Dimples on cartridge neck-Ok to reload?

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gifbohane

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I find some 223 range brass has dimples on the bottom of the neck.. also I get some with dimples on the body of the case. The resizing RCBS die does not remove them. It does not seem to happen with my own grass. Can I presume the cause is over pressure? or weakness in the brass?

Question- Is it safe to reload them....or is there a rule of thumb on what size dimple on a case is ok to use? Extreme accuracy is not a factor for me... yet.
 
I fired a set of 308 LC cases 23 times in my M1a. I shot these in NRA Across the Course Competition, the last I fired them was at Rattle Battle at Camp Perry. The only reason I was able to take them as far as I could, without case head separations, was due to the lubricative effect of paste wax. That being said, these cases had numerous dents from the magazine lips and operating rod. The only reason I stopped using them was because the primer pockets were getting large and I did not want to have a primer drop out of a case, as it was being fed from the magazine into the chamber. Alibi's will ruin anyone's score.

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Are these dimples from physical damage upon ejection from the gun or are they being put in the case during resizing?
Good point. When I started reloading, I quickly learned to use less resizing lube on the cases and to clean the sizing die after 50-100 cases sized. Because of those dimples showing up.
 
Are these dimples from physical damage upon ejection from the gun or are they being put in the case during resizing?

My thought also. I make it a practice to wipe the inside of the sizing die with a cotton tip swab on a long wood stick after every hundred or two cases. Only takes a few seconds and removes a surprising amount of girt that came from clean brass cases.
 
My thought also. I make it a practice to wipe the inside of the sizing die with a cotton tip swab on a long wood stick after every hundred or two cases. Only takes a few seconds and removes a surprising amount of girt that came from clean brass cases.
Too bad those dimples don’t come on the neck rather than the shoulder. Would be easy insurance against setback.
 
Gifbohane,
Do you have any pictures of these dimples? It's important because you might be seeing the beginning of stress cracks forming. Is the dimple rectangular by any chance with the long side going up/down the case rather than around the circumference? If so, this is a indicator of the beginning of a crack. It's not dangerous at this point. But with 556/223 brass as cheap and readily available it's the safe bet to scrap it and move on.
If the dimoles are rounded then I would say they are compression dents from extra lube or left over cleaning solvents in the chamber during firing.

A pic or two and we should be able to easily tell you if you have some.

Steve
 
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