[F106 Fan]

Just be aware that Federal .223 may be crimped. The stuff I bought at Wally World was crimped.

You might as well assume that it is all crimped until you have loaded it for the first time. That way you don't risk overlooking some.

Richard

 

[F106 Fan]

Yeah, I am making that assumption. What do you use to remove the crimp?

I use a Dillon 1050 to reload .223 since it has a swaging station. I size and trim on a 650 because it is fast to set up. That is not a practical approach but it works really well.

The Dillon Super Swager is my choice for manual swaging. There is a spring return modification on YouTube that is worth considering.

I don't want to remove metal so using a reamer is not my first choice.

First a point of clarification, the crimp is not a ring that is pressed into the pocket, right? It is a deformation of the brass around the pocket, right?

Actually, I have seen it done both ways. I always doubted that Federal .223 crimps were actually 'crimped'. It seemed more like they were trying to correct the pocket diameter by pressing a ring alongside the primer. Nevertheless, a new primer won't seat very well.

Richard

 

[F106 Fan]

I use an RCBS Swaging die set... takes some fiddling, but so does everything else.

The Dillon Swager is really nice if you have the money and space on your bench...

But due to the motion of the handle, I think it takes less space than the RCBS bench swager.

I have the swaging die set and I never really grew to like it. It will do the job but it seems to be a good deal slower than the Dillon Super Swager. Maybe it's just me...

Richard

 

[F106 Fan]

I didn't know RCBS had a bench swager.

As far as the swaging die, I think it's you. You set it up, and load brass in one at a time. On the Dillon, you set it up and load brass in one at a time. One is on your press, one is in its own housing bolted to your bench.

:dunno:

Somehow I got the idea that the Dillon approach was less fiddly and that the arm motion (moving the handle) was considerably less. I also thought the Dillon was just plain faster.

It's all moot! I converted my 1050 to .223 so swaging is free. Well, except for having to buy the conversion to .45 ACP for my 650. I guess nothing is really 'free'.

Richard