De-crimping annoyance

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dfish1247

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Oct 29, 2022
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This has irritated me for a while.

When I remove the crimps, every piece I have to rotate around and find the sweet spot for the primer to go in. Once I find it, the primer goes in smoothly. Is this normal? It feels like operator error to me, but no other issues.

BTW, I have the hornady swage tool and the rcbs reamer that stops before cutting too deep. Both of them give the same results as well.

Thanks
 
I’m using the lee system for the classic turret. Only the crimped brass does this, anything else, primers just go in.

The reamer leaves a better rolled edge like a normal pocket has. The hornady does as well, but to get the same edge as the reamer, the swager goes too far and opens the pocket up too much equaling a loose pocket.

Touch the pocket with a de burring tool to get a chamfer?

Oh, something I forgot, I do deprime and wash this stuff so the pockets are clean before de crimping.

I have non crimped brass as well, but it’s for target use. This stuff is for blammo.
 
You are not finding a “sweet spot”, you are using the spinning action to line the primer up with the pocket.
Find out why the ram isn’t lined up right. But then, that’s what the chamfer is for.

Commercial brass has a chamfer to it, as you indicated, Remington even more so. Staked brass is flat, in addition to the staking messing it up. Which makes it much more critical to align.
Take a countersink bit in a drill press and put a new chamfer on them before you wash them. A drill is fastest, a counter sink is wide and doesn’t touch the flash hole, and the press part holds it for you. A light touch in less than a second and a whole lot can go by quick. Washing them after cleans off any burrs.

If you like the roll the swager puts on the pocket, take a file to the end of the swage so it doesn’t get so far in and only chamfer the pockets. I got tired of this quickly and there are other foils to it, like, who wants to move the press arm that many more times? And, my favorite, that web was thick and it’s stuck on the press now…
I dislike swaging.

I buy good brass and I’ve never met a pocket too tight, so I don’t swage them anymore. But I remember the days of buckets of free Lake City. Good days those.🙂
And good brass if one was willing to put forth the work.
Just remember, if it’s for Blammo, you want fast and easy.
 
dfish1247 said:
When I remove the crimps, every piece I have to rotate around and find the sweet spot for the primer to go in. Once I find it, the primer goes in smoothly. Is this normal?
Click to expand...
Like @Demi-human pointed out, a slight chamfer will aid in off center primer - primer pocket lining up. You may want to get a primer pocket go no-go gauge like Ballistic Tools have just to make sure you don’t over swage or ream them. There’s a reason shell holders don’t put a death grip on the cases.
 
Some presses are not compatible with the RCBS swager. It did not work on my Lee single stage press. I sent it out and ordered the Lee swager and it works about 95% of the time. Some types of brass (looking at you Frontier) need a little trim with a case neck deburring tool.

After messing up 8-10 I can feel if I need to add that extra touch. My last batch of 100 had 2 that needed the extra trim. I used the RCBS reamer before that. It does a better job but is way slower and leaves a pile of chips to clean up. I use it if I’m only prepping a dozen or so cases.
 
I've used most of the tools out there and have settled on the reamer from Wilson, used in their trimmer. Its slow and can be hard on your fingers, unless you have "farmers" hands! But using it in the trimmer keeps it from any wobble that using it freehand may cause. It leaves a slight radius that helps line the new primer up.
 
I've done the rotating the case to line up the primer on some once fired brass that had primer pockets that were marginally too tight, or right on the edge. Loading on an old Herter's sigle stage press. My scenario is different, but I just figured that is the behavior of brass that the primer pocket in on the smaller end of acceptable tolerance. I figured I might try to chamfer the pockets a bit next time to open the mouth up a hair more and see if that made the primer start just a touch better. I've never used the tool your using, but to me it sounds like you just need to run it into the pocket again to get a bit more swage out of your swage, or set it to swage the pocket another .0005 bigger, if that is something you can adjust. but, I don't have one of those tools, might be on the list soon, but I'm just guessing how it might work.
 
Tight primer pockets is the blessing of new brass. Old brass gets recycled when they are loose. Alignment is aided by cutting a very small chamfer. It's easy to overdo and I don't recommend a machine, hand cut for a while to see what it takes. One twist with a sharp countersink is normally plenty.
 
FWIW; For a bit over 30 years I have had zero problems with my primer pocket decrimping method. When I first encountered military brass w/primer pocket crimps, I immediately thought of a countersink (lifelong machinist/mechanic). I had a few in my tool box and chucked one in my hand drill, about 1/2 second light pressing the brass against the countersink removes the crimp and lightly chamfers the mouth aiding the seating. I reload 5 military rifle cases and 3 milspec. handgun cases. I have never had a crooked pocket, a too deep pocket nor an oversize pocket using the simple, inexpensive, readily available tool...

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I’ll try the counter sink and see what happens, have a few around to try. I have plenty as is and can find more easily, right now anyway.

The hornady swager uses a shim stack in the die that is supposed to push the brass off the swaging button. It is brass brand specific on how you set it up. Won’t swage enough or the brass gets stuck on the button. I use the hornady in my Lyman all american press, the lee turret ain’t for doing swaging, not solid enough.
 
I used a countersink for a while, but it didn't always work very well, and using it on a drill seemed excessive. The RCBS reamer works every time. For speed the Lee Ramswage works faster but does have some small % failure rate. I kind of view cutting them out to be a brute force method of removing them, but when I think about it, swaging isn't any more finesse based. If you handed me two fired cases with one swaged and one reamed, I doubt I could tell the difference. Before reloading them, I might be able to, but they both look very similar. I was surprised, as I thought the swaged one would look considerably different. The reamed crimps are shinier, so when new that's the only way I could tell, maybe.
 
I’ve used a number of methods for cutting and swaging pockets.

1703343560867.jpeg

My favorite is using a 1050 though as it does the work as part of the loading process adding very little extra work and no extra time.

1703343406921.jpeg

If your not seating primers as normal, your not getting rid of all of the crimp.

1703343435596.jpeg
 
Touch the primer pocket with a counter sink bit. I've done thousands of pieces of LC brass with this. No swaging needed. As was stated earlier, you aren't getting the crimp 100% out.

 
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DMW1116 said:
Some presses are not compatible with the RCBS swager. It did not work on my Lee single stage press
Click to expand...
There is another cup rcbs has so swager will work on lee classic cast. Works well with a little imperial put on nipple with q tip.
 
I use the rcbs tool to displace the crimp, and then upon next inspection i run over them lightly with a countersink to give the edge a light bevel.

I suppose when im old ill use a belt AND suspenders
 
Atavar said:
I have thought about getting one of those.
Do you clean the pockets before swaging?
Click to expand...

I'll suggest to forego the RCBS press mount swage. I've got one and have done many thousands and it does the job. However, if you're annoyed now you won't like jamming the press handle up to get the case off the swage button and threading cases blind up over the push rod and occasionally pinching fingers.

Can't say (yet) for sure, but I think a bench mount unit would be less painful mentally (and physically) and faster because you can see what you're doing easier. Every winter is stock up on reloads season and I get reminded how much I want to buy a bench unit.

I clean before processing and after to remove reside, so first step I pop out the spent primers and have a rcbs primer pocket brush on my cleaning station. They all get the pockets brushed before the first go round in the tumbler.

New to me crimped brass every case that gets swaged also gets a chamfer before going into service.

Maybe others can say with more certainty ...just my 0.03c... Oh, you didn't know? 0.02c is now 0.03c -Bidenomics man!-
 
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