This is an embarrasing question. I have loaded centerfires since the early 70s and have never used military brass and have never dealt with swaged primers. I am looking at stocking up on a quantity of military brass in 223.

How does one take the crimp out of a primer pocket.

Thanks

either swage it out or ream it out. dillon makes a great swaging tool. or find a carbile ball point burr the right size, chuck it into a drill press and but the crimnp out

I use the little Lyman hand tool. I get a big bowl of cases and a empty bowl and then I sit down to watch TV. I ream the primer pockets and put them in the empty bowl. Next thing you know, I'm done.

Depending on how many you have the Dillion Swaging tool is worth it. If you only have a small batch I'd do the trimmer. All of my rifle brass is once fired military.

I like the swage my self. Have the Dillon.
I think most of the major reloading tool makers offer some sort of swage tool to remove the crimp in military primer pockets.
I don't like the idea of cutting brass off the head if I don't have to.

muck

a standard case mouth de-buring tool works fine.

In the "old days" we used to put the tip of a
pen knife in the pocket and roll the case across
the bench. Worked then and probasbly still will.

get a dillon, they come with large and small pins and you can really go through a bunch of brass quick. and if it ever wears or breaks they will fix/replace it no questions asked.

Unless you enjoy sitting down to tedious repetitive tasks night after night, spend the extra few cents per round on processed once fired brass.

quote:

repetitive tasks

ya or you can buy factory loads and really have more tv time.

quote:

Originally posted by fishguts:

quote:

repetitive tasks

ya or you can buy factory loads and really have more tv time.

i guess, but not what he said --

he said spending cents, not dollars

the swage is $115, delivered --

rem brass, once fired, is currently 69 bucks on midway for 500, vs once fired lake city, grade 3, of 40 bucks per 500 --

29 dollars difference.

with the $115 swage, JUST IN COST, you would have to buy and process 2000 pieces to BREAK EVEN.. for $1.00

now, say it takes 5 seconds per, and you have a nominal rate of $25 per hour, it would take you 2.778 hours, pr a hair over 69 bucks,

meaning you have to ream 2500 pieces of milsurp brass

to break EVEN with buying 2500 pieces of once fired commerical brass...

seems like a waste of time, money, and effort to those of us that can't stand repeatitive drudgery

mine was paid for the first 2 days i got it. and of corse you just do it the one time so every time you reload them after should go into the logic? get you a dillon df06

Gary just gave me a few thousand once fired 223 crimped cases. A good way to try a 30 yr friendship, lol. But he has a good solution. He hires the neighborhood 12 yr olds to do the re-sizing, trimming and primer pocket reaming. Its a win-win. He gets some of his time back and lot of left-leaning Austin kids get paid for good exposure to the "other" side of firearms than what they are taught.

Perhaps but the lyman thingie is only a couple of bucks rather than $116.00. And when I do my de-crimping (if that's a word) is dead time anyway. I don't have to make a dedicated effort to do the job. 'course if you buy the swag and do 500 cases, then it gets to sit on the shelf whilst you wear out the 500 cases. One assumes a long time.

I prefer the smooth bevel left by using a reamer (or even a case mouth deburring tool). The swaging tool just pushes the excess brass somewhere else, and in my experience it sometimes leaves a slight lip which makes a place that a primer sometimes hangs on. Either will do the job, but be advised that with your typical reloading press it takes a lot of pressure on the handle to fully swage the pocket.

A friend and myself were loading military brass for resale for FMJ plinking ammo for semi or full auto's. We were buying the cases and bullets in 5000 lots. That's a lot of primer pockets to take care. Well I knew the fellow that started Denver Bullets and was talking to him. He said go to Sears and get a certain multi-fluted countersink reamer, chuck in a drill press preferably a floor stand model (which I have) and have left hand feed your right hand cases as it bumps them against the reamer. He said you'll be amazed at how fast you can go through cases. He was right. Today I no longer process that many cases so I just uses a swage which I made.

True, if I were processing 5000 cases, I don't think I'd be doing it whilst I watched TV neither.

You could also look at the RCBS swager die that goes in your press.It has rods for large and small primer pockets.

I have been using the Dillon Super Swager.
I have used with 223 and 9mm the results of the swager are consistent and it seems easy to setup.
I brought it 5 years ago and do not regret buying it.I have seen other ways of removing crimps since I brought the super swager but I have not experienced an urge to change my " setup "

500 cases on a Dillon = about 4 hours while watching TV. TV is distracting sometimes. The RCBS is slower but again depending on the volume you are doing it is worth what you pay for it. If you figure 36 cents a round for 77 grain match loads and I loaded and shot a 1000 of last year. My $100 deswager adds a dime a round to a year of ammo. This didn't include .308 ammo, another 1000 cases for about 2 years of shooting. I've tried the RCBS deswager and it works but the Dillon is quicker. After doing .45 ACP brass and my first 500 .308 rifle cases with a Hornady cutter I wouldn't go with the hand cutters. I haven't tried the countersink in the drill press.

Besides who buys brass and gets paid $25 an hour while watching TV?

quote:

Originally posted by Sam:
Besides who buys brass and gets paid $25 an hour while watching TV?

+1

I'm not sure what I make an hour at work. Prolly too much. But my spare time is worth about $2,000 per hour by my reconning. I'd loose money just ordering the damn thing.

Buy the lyman tool unscrew it from the handle chuck in drill press, use a soft pice of rubber to hold brass. You can do more in an hour than you can wear out in 4 years. That is if you shoot a lot.