Bad Lot of Brass? Help! - 06/25/20
I opened a brand new box of brass earlier this week (20 count). I uniformed the primer pockets, deburred the flash holes, primed them, charged them, and seated the bullets. Run out was unsatisfactory on better than half of the loaded cartridges, but I was able to straighten them with a Tru-Angle tool. The ammunition performed satisfactorily at the range (one 10 shot group measured 1 5/8 inches; not great, but I was hoping it would maybe tighten up some using sorted, once-fired brass).
Today, I set out to reload the brass from that session. I lubed the cases up with Imperial Sizing Die Wax (my routine), and began, dipping the mouth of the first case just barely into and out of a tin of Imperial Dry Neck Lube just prior to running it through my full-length sizing/depriming die (Redding, set up to bump the shoulders back just about 0.002 in). The result was a stuck case (rim tore off on the upstroke of my Bonanza Coax Press). It happens, I know. It's just never happened to me.
After drilling, tapping, and removing the stuck case, I tried again, though I was a little more leary about the lube this second attempt. The result was a resized case with a deep vertical dent just below the shoulder of the case, and a matching shallower dent in the shoulder. Too much lube this time?
I gingerly tried again, with the same result on the third case. Fourth case, despite wiping off all lube and then carefully reapplying the Imperial Wax, yielded similar, but with an additional horizontal dent below the shoulder, right next to a vertical dent. The fifth case ended up with seven relatively-evenly-spaced horizontal dents circumferentially, just below the shoulder! The next case ended up with just a shoulder dent. Then, on the last one I tried, the rim snapped off again, so another stuck case.
What's going on here? Do you think this brass may be too soft, or too hard? Or, is there something else that might account for this? I'm flummoxed!