DIllon Super Swage 600 and removing military crimps

[Quag]

I am reloading both .223 and now 300 Black Out. I am having a help of a time getting the right size in the primer pockets for both 5.56 LC and .223 FC Remington. I either swage too much and the primers drop out or are loose or my Dillon 500b will not seat about 30% of my primers which can be very frustrating. Any one have some tips on calibrating the Dillon Super Swage? I have heard you can over swage and you should set it up to just swage the opening of the primer pocket and not swage too deep. I also use one of those "cutters" to lightly cut out the crap before I swage.

I had thought I would not have to swage .223 Remington FC since they were not military primers but I find they feed in my 550 a lot better if I swage at least one time before I use them from reloading (factory brass).

Also any tips on tools to check the size of a primer pocket to see if its too big or small?

thanks

Edited January 13, 2015 by Quag

[Boxerglocker]

Best to be slightly over aggressive, rather than too light on the swage having the issues you are experiencing. I took a clean piece of LC brass and using my belt sander took off a inch at the base of the case. Go about 1/3 through the circumference of the base into the primer pocket. Doing so give a window that you can see that the back-up rod is adjust properly then in turn you can see that the crimp adjustment is correct. I have never used Go – No Go gauges for primer pocket. I just rely on the feel when testing using my hand primer.

[Paul-the new guy]

I have swaged several thousand and I have never had a problem over swaging. I didn't know it was possible. I set the swager one time according to the directions and I have never adjusted it. I even use it for 9mm when I have one that is heavily crimped without adjusting. I would call Dillon and see what their thoughts are on it...

[dauntedfuture]

Ok, you can use the cutter or the swager, you don't need both. .223 FC and 5.56 LC brass primer pockets are all cut to the same spec. Mark the rod and the nut with a little paint mark so you can see how much you are adjusting. Tighten the nut each time until its snug, not tight. Start with sized 1x brass and swage the pocket, and adjust the rod out, making it a little longer each time, this adds more swage. Each time you adjust the rod, use another piece of brass and try to seat a primer with a HAND PRIMER if you have one.

You need to isolate if its the primer pockets that are not to spec or that your Dillon primer seater needs adjustment. Adjusting the seater on a 550 is a little bit of a pain and I still mis-seat primers on occasion on my 650 and 550.

A lee hand primer will work just fine and they are like 12.00.

[Quag]

Ok, you can use the cutter or the swager, you don't need both. .223 FC and 5.56 LC brass primer pockets are all cut to the same spec. Mark the rod and the nut with a little paint mark so you can see how much you are adjusting. Tighten the nut each time until its snug, not tight. Start with sized 1x brass and swage the pocket, and adjust the rod out, making it a little longer each time, this adds more swage. Each time you adjust the rod, use another piece of brass and try to seat a primer with a HAND PRIMER if you have one.

You need to isolate if its the primer pockets that are not to spec or that your Dillon primer seater needs adjustment. Adjusting the seater on a 550 is a little bit of a pain and I still mis-seat primers on occasion on my 650 and 550.

A lee hand primer will work just fine and they are like 12.00.

Thanks that's some good information. Last night I adjusted the Dillon swager out a little and swaged about 230 pieces of FC .223. I used the cutter before swaging to cleanout the pocket using a slow speed drill. As far as I could tell there was very little if any cutting of brass going on but it worked great to clean out the pocket of the black residue. I then loaded all of the rounds. I would say I had about 15 to 20 failures to seat primers of the 230 or about 8%. I attribute this to issues with the Dillon 550b shell plate and primer mechanism (BTW I have little or no issues with priming 9mm pistol). I was wondering if I would have more success with a hand primer but I did not want to try that unless it was worth it. I looked at an RCBS hand primer and it was about $100.

Does your Lee hand primer set up work well and is it really only $12? Right now I have separated brass prep from loading. I do brass prep (resizing and trimming) separate from the 550b on a single stage and use WFT trimmer if needed. If I add hand priming to that then I will only use the 550b for powder, seating and crimp but if goes faster with the hand primer I'm up for a try especially if it speeds things up.

BTW I have had a hell of a time adjusting the seater and shell plate on the 550b for .223/300 black out. I'm not that impressed with Dillon for seating primers in rifle brass but maybe its my setup

Edited January 14, 2015 by Quag

[dauntedfuture]

Quag,

The lee hand primers work well but they are cheap and wear out. I think I am on #3 after 20 years or so. I also have a Hornady (50.00) unit that does not work quite as well but is build much better. DO NOT GET THE RCBS thing that uses the primer strips. I would work to get your adjustments set on your 550. I have loaded ??? rounds of ammo on a 550 and in general, don't have a real issue with seating primers. You might try adjusting your shell plate down a little tighter and making sure everything is clean.

