I have been reloading for about 35 yrs. and recently started reloading 45 acp and once fired sellier & bellot brass. The primer pockets are very tight with both cci and winchester large pistol p[rimers. It is reminicent of some 12 ga. hulls years ago that required smaller primers. Amyway, these s&b cases have such tight pockets that I have crushed some primers trying to fully seat them. I have made sure that the pockets are clean, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.
Are the s&b cases known to have smaller than usual primer pockets? Or am I missing something?
Thanks for your help.

Might try some Remington primers and see if the problem goes away.

Never loaded any of the handgun S&B brass, but the 7.62x54R stuff loaded with no problems using CCI primers.

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I've run into some of those Sellier and Bellot 45 ACP cases. The primer pocket is definitely smaller than standard for US made brass. I never found a primer that would fit S&B's without unacceptable force to seat the primer.
Given how common and inexpensive 45ACP brass is- new or once fired, my solution was to discard the S&B brass.

I've never even seen a S & B case but am wondering if the original primers are crimped. That would necessitate removing the crimp before seating a new primer. Just a thought.

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First thing I did was to check for a crimp, and there is none. So I guess the primer pockets are just too small. My mistake. When I bought them, I didn't even think there would be any problems like this. Think I'll buy some American brass and pitch what I have left. Thanks guys. At least I know it wasn't something I had overlooked.

A primer pocket reamer should solve your problems.

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+1. Whether it is crimped or not, this should do it.

I had the same problem with S&B brass. I picked up a whole case of ammo, and picked up the brass and put it in my 45 ACP brass bucket. I ended up going back through it to sort out all the S&B. I haven't thrown it away yet because I'm cheap; and figure when brass is a lot more expensive, (it's getting that way) it'll be worth the time to ream or swage the primer pockets.

The only other 45 Auto brass I've had trouble with is the Federal (and maybe some WinClean?) stuff with the small primer pockets. Had to sort all those out of my brass pile too. Kept that too of course, but haven't used it yet.

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No problem spotting the once-fired .45 ACP left-on-the-ground S&B shells as they have the bright red lacquered primers. They have a very nice finish and look factory new once tumbled. Yes, they have tight primer pockets but don't think they are crimped. My Star reloader will prime them however I have to be prepared to stop things if I feel them bind. Usually a half turn of the case in the shell plate will fix it. S&B cases seem a bit thin especially near the case mouth so I tend to shoot them once and leave them on the ground. Believe shooters at my range don't think much of S&B for reloading either as a lot of them are left unclaimed. Would suggest using a primer pocket swager e.g. RCBS which enters the pocket and reforms it rather than a reamer which will remove material to enlarge the pocket if you have problems with priming.

I felt the same way with a 1000 IMI brass lot and tried the RCBS swager. This thing was WAY too much work for me. I have heard good things about the pricier Dillon swager. I just bought a reamer and it is MUCH easier to use than the RCBS unit and the a amount of material removed is miniscule.

In earlier years, I reamed over 1K military crimped RA 65 .45 ACP cases with a Lyman hand reamer. My left thumb and two fingers still remind me of that once in a while. I found that if the military crimp was light, the reamer removes, as you say, a miniscule amount of brass. When the crimp was heavy, the amount of brass removed was more. In addition, as my fingers grew numb from holding the cases, the reamer had a tendancy to go in crooked resulting in an slightly oval shaped primer pocket. I could see where the reamer scored the wall on one side of the primer pocket and not the other. I respect your decision to go with the reamer, "different strokes for different folks". I just prefer cycling the press ram once per case and getting it over with and I agree with you that given a lot of crimps to remove, the Dillon tool sure looks right on. Thanks for your response.

I'll second what Kdub says. I've loaded S&B cases before and the pockets are shallow. I compared primer pockets of other brands and the S&B pockets where maybe 2 thousands or so shallower at the edges. They are sort of concave, not flat. I used a Redding reamer to solve this problem.

JR

I have read other posts with similar experiences as you and can see how you got turned off by your experience with a reamer as I did with the RCBS swager.

While swaging on my Hornady single stage, the handle loosened, unknown to me, and I ended up bending it at the threads; had to put a LOT of pressure to get mine swaged this way and it turned me off to this method. Also damaged my shoulder a little with the abuse.

I got the following idea from a video I saw on youtube and the user made it look awfully simple. So far I have just used my new Hornady hand reamer, by hand, but it seems to be designed to do everything well.

Per youtube video: Just chuck the reamer into a drill press running on low speed and slip the case up to it. Pretty simple to do this way and the user made it look very easy to do.

I had the same experience with bulk purchased IMI .308 brass, too. Federal primers didn't like going in, either. The Dillon swager quickly runs through brass, though. Once set up, it will go through cases at the same rate one of their progressive presses loads ammunition; 15-20 per minute is not an unreasonable rate to expect to achieve. It has such high compound leverage that mine actually cracked its base casting at one point. Dillon replaced it quickly and without question, and didn't even want the broken one as proof. That's always been my experience with them on maintenance issues. The Dillon 1050 press has that same swaging ram built into one of its stations, so you can load on a 1050 without sorting brands or fixing cases ahead of reloading, not even military crimped cases.

I don't recommend the swagers for rifle cases for accuracy loads. They push the brass aside as the ram enters the primer pocket, raising the casehead surface a little around the primer pocket, like a gently sloped crater. It's just thousandths, and not enough to matter to handgun accuracy, but a sub-MOA rifle load may not like the way the boltface thrust distributes from it, especially if the case wall thickness isn't uniform. I prefer the primer pocket reamer Wilson makes for its trimmer for long range or other accuracy rifle loads. It's way slower, but I am usually taking the time to uniform the depth as well as the primer pocket profile in such cases.

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