550 priming issue

[cardiackid]

So over the course of this weekend I prepped (to include swaging on the 600) and loaded a little over 400 pieces of Lake City 5.56 after getting the new 550 all set up. I'm currently using a bunch of left over Remington 7.5 Benchrest Small Rifle Primers. The only hiccup I've seen so far is with regard to seating primers. I have a pretty deep swage going on with the 600 - very little to no resistance with the RCBS hand priming unit, however when I go to prime on the 550 I'll have an occasional chunked primer pocket or hard seat. One of these was my fault - I somehow got a sideways primer in there and my best bet is that I put too much pressure on one side using the pick up tube and flipped it on end as it was going into the tube and then dropped it into the primer tube sideways as well. However the other ones I can't explain. On another case, during inspection in the cause gauge I actually had a primer fall out. This is range brass so I suppose it's possible it had a loose primer pocket from excessive reloads despite no other pressure signs, and swaging only added more to this. Fortunately this was the only round out of the 400 where I experienced this. All of the brass has been trimmed to length, chamfered and deburred prior to running through the swager, so I'd say it's safe bet that each piece should be receiving a very uniform swage.

With regard to the hard seats (maybe one out of every five or six) it seems as if it's more of an alignment issue with the seating cup and the brass primer pocket than anything as I have noticed tiny half-rings of brass shavings appear here and there below station 1. The only other thing I've noticed is that occasional spillage (using H335 ball powder) tends to cause a random grain of powder to get caught up while inserting a new case, although I'd say 99% of the time the brass usually knocks the granule out of the way. I checked the shellplate for proper tension or any wobble and it was good to go. Everything else is running smooth as silk with regard to the operation of the primer bar during strokes and alignment with the shellplate as it comes into battery for lack of better terminology. The small bar primer cup is within the tolerances of the 2.015-2.020" as specified in the manual.

The big issue I'm failing to identify is where the resistance is exactly coming from and if there's anything I have set up incorrectly or if using a slow, fine touch while seating is just required for previously military crimped brass. I haven't loaded any commercial brass or pistol casings yet to see if the issue still arises, but I'm guessing it won't. For lack of a better description, it just doesn't feel quite right some times. Anyone have any tips or other trouble shooting suggestions? I may give the little pin that holds the brass in station 1 some more looking at as well, although right now it's right at the point where it doesn't interfere with reverse-indexing the plate, so I don't know how much more I could adjust it. Thanks.

Edit to add: Just noticed bluenite's post with accompanying photo here: and my clip definitely isn't aligned like his is. I may need to adjust this, although I can't imagine that little bit of tension (or lack of in my case) being the magic pill right now...

Edited May 31, 2011 by cardiackid

[dillon]

Adjust this spring to be within .002"-.004" of touching the rim of the case. It is not there to push the casse into the shellplate, it is there to keep the case from backing out of the shellplate. Not quite the same thing. Also, push down on the edge of the shellplate between stations 2 and 3. If it feels springy, then the shellplate bolt needs to be a bit tighter.

[cardiackid]

Thanks for the tip - I'll give it a whirl.

[cardiackid]

Well, I tried to fine tune the bolt tension and the station one paperclip spring tension a little bit and I think I have it figured out now. There's still just the smallest hint of up/down movement over the ball bearing (maybe .002-3" - wouldn't describe it as springy, but there's just the slightest touch of movement. Any more torque (even a small fraction of an inch) causes the shellplate and sprocket to lock up. I also didn't put quite as much torque on the brass-tipped screw. This is the only amount of torque I could get on the bolt where it allows me to index the shellplate but still "snap" into each position. I believe I had the plate torqued down just a hair too much last time in addition to too much torque on the brass-tipped screw when there was no movement, but it was also counteracting the action of the ball bearing. It prevented the ball bearing from naturally centering itself on the shellplate hole, which in turn allowed the shellplate to have some inconsistent side to side movement when indexing, thus causing the primers to go up just slightly off center in some cases. I ran some more swaged brass through the shellholder without primers and it's working like buttah now - no catches, snags, etc. I guess the true test will be when I actually use primers, but I *think* everything's good to go now. Thanks again Dillon.

Edited May 31, 2011 by cardiackid

[g56]

If you look closely at crimped brass you should notice that a lot of the crimps are not exactly centered, so when they are swaged the swaging isn't always uniform. One thing I have been doing when seating primers, when you run into that "wall" of solid metal, you can feel it easily, rotate the case as you apply slight pressure to the loading lever, you will be able to feel when you get to an area where it goes in.

Something I am just starting to try out, when I'm swaging I will turn the case on the mandrel and hit it again, seems to work well so far, the intent is to get a more uniform swage since the factory crimp isn't always even all the way around. I tried this on 150 cases last week, I did this "multi swage" technique, and when I ran them through and reloaded them I ran into very few where I hit that wall.

[cardiackid]

g56: Thanks for the heads up - I noticed that as well but didn't think to rotate them in the swager like you mentioned. Makes sense since I've seen slightly off-center flash holes, etc. in addition to the not entirely round/uniform swage marks on occasional cases. I think that may alleviate any of the residual issues I have. I had tried rotating them a bit in the shellplate, although I'm still developing my feel for priming on the 550 and wasn't able to sweet spot them - I'll hit it again with some more of the LC I have to see if that does the trick.

[pranavdc]

I was "smearing" about 1-30ish primers that were funky and ugly to seat I went nuts because the primers I was using were causing FTF in my glock. I changed strikers, striker springs longer strkiers, heavier and lighter striker springs. Come to find out dillon installed the smaller powder charge bar but the Large primer seater cup and I didn't think of even checking it cause the powder bar in the machine to begin with. I swapped the primer seater for the smaller one and the primers seat like a dream to the proper depth with no funky smeared whacky issues!

Cheers!