Wanted Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 I will eventually star loading .223 for an AR. Two things I'm having trouble searching up. 1, I have a hard time telling which brass needs swaged. Can I run all of it through my Dillon Super Swage? Just to be sure. 2, I know basically how a case gauge works. Is it all I need to check my loaded rounds. For instance now I pull my barrel ( 1911's) and drop them in to check. Any info would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h2osport Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 You can purchase a wilson or dillon case gauge to check your rounds after they are loaded. To see which rounds need to be swaged, just check and see which primers are crimped. It will be obvious which ones have the crimp around the primer. Running them all through the swager would be a waste of time. You might also need to trim your brass. I use a Lyman case e-zee case gauge to check length on my 223 before I load it to see if it needs to be trimmed or not. Other thing to think about is making sure your load can run the gas system on your ar. If they cycle fine and you are getting the performance you desire(velocity and accuracy) then you should be good to go. Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharonAnne9x23 Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 Yes , you can run all of your brass through the Super Swage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiggerJJ Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 (edited) Any military brass is crimped, if you see the NATO stamp (a circle with a plus sign in it), its crimped. usually if it has a date its crimped (IE, WCC 08) common crimped brass is; Lake City military (ie; LC 08 with nato stamp) Winchester military (WCC 08) PMC military (PMC 08) any and all Federal (FC 223 rem) Be aware, for example, Winchester brass can be either crimped or not crimped, the indicator is the date, and non crimped Winchester will have the head stamp (Winchester 223 Rem) vs the crimped head stamp (WCC 08). the bummer is each company does something a bit different. but from what I have seen, haveing the date is a major indicator of military crimped brass. I would HIGHLY suggest staying away from any Federal 223/5.56 brass. Its just my experience, and I have had major problems with it, even once fired. I have had Fed blow primers and where does the primer go? down into the trigger group, and nothing but trouble after that until you get the #$#%@ thing out... You can de-swage all brass, but it would be a waste of time. If you try to prime a piece of brass that needs de-swaging, you will know it right away...just don't force it! be careful reusing 223 brass in an auto loader, after several firings it can stretch to the point of when you fire it, it will seperate into two pieces; one gets extracted, and the other stays in the chamber. puts an end to your shooting session until you find a cleaning rod to bump it out with, unless you have a broken shell remover... after using once-fired once (becoming twice fired) I inspect each case inside looking for splitting. it will show inside the case long before you see it on the outside, when it will be too late. you can use a wire as a feeler, or I use a small LED shining into the primer hole and look in the other end. its a pain in arss, but well worth the trouble IMHO. When using a case guage, check your brass with it AFTER sizing BEFORE you load it, and the finished rounds. You don't have to guage every case before loading, just take a sampling. But I do suggest guaging every loaded round. I recomend using the Dillon guage, it has a go/no go indicator on each end of the guage, one for the head spacing (which is taken off the shoulder to the bottom of the case), and the other for the neck length on the top of the guage. its pretty sweet. have fun! jj Edited April 7, 2009 by RiggerJJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wanted Posted April 7, 2009 Author Share Posted April 7, 2009 Thanks for the info everyone. I hope to have everything to start in the next month or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BayouSlide Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 (edited) When using a case guage, check your brass with it AFTER sizing BEFORE you load it, and the finished rounds. You don't have to guage every case before loading, just take a sampling. But I do suggest guaging every loaded round. I recomend using the Dillon guage, it has a go/no go indicator on each end of the guage, one for the head spacing (which is taken off the shoulder to the bottom of the case), and the other for the neck length on the top of the guage. its pretty sweet. Good info! I had picked up the Dillon check to check ammo but was unaware (and too embarrassed to ask) about those nicely machined slots on the top and bottom of the gauge. I was using it like my 9mm gauge and not aware of the go-no go aspect for the additional parameters. Just to clear up any confusion between which end of the gauge would be considered top and bottom... if I consider the top of the gauge where you drop the round in, I'm assuming then the base of the cartridge must end up within the area between the top of the gauge and the bottom of the slot if the head space is correct. Same for the bottom if the neck length is correct. Or do I have it back-a**wards Curtis Edited April 7, 2009 by BayouSlide Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiggerJJ Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 I consider the top the neck end, and the bottom the primer end. jj Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rvb Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 (edited) When using a case guage, check your brass with it AFTER sizing BEFORE you load it, and the finished rounds. You don't have to guage every case before loading, just take a sampling. But I do suggest guaging every loaded round. I recomend using the Dillon guage, it has a go/no go indicator on each end of the guage, one for the head spacing (which is taken off the shoulder to the bottom of the case), and the other for the neck length on the top of the guage. its pretty sweet. Good info! I had picked up the Dillon check to check ammo but was unaware (and too embarrassed to ask) about those nicely machined slots on the top and bottom of the gauge. I was using it like my 9mm gauge and not aware of the go-no go aspect for the additional