Carbide Decapping Pin

[Nine Banger]

Hello All,

Gear is trickling in for a 1:8 22-250 I picked up before the rebate period ended for Tikka rifles.

I have a used set of dies from Ebay here:



It came with 2 extra decapping assemblies.



The black one and a C and H carbide decapper:





It seems like the gnarly one I extracted from the die body is the original. It's in good shape but it was a beeyatch to get out and had some funk on it, perhaps a crude thread locker.




Do you think the one in the bag is indeed the carbide item or could it be the black one?

Is it worth screwing around with the extra 2 rods or should I just rock and roll with the factory one? I have no experience with "upgrading" a decapping rod beyond the ones that come in the dies.

My plan is to shoot this rifle around 1000 times uncut in NRA matches that don't allow suppressors and then re barrel it to 22 Creedmoor probably in a year or so. If I get antsy from the lack of sound suppression during practice I'll send it in to get cut and threaded and bored out to 22-250AI.

 

[Wapiti1]

The black one has the carbide expander. They are typically noticeably smoother through the neck when lowering the ram.

The silver one in the middle looks like a custom size expander. I'd mic them all and see then decide what neck tension you want.

Jeremy