I have about 200 military brass in 30-06 that I would like to reload for hunting and just shooting. I am told that there is a special procedure because of crimped primers. What do I need to do?

Oh boy, I've been in the same situation as well. Sometimes you don't need to do a thing and other times you want to take a drill press to the primer pockets! The first thing is when you decap the cases try to note if it is unusualy hard for the old primers to pop out. Also examine the old primer for a ring just below the head. If both situations occur you'll need to get either a primer pocket swager or a reamer. You can de-burr the cases care-fully with a knife or case mouth de-burring tool, but don't remove too much brass! After removing the old crimp you can prep and load them like any other once fired brass. If the primers pop out easily you may have got lucky; try and prime a case and see what happens, if it goes in OK you saved yourself a tiedeous job. Also your case capacity maybe smaller because most military brass is thicker than the commercial stuff.

look at the end of the case and if it has a silver primer it has already been reloaded at least once . If it has a brass primer you will more than likely have to do as Ed said and swage or ream . All once fired cases have brass primers commercial or military .

Edited by - halcon on 01/25/2002 03:22:23

I use a little hand reamer. The trick is to ream it just the right amount. Trouble is, you don't know if you've done it right until you've already inserted the primer.