The Dillon manual says that "the proper amount of swage is done by trial and error. Not enough swage and the primers won't seat fully. Too much swage will stress the unit, possibly bending the locator rod." I have not even come close to "bending the locator rod", however, I believe that when I'm using too heavy of an adjustment that the bottoms of primer pockets can be deformed. So tell me how you adjust your Super Swager and what clues you use to indicate that it is adjusted too heavy or too light?

Currently I only swage 223/5.56 cases so my discussion is only about them. The Super Swager is deforming the bottom of some of my 223/5.56 primer pockets and I notice this when I uniform the primer pocket (see Pictures 1 & 2). I figure this deformation is caused by the locator rod end being too small and that it doesn't exactly center in the pocket. The primer pocket is about 0.175" in diameter and the end of the locator rod is much smaller at about 0.140". In my opinion this is not enough support (what I call a footprint). The rod doesn't center in the pocket because the case neck diameter is about 0.223" and the shaft of the rod is smaller at about 0.210" (the rod falls down slightly and only supports the lower part of the primer pocket). I purchased another locator rod so I could experiment with one by grind down its end to make a bigger footprint (see Picture 3). I increased the footprint from about 0.140" to about 0.165". This is still not as large as the primer pocket at 0.175", but it provides about 39% more footprint. I think the extra footprint might even help repair some of the pocket bottoms I have already damaged and I'm sure this bigger footprint won't damage my cases as much as the stock Dillon rod does. I saw evidence of this when I tested some of my scrap cases (I do not crush my scrap cases which allows me to use them as test cases). I have not found any problems inserting the case on the rod even though there is less of a funneling slope.

My Super Swager handle can "stick" from a little to a lot depending on how heavy I push the handle. If I use too heavy of an adjustment (unintentionally), I have to give the handle a good smack up before it will release the case. Adding grease or oil helps reduce the sticking but it isn't long before the sticking is back. Has anyone else had this "sticking" problem?

Another problem I found is that when a swage is done then any burrs on the inside of the primer hole are flattened out (see Picture 4). I just recently purchased a flash hole deburring tool (RCBS .22 Caliber 88145). Unfortunately, my brass has already been swaged. It would have been best if I had deburred the flash hole after receiving once fired brass. I'll do that the next time I purchase once fired brass.

Picture 1 - This picture shows that the uniform bit only touched one side of the pocket (shiny part at bottom of picture). I believe this is due to the Super Swager deforming the pocket. It is not due to the uniformer going in crooked as I have checked that.
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Picture 2 - If the pocket is not deformed then the uniform bit will do its thing all the way around the pocket as shown by this picture. Well actually this case was deformed a little when the primer hole was punched so the center of the primer pocket was not uniformed. By the way, I use the uniform bit on each and every case mainly to remove the residue along the edge of the pocket after pin cleaning. I don't do a full uniform on my cases as I'm afraid it might make the bottom of the primer pocket too thin.
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Picture 3 - This picture shows that my 2nd locator rod has been ground down giving a bigger footprint inside the case. I didn't want to grind down too much as the ramp in the middle of the rod is very close to the case neck. I have to be careful as the ramp could flair out the edge of the case neck. I used a bench grinder and I think I did a fair job making the edge flat enough.
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Picture 4 - This picture shows what happens when the Super Swager is used before removing primer burrs (the burrs may flatten out blocking the primer hole).
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I can see a little detail in picture 4 but I would assume you could run your flash-hole debur tool just once by hand and get rid of this issue without too much trouble.

You probably have it adjusted too long, you're crushing the webs

I don't have the Dillon product but do use the similar RCBS bench swager.

I think picture 4 shows a legitimate concern with flash hole burrs.  I believe I will start deburring flash holes before I swage for now on, and uniform pockets after.  I've been swaging, then using a Trim Mate, uniforming, then deburring immediately after the swage.

The point of deburring first is that the flattened burrs inside the case may indeed put too much pressure on the webs during swaging.  It's not practical to adjust the swager for each case due to the fact that some have heavy burrs and others don't.  Besides how do you see those burrs in a tiny .223, until you have flattened them in front of the flash hole.

Pretty sure your first picture indicates that you are adjusting the swager too tight.  Doesn't normally take that much force to swage the pockets.

Thanks for the useful post!  Pictures are great.

The ONLY area you should be swaging is the upper edge. If you are going so far into the pocket that you are crushing the bottom of the pocket, then that indicates that you have an adjustment problem.

