.223 military crimp question?

[socalfamous87]

is their anyway around the crimping removal from the primer pocket? i know rcbs make a die but ive heard alot of complaints. dillons looks like a great one but pricey. is their anyway around it?

[Alpo]

I don't know what kind of complaints you've heard. I've been using the RCBS one for a few decades now, on the only problem I've ever had was when I got careless and it bit me.
http://www.thefirearmsforum.com/show...&highlight=bit

If you don't want to swage the crimp away, you can cut it off. There are tools specially for it, and you can sometimes do it with a chamfer tool, or just a pocketknife (although that takes a while).

[socalfamous87]

Originally Posted by Alpo

I don't know what kind of complaints you've heard. I've been using the RCBS one for a few decades now, on the only problem I've ever had was when I got careless and it bit me.
http://www.thefirearmsforum.com/show...&highlight=bit

If you don't want to swage the crimp away, you can cut it off. There are tools specially for it, and you can sometimes do it with a chamfer tool, or just a pocketknife (although that takes a while).

people would say they would brake the rods all the time. gow much is the tool? like $30?

[mikld]

There ain't no way around removing the primer crimp, has to be done if you want to stuff another primer in the pocket. Cheapest and easiest way is to get a small drill, larger than the primer pocket, and champher the pocket edge enough to remove the crimp. For a bunch of years I've used a 60 degree countersink to lightly champher the primer pocket on my used military brass. I've heard the RCBS tool is good, but I haven't needed one...

[LDBennett]

I bought a bunch of military once fired brass (308 and 50BMG).

Years ago I bought the Dillon tool for swaging the pockets to the correct size. When I tried it on the 308 cases I had problems. Even though all the 308 cases were Lake City, they were not all from the same year or the same lot (apparently). In reading through the Dillon instructions they stated that the thickness of the head of the case is not all that well controlled lot to lot on military brass and various thickness will screw up the ability of the Dillon tool to do the swage properly. I found that out! I had to revert to the RCBS primer pocket reaming tool that removes the crimp by removing metal. That was not all that great either as the tool did not remove all the crimp. In the end I had to revert to a 60 degree counter sink. To be assured that all the crimp was removed I had to gage each and every primer pocket with the correct plug gage. The crimp goes deeper into the pocket area then you might think.

I had the same problems with the 50 BMG brass.

I got them all (over 1000 cases!) done but in the future I'll just use the counter sink.



LDBennett

[Alpo]

Originally Posted by socalfamous87

people would say they would brake the rods all the time. gow much is the tool? like $30?

I don't see how you can break them, if you set them up correctly. If you do it wrong, you can break anything. As I said, I've used the same set for some 30 years. Don't know what they cost now. It was 15 bucks, way back then.

I loaned it to my moronic brother-in-law. When it came back, the 223 rod was bent. I called RCBS, told 'em it was bent, and how much for a new one? They said, "where you live?" and sent me a new one. No charge.

The only way I can see that he bent it was if he had it run down too far, and then was using a compound leverage press (like a rockchucker). The press is stronger than the rod, so if you set it up wrong, you can certainly break it. But if you do it right, there are no problems.

If you keep your fingers out of the way.

[312shooter]

Originally Posted by socalfamous87

is their anyway around the crimping removal from the primer pocket? i know rcbs make a die but ive heard alot of complaints. dillons looks like a great one but pricey. is their anyway around it?

Keep it simple and inexpensive. Take a chamfer and deburring tool, throw it in a drill and use the chamfer side at a medium speed in the empty primer pocket and you'll see the crimp come off in one coil, takes less than 3 seconds per case.

[Squeak]

In my opinion, the 60 degree countersink & an electric drill is the way to go.

[cycloneman]

I use a drill and a drill bit. I take off just what is necessary. Now a word of warning here. dont hold the case in your hand and attempt to drill. put the case in a vise. These days you gotta be carefull giving advice.

[RustyFN]

Originally Posted by cycloneman

I use a drill and a drill bit. I take off just what is necessary. Now a word of warning here. dont hold the case in your hand and attempt to drill. put the case in a vise. These days you gotta be carefull giving advice.

I do the same thing but am afraid to say I hold the cases in my hand.

[vdsgw]

I have tryed the Dillon Super Swagger on both crimped .556 and also 9mm crimped brass 1000s of rounds. It did not solve the problem. I bought different reamers trying to trim the edges but the best to date is the Hornady primer pocket reamer. It perfectly cuts the crimp off and bottoms out at the bottom of the primer pocket so you dont cut to deep and ruin any cases. It is a hand trimmer but you could chuck it up. Good Luck

[03fxsti]

I bought a couple thousand 5.56 cases a few years ago. I just sent them out to be processed. Cleaned, sized, trimmed, and pockets swaged. I think I paid like $30 a thousand. Got em back gauged em and ready to go.

