Star Line Bottleneck Brass

Ammunition, reloading, shooting, etc
Y2K-WS.6
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Re: Star Line Bottleneck Brass

Post by Y2K-WS.6 »

Culpeper wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 7:55 pm
Y2K-WS.6 wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 7:37 pm In my range scrounging I often pick up HXP brass that fools let lay after a range session. I have to admidt that it is stout. In fact it's thicker than the 67 Match brass I've been reusing for the bolt guns. I have to segregate it to mix in with the 40's and 50's M2 brass I've been stashing for years. I do hate the staked primers though. The staking has to be ground out by the pocket uniformer on the case mate before they can be swaged. Ah yes the cost of free! I easily have 15k pieces of '06 brass but seeing as it's the round I shoot the most can't ever have enough.

Ground out.? Perish the thought! Swage that brass.

https://saintbarbsbullets.com/product/r ... r-combo-2/
Cut away the interfering peens with the pocket uniformer. Can't get them in the swager with the points of brass from the staking. Grind as in with a stone, no never.

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Culpeper
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Re: Star Line Bottleneck Brass

Post by Culpeper »

{edit} I will add I have not had to cut out the crimps before I pocket swage my military brass with the RCBS product. YMMV.




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Y2K-WS.6
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Re: Star Line Bottleneck Brass

Post by Y2K-WS.6 »

Based on your increasingly condescending tone I can only assume you have never had to deal with these staked primer rings before. They stop my swager cold and the raised burrs have to be reduced before it will work. A quick step that adds milliseconds per shell. If your swager will eat through these more power to you.

In the spirit of this thread here are a couple of range pickup starlines that I have reloaded no less than 6 times. I have no idea what these started life as, raw brass with unknown reloadings or some custom loaded ammo fired once. However they are holding up very well for non military brass.
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Culpeper
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Re: Star Line Bottleneck Brass

Post by Culpeper »

My apologies if you think I am being condescending to you. That is never something I do. Poor humor? That I am guilty of due to the written word. It sounds better when spoken.

HXP and Lake City M2 brass is all I have shot in the last fifteen years with a smattering of commercial here and there. I have not had any trouble using the RCBS swager to iron out the stakes in mil brass. Recently though I have had a problem with a handful of 7.62x51 mil brass with the ring crimp. My primers had difficult seating and were crushed. I have plenty of that brass so I punched out the damaged primers and chucked the brass in the scrap bucket. I do not give something like that a second look when I am up to my gills with it.
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Olpeddler
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Re: Star Line Bottleneck Brass

Post by Olpeddler »

Culpeper & Y2K,
Thanks for your insights on Star Line .30-06 brass. I value your perspectives.

waterman
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Re: Star Line Bottleneck Brass

Post by waterman »

A hand-operated priming pocket uniformer, with sharp, tapered little "teeth" or ridges, was one of the first reloading gizmos I acquired. I was just out of high school, 1958. Still have it. There is no need for most of the modern stuff. Still have old scales & a B&M powder measure. Electronic scales are nice, faster & probably more accurate, but electricity may be ephemeral.

Y2K-WS.6
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Re: Star Line Bottleneck Brass

Post by Y2K-WS.6 »

waterman wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 8:46 pm A hand-operated priming pocket uniformer, with sharp, tapered little "teeth" or ridges, was one of the first reloading gizmos I acquired. I was just out of high school, 1958. Still have it. There is no need for most of the modern stuff. Still have old scales & a B&M powder measure. Electronic scales are nice, faster & probably more accurate, but electricity may be ephemeral.
Actually the opposite is true, as far as accuracy is concerned you can't do better than your old balance scale. There has never been any electronic scale created that can hold a candle to a balance scale in accuracy and repeatability. Electronic scales are susceptible to magnetic fields, static electricity and power fluctuations. Balance scales are susceptible to wind and rain, work with it inside and it's fine. Always zero before you start and you will have the most uniform charges out there.

For about 15 years I've used a case prep machine for speed and because of hand arthritis. I can't even hold one of those hand turned tools anymore let alone churn out 120 pieces of brass trimmed, chamfered, deburred, primer pocket reamed and flash hole uniformed. Way too much work for me to do manually.

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psteinmayer
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Re: Star Line Bottleneck Brass

Post by psteinmayer »

I use an RCBS Swager on Lake City and other crimped primer pockets. For staked pockets like HXP, I actually use a small tapered cutter that I have to cut the stakes, which works very well.

As for the scales, I use an electronic scale, but do check it occasionally with a beam scale. I like using the beam scale, but it can become tedious to use, especially when loading in a very large volume... something that I usually do when preparing for matches (I can find myself loading 2 to 300 rounds of 30-06 M2 for my 03A3 and Garand at a time). I find the electronic scale I use to be quick, efficient and accurate. As long as I keep my cell phone more that 2 feet away from it, nothing else electronic ever affects it's accuracy!

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