banged up brass from the shell deflector

steve garrett

Active member
I was wondering what you guys are doing to keep your brass from getting all banged up. mine ends up with bent necks or dents in the shoulder. I have put a strip of velcro on my shell deflector, fuzzy side. and it seems to help alot. anyone doing anything better?
 
All I do is run adjustable gas blocks and turn them down so that it just functions 100% and locks back on an empty mag, plus 1/4 turn out of the set screw. No dinged brass that way.
 
Originally Posted By: steve garrettI was wondering what you guys are doing to keep your brass from getting all banged up. mine ends up with bent necks or dents in the shoulder. I have put a strip of velcro on my shell deflector, fuzzy side. and it seems to help alot. anyone doing anything better?

You can do some ejector contouring but I use a 5/8" square on all my deflectors. I also use adjustable gas blocks to cut down on some of the hard ejection.

Greg
 
Originally Posted By: pahntr760I resize and re-shoot it.

I hate having to round the necks out before running them through the sizing die. Plus it pains me to see that Lapua brass all beat to snot.
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Greg
 
Originally Posted By: MGYSGTJust run them through the die. It will round them back out

Bushing dies don't do round if the mouth is severely dented. No expander buttons do add a facet to the correction challenge. The Sinclair neck expander gets the call for those.

Greg
 
I've noticed that my brass ejects out to the side and slightly to the rear. I've not noticed any dings in the spent brass cartridges. But then again I've not really looked for any thing like that either. I've been saving all my brass since I started shooting my 5.56 AR15 (Nov 2013) And I saved all my brass with the intention to eventually get into reloading it and my 9 mm brass.

My AR15 was built by experts at Daniel Defense and I'm thinking that they set up the buff spring and other things so that the brass does not hit my gun's shell deflector.

I'll take a close look at the camo paint on the guns shell deflector and see if there is any evidence of hot brass bouncing off it.

Thanks for the heads up.
 
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Originally Posted By: steve garrettWhat do you do to found out dents in the shoulder?

You make a judgement call if it is too deep. If not just load it and pull the trigger. Given that it is not the same place over and over again it is fine. Just like a lube dimple.

Gre
 
Funny, none of my 3 dent the brass habitually. One in every 50 or so cases might have a dent, but that's about it. I also have the velcro on the deflector.
 
Adding Velcro to four new uppers that came in from RPG last night. They get the Velcro before they ever make it to the desert.

Greg
 
You can work with your extractor and ejector spring combo to help minimize the damage. It takes a bit of trial and error, but often taking a coil off the ejector spring can help to tame down the ejection. Don't forget to take a look at your extractor spring either and make sure it is a good one. There are springs then there are springs and they are NOT created equal.
 
I forgot to mention. You can move the gas block forward about 1/4 to 1/2 the distance of the gas hole size in the barrel. Probably between .025 and .050. Won't hurt anything, but will cut down the pressure of being over gassed. Doesn't work if the gas block is pinned vice held on with a set screw.
 
Originally Posted By: dennydHow far is the front of the bolt from the back of the ejection port when you pull the charging handle all the way back?

Pulling the bolt back by hand does nothing to duplicate the ejection cycle or velocities. The bolt may go back as deep as possible or just barely enough to get it done.

Greg
 
I am not talking whimpy loads or overpressure loads, with your everyday loads you want the front of the bolt to around 1/4 inch in front of the back of the ejection port window, if the bolt is farther back than this empty cases will ding the wing everytime with normal loads.Originally Posted By: GLShooterOriginally Posted By: dennydHow far is the front of the bolt from the back of the ejection port when you pull the charging handle all the way back?

Pulling the bolt back by hand does nothing to duplicate the ejection cycle or velocities. The bolt may go back as deep as possible or just barely enough to get it done.

Greg
 
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