[howlnmad]

Aint no way I'd pay anyone to do something I consider therapy. I just chuck a countersink in the drill-press and go to town.

[sorral]

Originally Posted by cycloneman

I use a drill and a drill bit. I take off just what is necessary. Now a word of warning here. dont hold the case in your hand and attempt to drill. put the case in a vise. These days you gotta be carefull giving advice.

Use a power drill with a #2 Phillips bit. It works great for the one or two I come across.

[lawdawg]

I bought the RCBS Primer Pocket Swaging Combo on sale at Midway a few days ago (around $18). I tried it out on some 5.56 cases I had and it worked fine. Setup was fairly easy, just make sure you follow the instructions. WELL worth the $18 bucks or so spent on it.


.

[DixieLandMan]

Is there a picture of the crimp? I mean, I have some military brass that accepts a primer just fine and others, well, I broke my lee auto prime trying to prime one.

[murphy's law]

I have the Dillon 600 and love it because it is so simplistic. I don't even bother to see which pieces of brass needs to be swaged as I just do them all needing it or not. That's because it's so fast and easy (can literally swag hundreds in a matter of 15 mins or so). Now you know why you don't see many "USED" ones for sell very often as users hold on to them and for good reason IMHO.

[JLA]

No way around it. Gotta take it off if you want to reload it. I use a RCBS chamfer tool chucked in a drill. Only takes about a second per piece.

[RustyFN]

Does anybody know if a primer pocket reamer will get rid of enough crimp to let you seat a new primer?

[JLA]

It should. Its designed to uniform a primer pocket and a crimp is just displaced metal. the reamer should take it right off.

[LDBennett]

A couple of things:

The Dillon primer pocket swager is a good tool but should be most useful on Military brass but it is not. The instructions that come with it point out the problem and it is not the tool but the quality control of the military brass that can make the tool not useful on all lots of military brass.

It seems there is no uniform spec for the thickness of the head of the case for military brass. Different lots made at different times have various thickness of the head of the cases. The whole idea of the Dillon swager is that this case head thickness has to be the same for a uniform result on the primer pockets. The variation in head thickness is not just between years of manufacture (easily detected by looking at the head stamp) but between lot numbers (not easily determined).

I have used the RCBS primer pocket uniformer tool and it did not completely remove all of the crimp, at least on the one I used. I verified this by using very accurate pin gages on the tool modified primer pockets. I found nothing short of a counter sink adequately removed all of the crimp and it took a deeper penetration of that tool than I would have imagined.

While primer pocket may not have to have the crimp totally removed for single stage press or hand primed brass, it is mandatory for almost any progressive press. If a primer catches on the pocket edge and collapses then you have a press problem and you have to stop and clear the press to fix it.

I have resorted to using a counter sink and a pin gage to verify the total removal of the crimps. I recently did 1000 308 cases and it took a long time!

LDBennett

[Popgunner]

I've used the RCBS swager on a few thousand military cases & liked it really well. I've got two of 'em. like most of my tools. My wife used to ask why I needed two anvils or two vises. She dosn't bother asking why anymore

Loading military brass is one of the reasons why I got rid of my Dillon 550. I just got sick of messing with it. Went back to the Rockchucker. Your mileage may vary.
I'll recomend Lee dies for de-capping military crimped in primers. The pins are tougher & slide up & can be re-set if you run into a super tough to remove primer. All my other dies I keep bags full of decapping pins on hand. snap, snap, snap...

[Twicepop]

LDBENNETT stated that he experienced problems with the dillon swaging tool. I've had one of these for years and wouldn't trade for any of the others on the market, I've done beaucoup 308s and 223s and the only time I had any problems it was because of a large burr at the flash hole. Remove the burr and the minor variations in web thickness from year to year and probably lot to lot caused me no problems. Military brass is much better than the reputation it has.

[LDBennett]

Twicepop:

The problem using the Dillon Swage tool is not a problem only I encountered (and the flash hole flashing was not the problem). Dillon states it clearly in the instructions that come with the Dillon tool. They are the ones that pointed out to me that the variation of web thickness is a problem between lots of Military brass. I did not come up with this all by myself.

It is a good tool, well made, but if Dillon admits in its instructions that it may not be useful on intermixed lots of military brass then it might not be all that useful to most recyclers of military brass. If you happen to be lucky enough to get a bunch of brass from exactly the same lot, an adjustment can easily be made to accommodate the web thickness of that lot. But there is no way I know of to assure that every piece of brass from a "once fired brass" source will come from the same lot or even the same year of production. Such brass is usually intermixed with various years and different lots based on my experience.

And yes, military brass is very good stuff. There are many other ways to remove the crimp other than the Dillon tool.

LDBennett