I would stop cleaning the primer pockets with the cutter, you can cut too much and you simply don't need to do it. I don't bother cleaning primer pockets on anything but my long range highpower rifle brass and for that I use a little brush thing. Its not bad, I just think you are wasting time and effort.

Some primers are also easier to use then others so that has something to do with it if you are using brand X for SP and brand Y for SR.

I would also use your Dillon for FL sizing your brass its faster then the single stage as you only have to put brass in and not take out but this is on you.

[nwhpfan]

Ok, you can use the cutter or the swager, you don't need both.

Yes, I think that is the problem.

I just use the swager and no problem. If something happens in the press I've used a deburring tool to open up the pocket.

When I pick up brass...I try to separate it. Once it's in a big bucket that's too much work....and I really make sure I keep separate the brass I've shot since I worked so hard to swage, resize, etc.

Edited January 18, 2015 by nwhpfan

[George Post]

I think it is your press that is at fault. Is there a way to adjust case alignment at the priming station? I know there is on a 650 but I have never used the 550.

Also on my press, if I'm having a problem getting a primer started, I rotate the case a little and that mostly lines it up.

[anm2_man]

Best way to set up the swage is to use guages !

These will fix your problems. "Go or NOGO" ! you can get them here -> http://ballistictools.com/store/

[Quag]

Best way to set up the swage is to use guages !

These will fix your problems. "Go or NOGO" ! you can get them here -> http://ballistictools.com/store/

thx bro, ordered one tonight. Just what I was looking for. Interesting company

[jtielke]

Your problem isn't the swager it's the FC brass. When I first started reloading .223 I had problems with loose primers. I noticed the correlation between primers falling out and the FC brass. Started putting the FC brass recycling bucket instead of the reloader and all my loose primer problems went away. I still toss any round I don't feel some force when I seat a primer into the practice bucket but I've never had a loose primer since I stopped reloading FC brass.

[Quag]

thanks jtelke but I have found LC to be a reliable cartridge. my over swaging was on both .223 Remington and LC 5.56 brass. primers dropped out of both. Theoretically you should not have to swage a .223 Remington but I have found that one pass swage on .223 ensures reliable primer seating using a dillion 550b. For LC 5.56 it may take two passes with the swager but do not do more. I was doing more. And I was using both the cutter or swager. I just use one now.

But I absolutely agree with you whether I'm loading .223 or 5.56 if the primer seats too easily I always pull it out and check it with a spare decapping rod. I still get failures to seat primers on both .223 and LC 5.56 but I have gotten the percentage way down. From what I have heard you never are going to eliminate FTF primers due to differences in manufacturing of primers and primer pockets etc.

[dauntedfuture]

Its possible and I have had FC brass that would not hold a primer the first time I tried to reload it.

[Quag]

Ok I'll reply to my own post here with some results. Couple of observations; reforming brass is not the same as resizing brass and removing military crimps is a process and there is not one way or one perfect way to do it. I am focusing in this string on reusing 5.56 once fired LC Brass to make 300 blackout. Nevertheless the same primer pocket issues occur when reusing LC 5.56 brass, its just a lot work goes into making a home made batch of 300 blk out annealing, cutting, trimming. deburring etc. so when a primer does not seat I really don't want to throw away the brass unless it really necessary.

One of the poster's here turned me onto the Ballistics Toll's swage guage for small primer pockets. If I had this from the start it would of saved a lot of problems. To start I used it on a batch of .223 Remington out of about 100 I found 7 that the primer pockets were too big into the recycler.

For the 300 blk out I started with a batch of 59 cartridges LC brass with crimps and I used a RCBS small primer pocket in a drill to cut out the crimps. Of the 59 there were 9 that did not pass the Ballistics gauge test (too tight) despite using the cutter several times. I used the Dillon swager set up to lightly swage a pocket on these 9. After that all 9 passed the gauge test and none were too loose.

I took the 59 to my Dillon 550b and using Winchester Small Pistol Primers I tried to seat all 59. I got all of them to seat except 6 in which the primers seated high or at odd angles. I deprimed the 6 and check them with Ballistics gauge it passed but they were tight. I swaged these 6 one or two more times and checked them with the Ballistics gauge to make sure they were not too loose. I brought them back to the 550b and seated primers in all 6 without incident.

I would note all of this work was with Winchester Primers which are easier to seat than CCI. I am still not sold on the 550b as good tool to seat primers on former crimped rifle brass (it works fine for pistol) and I may switch to hand priming for rifle .223/5.56 and 300 bkl out.

Edited January 23, 2015 by Quag

[RDA]

Why aren't you using the Dillon Super Swage to process all your primer pockets once you get it set properly? You have all the tools and brass necessary and using it on your six problem brass it got the job done.

Edited January 23, 2015 by RDA

[mike4540]

I have the Dillon swager and just use that on all my brass, I still get the occasional primer that will not seat correctly(Tula,Winchester), I have to keep cleaning the primer cup or the primers will be a little uneven and not seat correctly either.