Back in the very early 90s, my friend and I hung out at a small bench rest supply shop and shot our hunting rifles at a bench rest club range.

The owner of the shop convinced me that my handloads would be even more accurate if I did a little more case prep, uniformed the primer pockets and deburred the flash holes, in addition to the usual case trimming and case mouth chamfering and debugging. Of course he sold the tools (thank God they can be chucked into a drill) to do these CHORES.

I used WW cases, CCI 250 primers, Speer 120 BTSP, and 64grs of H870. That load would shoot 3 shots under an inch in my Ruger M77R 25-06. At about the same time, the shop owner sold me a Brown Precision stock which was fitted, pillar bedded and painted by a renowned bench rest gunsmith. I also had the metal coated in Teflon. The first time at the range, I fired three shots with that load. My friend was watching through his spotting scope. He told me to keep firing on that target. That group had three shots touching and the other two dam near.

As I am writing this, I realize it just wasn't the case prep, but the change in stock and bedding that contributed to such an increase in accuracy. However, this is my fantasy and I'm going to go with it, I have believed that primer pocket uniforming and flash hole deburring made more accurate handloads. It seems that other than one 6mm and a couple of 223s (long ago sold), I have no problem developing handloads that shoot to my standard, for hunting rifles, 3 shots under an inch. My 300WSM and 22-250 are half that. Believe it or not, they are both Kmbers!

Now I have read that Mule Deer's research established that primer pocket uniforming and flash hole deburring don't substantively add to a loads chances of being accurate, so not worth the extra effort.

I have 2 243s, a 308, a 6.5 Creedmoor, a 375H&H and a 17 Remington (if it is ever finished) to load for. That is a hell of a lot of case prep. I would relish reducing the work, but I have done this so long and had such good success, I am tempted to carry on.

What is the consensus?

Keep deburring the flash hole. Its not necessary to uniform the primer pocket, unless you are shooting real chitty brass. Buy good brass from the get go and you don't have to do it. However, I've seen some ragged flash holes that need to be deburred. That helps with consistent ignition. For accuracy, you need that. Keep an eye on neck tension and concentricity and keep developing loads the way you are doing. If you are getting that kind of accuracy from all of your rifles, then obviously it's working. Prep work is damn necessary for producing consistently accurate ammo. You start slacking and wanting to rush through things or leave out steps and it will show downrange on target. You'll even see it a fair bit at 100 yards, but past 3-400 you'll see it even more so... When I load, I load like it's for a major competition. Partly because it could be, so its good to be prepared. If you aren't shooting competition, will the deer at 100 yards ever know? Probably not, so its up to you, and your needs, if you want to skip steps...

I only shoot off a bench to verify load accuracy. 99% of case prep is a waste of time for hunting. If it makes you feel better, do it. If you have better things to do you can skip it. Like BSA said, if you buy good brass in the first placed and inspect it you are probably good to go.

If you want to continue to deburr flash holes and uniform primer pockets, go ahead. But I ran some tests years ago that indication they don't make any difference in even a very accurate big game rifle. You might want to do the same.

The biggie, I've found, is using brass of consistent neck thickness, varying no more than .001". Most major brands tended to be pretty good, say 15 years ago, with no more than about 15% of the case falling within that .001" variation. But I quit buying Winchester and Remington brass a few years ago, when the "cull rate" often reached 50%. There are too many other good brands of brass available these days--including Hornady, which in recent years often has ALL case necks in a batch measuring .001" or less.

I experienced that last year while working on a handloading article about the 7mm Remington Magnum. Bought a box of 50 Hornady cases at a local store, and they were all so consistent (and not just in neck thickness but weight) that I went back and bought another 50. Same deal with a box of Hornady .257 Roberts ammo I just bought: Every fired case was essentially identical to the others (and yes, the ammo shot very well too).

I hardly have any Remington brass, the najor exception being the 17 Remington ammo I bought to get the brass.

Winchester is the most brass I have, because it's been easiest to get here. Federal is next, in calibers that I shot factory for the brass or mainly I bought once fired from my none reloading friend.

In 6.5 Creedmoor and 375 H&H I have Hornady which has come on strong here due to the distributor stocking stores.

Is it worth buying the Nosler brass for the 17 Remington?

Consensus never did drive my loading operations.

I have killed a few animals past 1000yds and in all cases the primer pockets were not "uniformed" nor deburred.

How far do you plan on shooting?

I'm anal about crap like that to a point, then I say f***it and shoot and have fun.

AB2506

It may be worthwhile to get the Nosler brass for the 17 Rem. it is one case where a half grains difference in case capacity could put you over the limit. I have seen this with Remington cases and it is the only cartridge I will bother to weigh cases.

