I keep breaking decapping tool(s)

[threeoheight]

My first .308 into my new RCBS dies, and the decapping pin breaks. Found out the hard way it was 7.62 and crimped. So I bought a Lee decapping punch and base. That worked for three rounds then that broke too. Maybe I need to be a little more careful or is there a better way?
I once asked a friend why he did something so stupid and her replied "How am I supposed to know what I'm doing" That's me lately!

[joelogic]

Are you sure they are not Berdan primers?

[Solus]

rcbs dies should work fine. Make sure they arent berdan primed and there isnt anything stuck inside the shell. I deprimed a butt load of crimped 30-06 with rcbs dies with no problem. The 223 pin only breaks when its loose or bent. Make sure its tight

[ocabj]

The Lee Universal decapping die is what I have been using ever since I broke a half dozen rcbs pins on crimped primers in my early days or reloading. The Lee is the best universal out there.

[madjack956]

^^this... never had a problem with Lee^^

[emptybottle151]

So from left to right its Wolf, Tul, & some russian letters looks like Eu9. Of course my pin shattered on the weird russian letter one.

Flash Holes:


Berdan primer pocket:


Boxer primer pocket:


Boxer primers:


Is that visual enough?

You should use a small flash light and look down the case to see if it has one or too flash holes.

[threeoheight]

You should use a small flash light and look down the case to see if it has one or too flash holes.

Thanks (to all) for the leaning experience.

[lincoln45]

make sure u have the right shell holder and the case is all the way "in"

[threeoheight]

It was the berdan pockets breaking them. All the stuff marked 7.62 had two small flash holes. Thanks again.

[emptybottle151]

I did the same thing starting out. You could still reload them, just a pain in the @ss. Plenty of youtube videos to show you how. If not, recycle them. I think a lb of brass goes for $1.60.

[Colt562]

You can always transform them to boxer, their was a youtube video on it. Its time consuming however and might not be worth it.

[joelogic]

Ah, the infamous triple crimp.

For the most part surplus .223 is gone so no one talks about berdan .223. But there is a ton of berdan .308 still out there. When I load .308 I check each headstamp. Sure decapping pins are cheap but the downtime to replace it is annoying.

[Munk]

It's not a matter of crimp; like Solus, i've decapped a decent number of .30-06 that's military primed. Both RCBS and Lee deprimin gtools work fantastic for them.

If you don't want to bother with inspecting for berdan priming, I'd suggest you get one of the Lee Universal Decapping tools. They're set with a collet, and so long as you don't change the tightness of the collet, it'll slide up when you run into something you can't decap. After that, you can just unscrew the collet, place the shaft back in place, then screw the collet back down.

[Dutch3]

I have run into a few like the one at the right in the photo. Three holes, but the center hole is a bit smaller than a standard boxer primer flash hole and not necessarily centered in the case.

I broke a decapping pin in one. Thinking I had it figured out, I painstakingly deprimed the dozen or so matching cases I had and enlarged the center flash hole.

Then I sized and trimmed them. Upon attempting to seat a primer, I discovered the primer pocket is slightly larger than a standard boxer SRP, and the primer fell out. Into the scrap bucket they went. Lesson learned.

[seasnake]

Reloading book is for reading .