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GGG is a military round therefore the primer will be crimped in the case. This can cause problems when decapping and this was the reason your decapping pin was pushed up. I've had the same problem depriming RG5.5.56 brass which was a pain. The pin is designed to go up as a safety measure to prevent the pin bending or breaking if the flash hole is blocked or it's berdan case.
What you now need is couple AF sized spanners and really tighten the decapping pin in die.

quote="channel12"]GGG is a military round therefore the primer will be crimped in the case. This can cause problems when decapping and this was the reason your decapping pin was pushed up. I've had the same problem depriming RG5.5.56 brass which was a pain. The pin is designed to go up as a safety measure to prevent the pin bending or breaking if the flash hole is blocked or it's berdan case.
What you now need is couple AF sized spanners and really tighten the decapping pin in die.[/quote]


Good point. ... and once pushed up, the case-neck was trapped between the expander ball and neck section of the die with nowhere to go thereby crushing the case. People often don't realise just how tight the retaining collet needs to be - a simple 'nip it up' job is far too slack. I keep the requisite pair of old AF open ended spanners (a hangover from my days of rebuilding BMC A series and Standard-Triumph 1147cc fours) handy for just this reason. With commercial brass the problem usually arises on the reverse move when the case-neck passing over the expander creates too much friction for the die-body to expander stem grip to cope with, the case coming out of the die OK but leaving the expander and its rod behind in the case.

Hornady, which also uses a collet type retaining bolt has grooved or threaded the expander stem and retaining bolt in recent years so you don't have to lock them down to anything like the same degree. They call it the 'Zip Spindle' system.

http://www.hornady.com/store/Dies-and-Die-Accessories

I use a proper de capping die for crimped cases like ggg never have a problem

After you've resolved the issue with sizing these cases I suggest you get a primer pocket swagger to remove the military crimp.

Hi guys,
I had thought about the crimp after the first two failures. As in my OP, I also own a set of Redding dies and I used these to full length resize and de cap the remaining 98 cases without issue.

I also have a RCBS pocket Swager combo 2 which I have used to remove the crimp and reform the primer pocket.

I can now say with confidence that those were not the issues.

This morning I took one of the previously resized, de capped, and swaged cases. I gave it a liberal amount of RCBS case lube, inside the neck and also on the outside of the neck and shoulders. I then passed the case through the Lee full length resizing die several times. On each occasion, it pushed the pin up, although it didn't telescope the neck into the case.

I couldn't understand this as there was no primer in the case and the decapping pin protruded perfectly through the flash hole. I took the resizing rod out of the die and presented it to the case and could see that the resing taper would not pass fully into the neck.

I then reassembled the die and really, really tightened the decapping pin retaining collar into the die body using two spanners. I wouldn't normally tighten threads this tigh but needs must. I repeated the exercise with the same result - pin pushed up through its collar.

I have added two photos to my previous folder, one shows the die in the press with thin protruding through the top, the other shows the resizing rod inserted into the case as far as it will go.
I am totally at a loss as to why this is happening and I am beginning to wish I hadn't wasted my money on Lee dies.
All the best
Bob

The photo of the expander pushed into the case looks perfectly correct, I have spare expanders for all my full length dies and tried a .30 cal one (Lee part no. SE2169) into a spare .308Win case, it looks exactly the same as your photo, stopping at the same point on the taper.

The only thing I can think of is the flash hole is very undersized?, try inserting the decapping pin into the flash hole from the primer pocket end, it should drop straight in and be a loose fit.

If it helps the pin on my expanders has a diameter of 1.55mm or 0.061"

And don't worry about using 2 spanners, that's the correct way to tighten the lock collar :)

Edit
Sorry, just re-read your post. How do you know the pin was protruding through the flash hole?, I can't see this on any of my presses when a case is being sized?

The only ways the expander rod can be pushed up would be if a. the pin wasn't going through the flash hole or b. the die was sitting too far down as if there was no shell holder present and was traveling too far down the case body causing the expander shoulder to contact the case base..

Hi Phaedra,
The decapping pin does easily fit through the flash hole. I thought perhaps because the expander does not go fully into the neck, it would be the pressure of the neck on the taper which pushes the pin back through the collet.

It looks to me like the expander plug is too big, so the case won't pass it. Have you tried measuring it . . . I'm not exactly sure but I would expect it to be in the region of .306 to .308".

Triffid

The expanders max diameter is around .306", the brass should expand over it then the neck will spring back after it's removed. My resized Lapua and RWS brass return to an inside diameter of .301/.302" which is the correct size so a resized case should "stick" on an expander in the place his photo shows it does.

Would the case length being too long cause the problem?

Or as they are new dies... take them back for replacement.


Mark