Resurrect and sharpen your punch cutters

Fosgate · January 18, 2021

I love punch cutters, but hate constantly replacing them once they get a bend, nick or just dull. I looked for ways to sharpen them and all I could find was go buy a leather strop, honing stones etc.; They all looked tedious and not really economical or really only helps sharpen them. What about the nicks or if you the dents from carrying in your pocket etc. I've been on a buying binge lately and bought a decent Xikar V-cutter and looking over my other cutters. Looking at one of my punch cutters I thought it would be nice to use on some new incoming cigars, but knew it was burred up and kinda dull after the cap protecting the blade came off in my pocket.

Today I was in my garage doing some rifle reloading and going through deburring and shaping the case necks of brass cases and it clicked. I went in the house and grabbed my Credo punch and went back to my reloading table. In the images two of the punches had bad chips in the upper right corner. I tried to keep the at the 2 o'clock position in the photos. I have about 10 spins with my deburring tool. Less than a minute later the nicks and burrs were gone from my punch cutter and she was nice and sharp again. I did the next one, same thing. I ran back in and grabbed a Xikar punch that the blade looked like a crumpled beer can and the metal was pretty thin. I took out the center screw with a screw driver to clear the center guide to sharpen the outer and then the tip for the inner and back to the outer again. Maybe 5 minutes total taking the screw out, reforming and sharpening and putting the screw back in and viola. She was sharp again. I was so happy with myself that I tried to find where anyone else had used this and found only one article from 2012. I am surprised that using this cheap tool was not common place in the cigar world. Anyway thought I'd pass it along for those that may benefit.

I would recommend starting out gentle to you don't take too much edge off. These are designed to work quickly on thicker walled brass rifle cases from .17HMR to .45ACP cartridges. Pointy end sharpens and presses out dents from the inside and the flared end forms and sharpens the outside. That brings in another point. The case guide (The Center Pin often gets in the way as it bottoms out in your punch. However I made it work in these two cases where it was to shallow to use the pin as a pivot point and tilt the sharpening blade to the punch blade. It works with these cutters but I think I would consider the RCBS Chamfer and Deburring Tool its a bit larger as it is designed for brass cases .17HMR to .60 Cal and it does not have that center pin to get in the way. https://www.midwayusa.com/product/101293302 they are out at the moment but I see they are available elsewhere for $25-35.

Cheers!