"B" headstamp on 223 brass?

[erikivy]

While doing my normal range scrounging, I picked up a dozen or so of these. After tumbling and lubing, I can't seem to get them decapped. In fact, I broke the "guaranteed unbreakable" Lee decapping rod in my universal decapper.

Funny thing is, the tip of the decapper seems to run into a brick wall long before it even reaches the primer. After switching to my 223 full length resizing die and trying a few more, I was able to tell immediately when I had another one loaded into the shell holder because it felt different from the moment the rod made contact with the case.

Should I just throw these in the scrap bucket or is there a secret to getting the old primer out?

Thanks in advance for any helpful hints.

 

[NeuseRvrRat]

berdan primers

 

[erikivy]

Ahhhhhhh! I've read about those little b@stards! The scrap box it is. Thanks for the help, Rat.

 

[NeuseRvrRat]

no problem.

just another piece of advice: you should never have to force anything when reloading. as soon as you feel something strange/different, stop and check things out. i was decapping some .30-06 one night and felt the pin hit something. there was a twisted up piece of baling wire in it. if i had've forced it, i may have ended up dead in the water because i didn't have any spare decapping rods on hand.

 

[erikivy]

Understood. Lesson learned.

 

[CMV]

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=635924

Are these it? Not exactly a "B" but kind of looks like one w/o magnification.

 

[erikivy]

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=635924

Are these it? Not exactly a "B" but kind of looks like one w/o magnification.

Yep, that's them. With my tired old eyes, "B" was my best guess.

 

[CMV]

They confused me too. Luckily my decapping pin just pushed up. They looked like regular old brass cases to me, but they're just brass coated/washed steel and berdan primed.

Now I know to junk them or leave them where they were to begin with, but since they look like everything else .223 that's ok to use, it's easy to grab them & not realize what they are. I'm very happy with the way the Lee die handles that kind of stuff & doesn't (at least not for me yet) get torn up from it.