Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Military brass

Q.-I have a new-to-me Kimber Montana in .25-06. I was given some sized and fire formed LC 53 military cases. I ran them through my own dies, checked length, trimmed, and checked them in my rifle's chamber- but.... I'm getting about 25% fail to fire with those cases (using WLR and CCI 200 caps.) I have adjusted the firing pin/striker protrusion in the Kimber's bolt, but still no joy. I note that the primer appears deeply seated- perhaps because the primer crimp has been removed, but perhaps there's another cause? Commercial cases are not experiencing the f2f's. Anyone else having this issue with military brass? (I have finally accumulated an ample amount of commercial brass, but still have over 100+ of the military cases, and will use them if I can.)

If the primer is seating too deep there is a good chance someone reamed the pocket too deep when attempting to uniform it.

+1 on the pocket being too deep.

Berettasdad-
Here are a couple of possibilities for checking your primer pocket depths:

1) Brownells and other establishments sell the "Swage Gauge", a simple go/no-go gauge for either large or small rifle primer pockets.


2) A few months ago, the daily blog at accurateshooter.com described a couple of methods for measuring primer pockets and primer seating depths. A conventional caliper can be used, as can an easily constructed device using a dial indicator.

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2016/01/primer-seating-depth-uniformity-and-accuracy/

Good luck.
--Bob

Although the primer pockets may be a bit deep, I'd suggest trying some Fed 210's. They seem to go off even if I have 10 thou of headspace (like a lot of factory brass)