Also, the "locator rod" not being exactly the same size as the case mouth means nothing.
The main purpose of that rod is to support the inside face of the pocket. Exact centering of the pocket at the swager itself is done by the swager.  Look closely and you'll see that the swager is slightly tapered. When it enters the pocket, it centers the pocket as it goes in.

If you refer to the instructions about adjusting the bottom brace, that adjustment is done while a case in IN the swager which means that the height adjustment is exact to the center of the swager. When the pocket first comes into contact with the swager, the case could actually be a smidgeon below the centerline of the swager but will be lifted to it's centered position as the swager enters the pocket.

I found that with .223 cases, there is too much side to side play of the case, and the swager can hang up on the side of the pocket and potentially damage it if you work too fast. To fix that, I glued small pieces of a cut popsicle stick on both sides above the bottom adjustable support. That forces the case to closely center side to side and work just like the bottom adjustable support in that it gets the pocket "close" to center and then the swager can easily enter and center the pocket.

Lastly, I also found that proper swages can't even be felt. If I am working with the same case lot of brass, I get nice clean swages without even feeling any resistance all the way to the bottom of the stroke (I am not even coming close to the bottom of the pocket at that point).
If I can "feel" resistance of the case, then I back off the adjustment and go for a good "looking" swage and not a good "feeling" swage.

Hope all that helps.

Just want to add to clarify:

It's important to understand that the only purpose of swaging is to get rid of the crimp which only resides around the top edge of the pocket. The taper of the swager has done its' job the moment it pushes that little bit of brass back out of the way. As soon as you see a slight shiny beveled edge around the top of the pocket, you're done. You really shouldn't see any changes any deeper into the primer pocket, and it rarely takes any real force to achieve that. I can often just drop the handle and let it go down on it's own and end up with great looking swages.

Deltahawk did a hell of better job describing how to properly use the Superswage than the Dillon instructions did.

From me the tool gets great marks...but the instructions stink.

They really should be clarified and written again.

Sir, the only addition to what has already been posted that I would like to add is that when I adjust the tool I start by centering the base of the brass case against the swage head as I hold the centering rod to ensure the case primer pocket is concentric with the swage head.  When I push the swage into the primer pocket I adjust the rod length only enough to ensure that I can seat a primer.  I do this by trial and error adjusting the rod only enough to ensure I can seat a primer no more.  As has already been mentioned the purpose of the tool is to remove the primer crimp nothing more.  HTH, 7zero1.

I have stopped using he Dillon and have moved on to the Hornady reamer in a drill press.

The Dillon works great when you have all the same lot of brass. With same web thickness, if you are doing mixed brass lots it is a lot of trouble. I just set the backer Rod long and go by feel and try not to bottom it out.

I have yet to over ream but I have certainly over swaged.

The Dillon swager is a great tool. I cannot see removing material from the primer pocket. When adjusted properly there is no other toll that can compete.

Vince

Hornady reamer dosen't remove enough to matter, now I've seen billybob get carried away with a counter sink

Based on my hourly salary, that is a lot of time and when time = money that is a lot of added cost that doesn't add to the the final return on investment.  Of course YMMV and and all but that is just my opinion.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "lot of time".

I buy LC brass mostly, but being military brass, there's a bit of TAA in there with some of it. There's also some LC of different years from the majority of what I get, so I toss all the random LC and TAA in the same box and load it all together for my range blasting ammo.

I swage the TAA brass along with the LC brass, and I found that the TAA brass has a thicker web than the LC, so when I'm swaging it all together, I find that the LC brass works like usual (little or almost no resistance), but the TAA will start to offer a little resistance as the handle gets part way down.
All I do is to just let up at that point (I don't force it to the bottom) and move on.
Takes no more time than usual, and the main reason I set the Dillon up for swaging with LC brass is simply because that's most of what I have.

I think there's too much over thinking about what really is a simple step.

X2

Vince

Pretty sure you quoted me there, but what I meant was that it isn't like you can simply set it and go full stroke on every single piece of brass. This really irritates me and I find it easier to chuck up a Hornady reamer and just give each piece of brass the same treatment and move on rather than doing each one by feel and hoping I got it close enough even when it looks like nothing was actually done to the piece of brass.

I don't altogether agree with anyone in this thread.  Then again, I agree with everyone to some extent.

Could it be better?  Yes, it could.

Is it the best tool out there for this operation?  Yes, it is.



If it were redesigned to be "better", it would probably also cost a lot more money.  You could imagine things like a spring-loaded, floating head that does not need adjustment and is very difficult to over-load (as it seems the OP did).  Another option would be to incorporate the "rubber band trick" into the basic device to speed up operation (use a fancy "rubber band" that never breaks).  

What else could make it better?