The primer pocket and full prep has become a habit and I will do it on all but Lapua, Nosler and RWS brass which don't need it. On bulk brass it is surprising how much brass is removed in the prep process. It is also a good time to catch culls non centered primer holes and other minor defects that are easy to overlook. A couple batches of PPU brass had to have the full primer pocket treatment including beveling the pockets just to get the primers to seat.

But do I think I am gaining accuracy not unless you count the confidence factor, when I know my loads and rifle are good it makes me concentrate more since I am the weakest link in the process.

John, I guess I'm looking for an excuse to stop these processes as they are a royal pain in the ass. However, they do provide me great confidence in my loads, even though I try to limit my shots to 400-450. I don't shoot at 500 or beyond. I'm a MPBR duplex reticle sight in and know the trajectory guy.




Thanks for your thoughts Tejano.

I wonder how you feel about doing case prep? What it boils down to is the trust and confidence you feel when using the prepped cases. If you believe it is time well spent, then do not stop.

Story: 40 odd years ago, I bought all the equipment needed to uniform cases. I did this on the advice of several colleagues - I was a military armourer. Case prep, I was told, was important because most companies could not produce homogenous brass. This was before CNC and other processes that could produce uniform cases.

I believe that it helped then. I also believe that it helps now - if you buy Win or Rem brass. Their stuff just isn't well made.

Unless Win or Rem has spent the money, both form flash holes by punching them into the brass. This process can deform the case - QC notwithstanding. As well, primer pockets that are improperly formed make it impossible to seat primers to a consistent depth.

To alleviate any problems, and save a lot of time, buy either Lapua, Hornady or Starline brass. Their brass is as uniform as one can expect in 2020.

If however, your brain tells you that prepping brass is valuable, keep doing it. The brain is a powerful tool. It is almost as useful as shooting practice.

Lastly, even with inproved machining, off the rack hunting rifles use "sloppy" SAAMI spec chambers and are mass produced. Most newer firearms shoot better than their older brethren, but they are still factory guns. To make them shoot better, prayer works as well, or better than case prep.

This concludes the reading.

I seldom load more than 20 rounds at a time so I take the time to uniform primer pockets and deburr flash holes. I have gotten some very accurate loads by doing these steps so will continue to do so. All of my rifles have their original wood stocks, no fancy bedding or other tricks.

Probably 9/10's a non issue if quality brass is purchased. The reality is game is taken with stickbows and handguns on a fairly regular basis. Perhaps more important is finding a quality place to hunt, being out there, tactics, luck, and most of all positive attitude and fitness.

We obcess about crop that mostly doesn't matter.

I usually only load 100 or fewer rounds at a time. I started deburring 25 years ago and there were a lot (5-10%) of flash holes that weren't punched clean, they still had the hanging chad. It didn't take long while I was inspecting the brass and only had to be done once. I still do it on my rifle brass if I'm not loading a huge quantity.

I have a hand primer pocket uniformer and have stopped doing that. I am about to buy a brass prep station and will probably go back to cleaning the primer pockets after each firing.

I concur with Mule Deer...unless you are anal retentive and loading for bench rest, you are pissing into the wind. That said I know a LOT of guys that are on the fence but self-satisfied with their preoccupation with minutiae, and they happily keep doing it. So like the old song said " if it makes you feel good..."

As noted earlier, I ran extensive tests on this years ago and quit doing any primer pocket /flash-hole uniforming on any of my hunting rifles. Do it on the cases for my 6mm benchrest rifle, and am still not certain whether or not it makes a measurable difference--especially with Lapua brass.

I suspect a lot of handloaders do this kind of stuff because handloading to them is recreation time--which also gets them away from the so-called real world for a while (whether home or work). Thus the longer they can extend the process the happier they are. But have also noticed some of the same handloaders using time they don't have to in other ways.

I handload as part of my job. This doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, but having to do it so much also means that I've analyzed many steps in the process to determine what saves time, and what wastes time. Of course, to do that I had to separate testing various aspects of accuracy handloading. Instead of just taking "everybody's" word on the absolute necessity of primer pocket/flash-hole uniformity, I tested it--and separately from other factors, such as case-neck thickness and bullet run-out. Same deal with weighing versus "throwing" powder charges, and every other step in the process.

Of course, I also test how much difference techniques by shooting several groups under reasonably controlled conditions (including putting out wind flags) when an awful lot of handloaders base their evidence on fewer groups shot under varying conditions. If a couple of decent groups appear, they believe they found The Load--even if more testing might indicate it's not any more accurate than other loads. In turn this results in confidence in the field, which with most big game hunting makes more difference than shooting 1" groups versus 1-1/2" groups.

I do all of the stuff mentioned above, cause I like too and it adds consistency to my process. One thing not mentioned in brass prep, is that unless you leave all your stuff on the ground after shooting, you only have to do a batch of prep once.

