Thanks FP! I was thinking more for straight walled pistol brass, but 5.56 is certainly a consideration too. I would use a small base die for that (or any semi auto brass) to bring it back to standard spec. While the Lee has changed its tune about 9mm I'm doing it the way they used to recommend, using the 9mm Markarov fcd and lubing them. Just have to follow that with a run through standard carbide sizing die. Like I said in the op it's tedious lol....unlimited funds and I'd be rollsizing that stuff wholesale. It does work though...I did 1000 that way in the spring and every one fit into an Armanov check gauge, which are tight. I have a 5 gallon pail of 9mm range brass that I'm looking to process this fall/winter and the thought of doing it all with the extra step is daunting, even with the incredible increase in speed using the APP, which is huge (I can race through decapping and then tumbling thanks to it). I've also considered using Blue Ridge Brass services, they clean, deprime, rollsize, resize, swage, and gauge check for $35/1000, but I hesitate paying someone for doing shit I can do, even if it is drudge work.
I have pin tumblers, vibratory tumblers, all sorts of presses and accoutrements, but I gotta tell ya, $35/K isn't bad to process Brass, especially when you factor in the Roll Sizing...now small batches, yea I'm going to do that on my own from start to finish...a very close friend that I try to keep supplied with Bullets.primers-powder (Coaches a High School Rifle Team) took all my 7.62x51 and 30-06 Brass and processed it for me over the Winter for "something to do" which I greatly appreciate, even gave him a RCBC Power Trimmer, sure is nice to run a batch and all you have to do is drop the powder and seat a bullet.
Yeah, that's the one I was thinking about. I'm jealous of togmaster having not one but 3 friends with them...that would be ideal! I did look at the website for Blue Ridge and unfortunately they don't do 50 BMG.
Surplus .50 is usually stretched in length more so than swollen at the base, which I suspect is from excessive headspace (see Headspace and Timing) something the newest iteration of M2's won't suffer. Now cases fired from M107A1's resize as easily as any other cartridge, but that Brass in Surplus isn't exactly common, either way there's enough 'Civilian' Brass floating around that suffering with surplus is a moot point.
Lee doesn't make a bulge buster for 9mm because it's not really a straight wall cartridge. It's actually tapered a few thousandths. The mouth is smaller than the base. They only make bulge buster dies for true straight wall cartridges such a .380, .40/10mm and .45auto.
I thought the Roll Sizer just did the base half of the case (see Small Base v. Large Base Dies) and that a second stage was necessary for the neck/shoulder...Seems every Case I ever stuck was bound up at the base of the Die from insufficient Case Lube.
Aside from the machine linked in one of the posts above, roll sizing has always been a big table made of thick steel and another big plate of thick steel positioned above. The cases are thrown on the table, and then the top plate is lowered to a precise dimension. Then the top plate begins to move in an orbit. The cases are squashed between the plates and resized that way. This is why roll sizing was only ever used on straight wall cases without a rim. Thousands of cases could be processed at a time with this method, and it yielded good results.
Given that I have several autoloading Rifles in 30'06, .308, and .223 I try to load them to the minimal specifications, and Cartridge Case Gauge each one and the reason is not knowing what that spent case came out of or what it's going back into, and with the exception of some very specific rounds for Hunting, I load ALL my 30-06 to M1 Garand specs. because it could be going into a '03, or a 1917, or any one of a dozen Garands, and could have come out of anything.
