Swagin on Lee loadmaster

[Chase Banks]

Has anyone ever thought about swaging on their loadmaster? I bevel my primer pocket by hand right now 1 at a time, and boy does it take forever. I have come to the conclusion that the loadmaster has the easiest time priming when the primer pocket has a slight bevel to it and haven't had a single priming issue since I started giving them a slight bevel(over 1200 cases) and was thinking about trying a couple pieces of swaged brass to see if I get the same result. I was thinking about taking my priming ram to work and letting my tooling maker reverse engineer it to have a swaging end to it instead of a ram for the primer and see if I can do them "progressively" and just have them call out where the powder would drop.

If anyone has ever had this notion, or tried something along the lines of this I would be glad to hear your input. I know the dillon 1050 has a swaging station, but I'm not going to drop that much money to be "lazy" when I might get it for a fraction of the cost.

 

[forty_caliber]

I'm not a Lee press user. I'm not sure how much force you can apply without breaking or bending something on the priming arm. Swaging takes a quite a bit of force.

Check out a CH4D swager. This is the best product I've tried to date to remove those nasty crimps.

.40

 

[9mmepiphany]

If anyone has ever had this notion, or tried something along the lines of this I would be glad to hear your input. I know the dillon 1050 has a swaging station, but I'm not going to drop that much money to be "lazy" when I might get it for a fraction of the cost.

My first concern is the lack of internal support for the case during the swaging process

...see if I can do them "progressively"

Take a look at the Lee APP

 

[Chase Banks]

The APP wouldn't be a bad idea, I've been looking at them due to only costing $130. The only downside is it's basically an automatic case fed single stage press. Granted I would get about the same amount done in half the time

 

[jmorris]

That is the weak link in the seating system on the LM and the swage station is the one thing that makes the 1050 acceptable as a “handle down priming system”, while everything else is happening. You loose the feel but with the swager, it’s not important.

Unless your “tooling maker” is a good friend that likes reloading and to hangout and drink your beer or fine spirits, that you don’t mind supplying, it might not be met with a lot of enthusiasm.

If you are lucky enough it is, I would suggest a back up rod, inside the case right off the bat. On the LM, this will require one pass to prepare the brass and a subsequent pass to load it. You may need to strengthen the lever that actuates the seater/or new swager but if you bend the factory one and beef it up, I would guess the pivot in the casting would be the next thing to go. The 1050 is cast iron not cast aluminum.

 

[Chase Banks]

Jmorris, yea my tooling maker at my job is a good friend of mine and we ride together. I guess I should have mentioned I work at an automotive facility in robotics and the tooling department has CNC equipment and he has made quite a few of components for my reloading bench and motorcycle.

The double pass won't be an issue due to being able to have 100 cases virtually on hand with the collator and tube setup, just get an extra turret and be good to go on decapping and swaging. Hardest part would be swapping the ram out and different pivot arm to give me the leverage I would need. Just spitballing the idea right now, I do appreciate all the input so far.

As for the 1050, I just can't see spending $2000 for convenience. I'm kinda a tightwad, I'll suffer to save $10 lol

 

[jmorris]

If he’s a real good friend, just have him make one of these, except instead of a probe going into the pocket (or not as is the case with SPP brass), have it swage with a backup rod. Then you don’t even need to mess with the LM.



I built it with nothing but stuff I had sitting around and an old mill. Then again it takes me longer to program my CNC mill than just to whip out one or two parts, especially if I am making them off the top of my head as I go.

 

[dave333]

I bet the problem you will run into is the crappy pot metal shell plate carrier. I doubt that will take the stress of swaging very much brass at all.

I ran loadmasters for years and liked to seat my primers a little deeper than average and at least once a year I would crack the shell plate carrier right at the bolt that pivots the primer punch. I had 3 loadmaster presses and always kept a spare shell carrier cause I knew it wasn’t a matter of if but when. I was ok with Th is since I got my primers seared like I wanted and if it ever happened during a loading session I would just switch to another press until I had time to change out the carrier.

Maybe your buddy could make you one of those out of real metal to go along with the swags rod. Otherwise I doubt that cheap metal would make it through the first load of 100 cases before it cracked.

 

[jmorris]

I bet the problem you will run into is the crappy pot metal shell plate carrier. I doubt that will take the stress of swaging very much brass at all.

On any of them, to work well, they need to not rely on a shell plate or holder. A back up rod eliminates the stress and subsequent deflection being put on the rim or shell plate and the key to decent swaging.