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I’m a little confused about the (welding) process. In all my years of reloading I’ve never seen what it seems you’re describing. For old ammo that you’re wanting to pull bullets from, if they’re pretty tight you can place them in the bullet seating die with the seating plug lowered just enough to move the bullet slightly on the upstroke which usually breaks the seal or “weld” allowing them to be pulled with less effort.
The other part of your post I’m wondering about is that
MD that said cleaning the inside of the neck helped the welding process along.
Is this welding process happening to rounds you’ve reloaded yourself? It would seem that cleaning the inside of the neck would prevent rather than cause it. 🤔

Super cleaning the neck causes or aides in the welding of the the 2 dissimilar metals. The key to keeping them from doing this is to leave a little soot in the case necks. One reason I prefer to just tumble my brass in a good media with brass polish in it, instead of deep cleaning them in a liquid with steel pins. My handloads have never had any kind of welding issues.

It is not because they are dissimilar metals. Quite the opposite.

Cartridge brass and gilding metal jackets are very similar alloys (both are solid solutions of Zn in Cu, just with a bit less Zn in the latter). Atoms in the crystal structure can wander about a bit,and when you have a clean interface in close contact (preferably with a bit of pressure) the atoms in each piece may wander across the interface and take up positions next door. Over time, the interface can become blurred, giving rise to what is variously called cold welding or, perhaps more accurately, diffusion bonding.


The process can be halted if the interface is not clean. Waxing the case or the bullet for example, may put enough of a barrier to keep the atoms on the right side of the fence. Or you can simply do as I do and let the case necks remain sooty after firing, saving the additional process step of cleaning them.

FWIW I've also said this before, but the brown patina that cases gradually develop is actually slightly protective. I can't see any performance benefit in tumbling them or making them shiny. It doesn't even make them easier to find IMHO - makes them look like a bit of dry grass.

Lube the case with Unique case lube and then run the case into a body die. If you have a Hornady comparator use that to gauge just how much your shoulder needs to go back. The body die is a life saver. Otherwise, you have to pull the cartridge apart.

kwg

I found this out by luck. I had trouble chambering my 243 reloads in the newer rifle I bought and the thought of pulling all the bullets, milling the bottom of the resizing die to allow the case to go farther into the die, then resizing all the cases, made me weary. I happened to look in my box of dies for the 243 and there was a body die in there.

I took the cartridge and checked the neck hole and it had no contact on the neck, so I put a little lube on the case and ran it into the body die. When I tried the cartridge in the new gun, the bolt closed like it was a new factory cartridge.

I have a Dillon 650 loader, which has another hole in the tool head to allow putting the body die after the bullet is seated and then ran the loader as usual. I ordered a 22-250 body die to do the same thing as I have 5 22-250’s and after sizing with the body die, the bolts close like new…

Hi, I'm a bit confused by the item called "die body" for resizing loaded rounds. Is it a special die with an enlarged neck that doesn't touch the neck with a bullet seated in it. Looking at RCBS items I couldn't find anything listed as a die body other than fl dies without a decapping pin. I have a lee pistol die for 45acp i use on loaded rounds to insure chambering, is this rifle die body similar? Thanks, Mike

It’s a body die…

If he hasn't already done something, I think that the OP's problem would be solved by wiping the cases with a little alcohol on a clean rag. Cases don't have to be shiny clean to shoot, just free of anything that could scratch your gun's chamber.

In over 50 years of reloading, I've deprimed hundreds of live primers without a single one firing. Just deprime slow and easy. And they can be re-primed just like new primers.

Occasionally I've had a primer seated sideways. I had one yesterday loading .38 Spl rounds on my 550 Dillon. I just slowly deprimed it and primed it with a new primer. Didn't miss a step.

Some time ago, after one of these discussions, I did a test with some loaded cartridges that I had picked up at the range. I pulled the bullets, dumped out the powder, then in each primed case I put in a few drops of water, a drop of oil, or a squirt of WD 40. I did 6 cases, two with each liquid. I let the cases sit overnight, then I fired one of liquid. All of the primers went off. I let the other three sid another night and fired them the second day. Again, all of the primers fired.