parameters. http://www.dillonhelp.com/manuals/english/...al-May-2007.pdf See pages 7-8. I use both a dillon and LE Wilson gauge... got both due to one being on back-order so got the other while I waited... middle of the headspace steps on the dillon did not pass the wilson, so I set my die up to pass both gauges, fwiw. -rvb Edited April 7, 2009 by rvb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlamoShooter Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 use reading glasses when you check them I did not read my case Gage rite and it cost me big at the LaRue match Lessons learned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BayouSlide Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 (edited) Thanks, all...really learned something here today. Curtis BTW, the explanation in the Dillon accessory manual is excellent!...must have overlooked it in the past. Edited April 7, 2009 by BayouSlide Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Morcillo Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 I use the case guage to set the sizing die to the exact OAL. Make sure that when you resize the case that be base of the brass is flush with the guage. No room for error. I was just a few thousands short and had near case head seperation. Trim after resizing to 1.750 OAL. Ream the primer pockets to remove crimp and to get a nice bevel to make priming easier. Use the right tool on the case mouth to remove spurs. You can use flash hole deburrer and get better accuracy. Polish to remove resizing oil. Done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 Ream the primer pockets to remove crimp and to get a nice bevel to make priming easier. I've been reading some articles on the crimped primers and swage vs ream. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious but, since the case length has to be checked and possibly trimmed, wouldn't it be simpler to get something like a Wilson case trimmer and use it to both trim and ream rather than adding yet another piece of equipment to swage? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yukondave Posted December 9, 2009 Share Posted December 9, 2009 It seems prep of brass is most of the real mechanical work when it comes to reloading. If you plan on reloading .223 a great deal, then you should know a secret. The Giraud case trimmer is a small device with a motor that will trim, debur and chamfer the case in one step. It makes about as much noise as a pencil sharpener so you still watch TV. Takes no real brain to operate. It does a real nice job and takes about 2 seconds a case. If you shoot as many as I do, it will make short work of 1000 cases. They seem to be shipping quickly now as well. Mine took 3 weeks. 5 years from now you will thank yourself for getting such a tool. It costs about $450 so it takes some of the savings out of reloading but hey so does your time. If you do this 10,000 times in a year, that is about 4.5 cent each. If you are a plumber that charges union rate of $80 per hour, I can assure you that your time will pay for this rapidly. I purchase military brass and use the dillion super swage. It is a pain as previously mentioned but use that time to check all the brass for problems. The good news is you only have to do it once to the brass. I also like the fact that my priming goes real smooth. www.giraudtool.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiggerJJ Posted December 9, 2009 Share Posted December 9, 2009 if you are loading on a 1050, you can do everything to get a bucket full of loaded ammo in no time in two easy steps on 2 different heads; 1st head is the brass processing head. (this includes purchasing and mounting a Dillon case trimmer) (don't forget to lube the cases first!) resize and decap the fired primer. deswage the primer pocket. trim 2nd head is the loading head. (tumble first to remove case lube) universal decapper to remove tmbling media from primer pocket. add primer, powder and bullet, crimp, guage and shoot em. Repeat as desired... jj Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wanted Posted December 9, 2009 Author Share Posted December 9, 2009 I have to say, since I first posted this, brass prep. has become fun. I have a Forster trimmer and Dillon Super swadge. I take my time and find prepping brass is fun. It's almost therapeutic. I'ts relaxing, I'm not in a rush, so it's very enjoyable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chills1994 Posted December 9, 2009 Share Posted December 9, 2009 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted December 9, 2009 Share Posted December 9, 2009 I have to say, since I first posted this, brass prep. has become fun. I have a Forster trimmer and Dillon Super swage. I take my time and find prepping brass is fun. It's almost therapeutic. I'ts relaxing, I'm not in a rush, so it's very enjoyable. As I look into this whole process, I'm starting to wonder if it's not easier than I originally thought. My setup for reloading .40 is to clean a lot of brass then run it through a EGW "U" die on a single stage press, inspecting as I go. It's an extra step but it makes the actual reloading process a lot simpler and it really doesn't slow me down that much because I "prep" a lot of brass well ahead of time. So, the more I look at this, it's basically the same thing with some extra steps. Do one thing at a time, do it right, then move on to the next. Clean. Deprime and resize on the single stage, tossing crimped into one labeled bin and uncrimped into another. Swage or ream the crimped and add them to the uncrimped bin. Check the length and trim as needed, trimed going into one bin and untrimed into another. Take the trimmed bin and debur and toss into untrimmed bin. Clean again? Done with prep. Set aside all the prepped brass till you are ready to reload. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chills1994 Posted December 9, 2009 Share Posted December 9, 2009 I haven't tried it yet, but I have heard that you can remove the crimp with one of those handheld chamfering deburring tools. Since I am like the guy who plugs the Possum Hollow trimmers and adapters so much...I can only assume that if you have the Possum Hollow adapter with a chamfering tool alread chucked in it, you could quickly deburr your case mouths then flip the case around and "chamfer" out the primer crimp. and Well, hey, that is what I am speculating anyways... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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