for scraping out primer pockets is the one offered by RCBS. It's a little wire brush that fits in the pocket and really gets the crud out in a jiffy. They are available as a set of large, small and come with a screw-in handle. I just chuck the brush into my pencil sharpener thingy and go to town.

acsteele,

I have reloaded literally thousands of milsurp 308 cases ALL BOXER primed with a standard Lee 308 full length sizing die set! The problem I ever has was when a BERDAN primed case got mixed in, busted decapper pin RIGHT NOW!

Like the others said, make sure you aren't trying to decap a BERDAN primer, cause it ain't gonna happen.

ASS_CLOWN

If you are referring to Berdan brass, it`s everywhere. I have cut an old .308 barrel about 1" forward of the chamber then bored the barrel internal diameter to 3/4" down to the throat of the chamber.

A matching male punch or slug was then machined to fit into this hole. The tolerances here are fairly close but able to easily slide in & out.

A further piece of bright shaft then machined to sit all of this into, similar to the punch base Lee supplies.

Anyway the theory of this contraption works around hydraulics. I put a case into the chamber sit that into the punch base. I then dribble water into the case until it`s full up to the top of the chamber bored out to 3/4".
Insert the punch into this & give it a good whack with a 2lb hammer. The result is the water has to go somewhere & the flasholes are the weakest link. Pop goes the primer.

Then all you have to do is 1. let them dry
2. ream primer pocket
3. trim case to length
4. resize
Then you can load as you would boxer brass.

A note worth mentioning is all this stuff I`ve mentioned above is a lot of extra work compared to factory brass.

If your like me it`s not a question of cheap brass or time constraints, it`s all about I hate seeing this stuff go to waste when there is so much of it around.

Hope this helps
Morton3

morton3,

What kinda primers are you using with the recycled brass, boxer or berdan?

ASS_CLOWN

I generally go around to gun shows and if I buy millitary brass I; 1: make sure it is boxer primed and 2: that it is National Match brass. This is the most uniform brass I have found in 30-06, and they don't have crimped primers.