Broke my first decapping pin

[MG23]

So I broke my first decapping pin today resizing and decapping some 223 brass. Here are the pictures where it broke. It was a Lee Die, no problem, called them up and was told to email pictures. Not even an hour later got a response back for my address sending me a new pin.

View attachment 8648
View attachment 8649
View attachment 8650

 

[Matt1911]

It happens.
I ordered a couple extra just in case.

 

[MG23]

Yup that's what I am doing now so I have extra in case of.

 

[dennishoddy]

I have a bag of decapping pins.
Funny part is, that since I broke that first one, those spares just gather dust.
Broke mine on a .223 case as well. Some Hungarian junk with undersized flash holes.

 

[MG23]

I bet that was my problem. I was processing some range pickup brass which I will use for practice. That's ok by me if I have a couple extra pins sitting around they are cheap enough.

 

[dennishoddy]

Looking at your pic, it looked like it was stuck in the flash hole. Like you said, cheap insurance to have some extra's.

 

[MG23]

Yeah I think the flash hole grabbed it and wouldn't let it go.

 

[wgm2011]

From many years of experience I've found that decapping pins break only when there is a time crunch on getting out some ammo (like the Thursday before the big match) and they usually break in groups of three. However the number of broken pins may differ depending on how many spare pins you have on hand.

You cannot argue with experience.

 

[JMorris]

For spares, Lee pistol dies, the decapping pins interchange. Rifle pins have the expander built in so unless your loading on a 1050 you need the specific pin for the diameter.

 

[MG23]

good to know with the pistol dies. Thanks

 

[Fyrtwuck]

My solution was to get a Lee decapping die just for de-priming brass. They work with several calibers and the pins if broken are easy to change. The last decapper I bought was on eBay for 10 bucks.