Hell, I even pick up all my stuff way out on the prairie, dog shooting.

If you like it, that's all that matters.

yeah, pretty much

I never liked the time involved but used to do all the primer pocket flash hole stuff till I read Mule Deer's accuracy results after not doing it. Accuracy stayed the same for my rifles too.

Steve's right on using quality brass. I use Lapua for my 223s except for open sighted Mini 14s. Accuracy is consistently good and the brass lasts a long time. I'm still using some I bought a long time ago. It's been reloaded somewhere between 10 & 12 times and still looks good. Well worth the money.

Got to say though if I'd spent the money on a competition benchrest rifle. I'd do it for that one.

The one big thing that seems to make a lot of loads shoot straight is to load straight ammo.

That starts with the case - even with the top name brass I still check it for neck concentricity. .0015" is my standard, anything more than that gets relegated to cull/casual use. Most Lapua brass will run 100% although I have found a couple of culls, one recent batch of Hornady brass had about a 20% cull rate but other batches have been very good. It only has to be done once for the life of that batch of brass.

Once you have a bunch of cases with concentric necks then it's just a matter of sizing them straightly whether with a collet die, bushing die or sizing and expanding in two steps, then seating the bullet straight with a properly adjusted standard die or some sort of competition die.


I used to do all of the case prep accompanied by incantations in the dark of the night and virgin sacrifices whenever I could find a virgin, all with entirely random results. But the value of sorting cases was brought home over 20 years ago after reading one of MD's articles on this when a M700 .300 WM which was a 1 1/2 to 2" grouper at best suddenly started shooting 3/4" groups after doing nothing other than culling out cases with uneven neck thickness.

Loading for 17 Remington is exceedingly touchy business. That's the only round that I've had a primer fall out when I opened the action. T/C Contender. a 1/2 grain can be a big jump.

Yep, the neck is the steering end of the case. The primer end is not.

But you have to convince people that their efforts are fruitless. A big part of shooting well rests between your ears. The mind is a powerful thing.

I gave up using discount brass a long time ago, but that doesn't mean others have felt the need to follow. Keep preaching. Repetition builds results.

I still prep WW and Remington brass. I really do enjoy the process, but I enjoy using RWS, Nosler/Norma and Lapua much better!

Note, they key phrases in bold and color above.

The OP picked up there practices hanging around bench rest shooters. In this circle and acceptable 100 yards group measures 0.005" center to center, and the aggregrate on 5 groups of 0.025".

In this world deburing flash holes is an issue, but for those who measure their groups in eights and quarters of an inch, there are much better variables such as the rifle.

Of course MD's right about neck thickness, but their's ways to fix that as well. Hand neck turners are not all that expensive.

I started reloading in 1970 in order to feed my rifles that were chambered for obsolete or near-obsolete cartridges, like the Marlin 336 in 219 Zipper and the Savage 1899ASR in 32-40. Most of my success in life has come by creating standardized processes for the variables that I can control. I deburr flash holes because doing so eliminates the influence of that variable.

antelope sniper,

It's true that hand neck-turners are not very expensive. However, I not only have one but two bench-mounted turners. Have yet to see any significant difference in a very accurate big game rifle when turning necks, probably because necks that "need" turning generally indicate the body of the case is significantly thicker on one side as well. (I am not guessing about this, having used the NECO case-thickness gauge that can measure the thickness of the case wall, not just the neck.)

My primary use of a neck-turner of any sort these days is to eliminate the "dreaded donut" at the base of the neck--which can occur even with new, very good brass. But if the brass is lop-sided throughout the case body, resizing generally ends up with a crooked case anyway, despite a "turned" neck.

But all of this is irrelevant to most big game hunters.

I was a dedicated user of Winchester brass since the early 90's but it's got so bad the last few years all I use is Hornady. Very good luck with Hornady brass.

John,

That's interesting.

Thanks

I think, depending when you started reloading, most of the brass makers have had the occasional runs of "not so good" brass. It's always difficult to say which cases are bad, if the date of manufacture isn't known. I think most would agree though, that there are far fewer problems with the pricey brass, as opposed to discount or "dollar store" brass, as some friends call Win and Rem stuff.

Over the years, we have seen so many strange events. The late 70s had RCBS dies that weren't made properly. The quality drop in some domestic products made by Rem, Win, Ruger and others. Not just brass, but rifles, barrels, etc. They recover, but you still hear people saying, "No more Rugers for me. They make bad barrels.", or cast actions, or "Leupold scopes suck." etc. Quality and problems ebb and flow.

Reloading is like investing. You have to be in it for the long haul.

That summarizes my feelings about case prep well. I enjoy it, and other than the occasional trimming, you only have to do it to a case once. So I do all that nonsense to my brass, and am happy to do so.

Cheers,
Rex