.223 Brass processing

[Retread1911]

Thanks for the feedback on pricing. I am headed to the rim fire match at pine island this weekend. Will have a few samples with me.

I think I agree on the price being high. I am dropping it to 12$ per hundred 55/ 500 and 100/ thousand. Face to face pick up only where agreed. Processing still at 30$ per thousand again FTF around BPR or other location

OldmanFCSA. Send me another Email and lets talk. I want you to at least examine a sample before I take your pieces and come up with an agreement between us

Gtoon159 at yahoo dot com

RETREAD

[engnerdan]

I have been meaning to do a little write up for Retread about this brass processing. So here it is.

Cliff Notes Version
Excellent value
WAY better then processing your own crimped cases
Will have him do all my AR brass from now on
Saves HOURS of time


Full Write up
I recently received 200 pieces as a sample of the processing Retread is setup to do. My initial impressions were that the brass was spotless and very shiny, everything looked great. I took a quick measurement of a few pieces and they were all within a few thou of ideal trim length 1.750. The trimmed necks did not have a noticeable burr to them.

I was advised that he had not expanded the necks after full length sizing, and he recommended I run a decapping pin through the case as a way to ensure there is no tumbling media in the flash hole. This was not a problem for me as I am running these on a progressive press so adding a sizing die backed off to just clear the flash hole and expand the neck was no problem. I later talked to Retread and he said he could run a sizing ball through the necks while processing by request but it would take a little longer to get the brass back. But there would still be the chance of a plugged flash hole as he tumbles after processing to remove the neck burrs and clean the sizing lube off.

On to loading the brass. With the sizing, de-priming, swaging, trimming out of the way loading AR brass was fun now. Just like running 9mm, 40, 45 on my progressive I just poured the brass in the case feeder, setup my dies and started pulling the handle. It was just minutes later that I had 100 pieces of ammo loaded and ready for my range trip the next day. By comparison I would have spent about 1.5 HOURS just doing the case prep work on 100 pieces. By that time I would be so burnt out on loading ammo for my AR I would drive down to Fleet Farm and just buy some off the shelf. At the range the brass ran as flawlessly as new, with not a single problem.

I just had Retread process about 2000 rounds of brass for me after trying the sample pack. Now I just need enough components to get it all loaded.

[promod1385]

I just had Retread handle a couple thousand pieces of brass for me. They came back looking and measuring up good. I wont likely get around to loading any of them until after the 1st of the year. I will leave a review when I do.

He was great to deal with. I dropped my brass off and had him ship it back to me he returned it a week early.

[JJ]

Any interest in doing 300 Blackout brass?

[Retread1911]

Any interest in doing 300 Blackout brass?

I honestly don't know I do not have a table saw for rough cut and the tool head to process it has to be special made.

How much interest is there I wonder?

Retread

[FJ540]

Nationally, there's a LOT of people struggling to buy it. It's backlogged from most small processors, and back ordered from all OEM's.

The best trimming set up I've seen so far is a mechanized 1050 with a trimmer head in it. Necked down and cut in one pass. You could set up a chamfer station in another hole pretty easily and spit out cases ready to load.

[Retread1911]

Nationally, there's a LOT of people struggling to buy it. It's backlogged from most small processors, and back ordered from all OEM's.

The best trimming set up I've seen so far is a mechanized 1050 with a trimmer head in it. Necked down and cut in one pass. You could set up a chamfer station in another hole pretty easily and spit out cases ready to load.

What kind of chamfer station are you talking about? I am interested to hear about your idea here.

[FJ540]

Instead of using an end mill style cutter, you'd have a chamfer cutter in the same type of trimmer head. It'd be set off the deck height so all the brass would be treated exactly the same. You could do ID and OD with the same tool if you purchased something like this.

http://severancecanada.com/index.cfm?id ... subsubcat=

Spinning the case is the only possible hang-up, and that could be solved with a collet like a lee FCD set lower on the case.

[JJ]

Take a look at the processors over on http://www.300blktlk.com All summer long they were about two weeks turn around. Come Sept the demand began increasing heavily. With the current political situation, every one of those Blackouts that were just sitting on shelves are now in the market. Turnaround time on processing is 6+ weeks, and some have stopped taking orders.

The modified tood head thing is not too difficult if you have know someone with a mill. You just have to knock about .25 off one side of the tool head, and if you have a 550 make a small clearance for the lock ring.

The real question is if demand will continue to stay high. and if the demand would be sufficient to justify the extra equipment.

[FJ540]

I could rig up a custom machine to make these, but the expense would take a while to recoup (just to break even) and I don't really want to be in the brass business.

[JJ]

I could rig up a custom machine to make these, but the expense would take a while to recoup (just to break even) and I don't really want to be in the brass business.

Can't be that tough

While you are at it, integrate an annealing station and you would have the cats meow

[FJ540]

Annealing machine design is currently percolating in my periphery. Not to anneal cases for people, but to sell annealing machines.

Making a brass processor is no harder than making an indexing turret head (dead simple) with some switching to actuate the various functions. Like I said, I don't really want to be in that game. Not that there isn't money in it right now, but there's a lot of work involved in getting that profit after getting tooled up to do the job.

[OldmanFCSA]

Contact Doug Giraud.
He has an excellent production annealer.
He has an excellent powered trimmer for legth, inside and outside chamfers all in one.
Cut-off ststion is easy to build with small mitre saw with metal slitting sawblade.

1. deprime and clean brass
2. anneal neck and shouder, mainly shoulder
3. cut case at shoulder
4. lube and re-form
5. trim

[FJ540]

I've seen those before. What I have in mind is a little different.

His trim and deburring tool is anything but production level (it's a good design, just not fast enough). There's no way you'd hit 1000pc/hr with that day in and out without wanting to jump off a cliff after a week.

[OldmanFCSA]

By cutting case before forming, trimming is minimal.
If you are forming, then trimming, good luck!