I'm not saying that putting some kind of liquid in a primed case won't kill the primer, but I wouldn't trust that it would.

I load 19 different rifle and pistol metallic cartridges. When I first got, I think, 5 of them I bought a couple hundred new cases for them. All of the rest have only been reloaded with picked up range brass.

It wasn't until after I had been reloading for about 10 years did I buy my first rotary case cleaner, a Thumbler to clean my cases. Before that I only cleaned me cases by shaking them in a plastic jar with soapy water. In the Thumbler I cleaned them with ground walnut shells and a squirt of Frankford Arsenal Brass Polish. Brasso is bad because it will chemically "eat" the brass.

Years later I bought the stainless steel pins and cleaned the cases with the pins, a squirt of Dial soap, and a teaspoon of Lemi Shine. This cleaned the cases well, but occasionally pins would stick in the primer flash hole, pins would tightly pack in .223 and .257 AI brass.

I now clean all of my brass by first washing them in a plastic jar with water, a squirt of Dial soap and a teaspoon of Lemi Shine, drying them, then tumbling them in a Frankford Arsenal vibratory cleaner with ground walnut shells.

I deprime all of my rifle brass before I clean them.

Some time back I got a mixed bag of fired military 308 brass. Brass of any sort was rare as hen's teeth, so I took the bag. Didn't pay a lot of attention to it at the time, because it was pretty cheap and right then I needed the brass. When I got around to sorting through it, I began to think I needed to kick myself. The stuff was sticky, long time sticky like maybe it had been over lubed at one time, and set aside and forgotten. No way was one of those cases going through a good die. Regular vibratory tumbler was a waste of time. Looking through my stuff I came upon a Lee 308 case trim kit that had a shell holder that could be chucked in a drill, and could be screwed down to lock the case in place. That in a drill, with some steel wool in hand and a few seconds spinning the case in the steel wool, and the cases looked like new. There was still a bit of cleanup needed on the case head, but about 15 seconds per case left brass that looked like new. The inside of the cases did not look unusual for fired brass

dan_oz is dead on with the facts about this.

Good shootin' -Al

shrap - I don't want to go through the hassle of getting a body die for an oddball wildcat (even by wildcat standards, the 29 DW short is odd)
I just want to clean the built up whatever off the case. I think I could just set the shoulders back by removing the decapping pin from my sizing die, lube with Imperial, and carry on.

I would like to thank everyone for the ideas, though. Some valid points have been brought up.

If you really have some burning desire to shoot primers that are God only knows how many decades old, just chuck the cases up in a case holder and spin 'em in a drill with some 0000 steel wool.

Respectfully, this is not that hard......

You may find the lack of decapping pin may not give you enough set back. Shaving a few thousands of an inch from the bottom of the resizing die can alleviate that problem also...

Brass was just purchased, the dies have not been tried on this batch.
Head-scratching will commence!


(I must do a LOT of that - to be as bald as I am )

Thanks, Kirk.

It is amazing what a neck chucked up in a 20v dewalt and spun in 4 ought steel wool will do. Used that method to reduce the time in a vibratory..mb

With no more USA mfgd. steel wool, the crumblies from the imported stff is just too nasty to deal with.

I've pretty much switched over completely to 3M's Synthetic Steel Wool pads.

Good shootin' -Al

3M pads are great, but so is Liberon brand steel wool - made in USA and oil free. I use it exclusively in my shop. Rather more expensive and you won't find it in the local hardware store, but worth it IMO. (Most common steel wools are impregnated with oil to keep the stuff from rusting while it lays around on store shelves in dodgy environments, an element I don't care to introduce into my finishing work.)

Will check the Liberon out...thanks! -Al

The 0000 seems to be made in Belgium.

I'm looking at a roll of it I bought last month and it says Made in USA. At any rate it's universally good stuff.