I know the Dillon Super Swage 600 is recommended by the tutorials/FAQ on this board, but a buddy recently showed me a video of the Lyman case prep Xpress. Going to be investing in a Giraud Power Trimmer so I just need something to remove the military crimping.

I use the primer pocket swaging tool made for my RCBS Case Prep Center. Works like a champ. For a lot less money I use the Lyman Case Trimmer with the trimmer shaft that is made to accept a drill motor. Use a small cordless drill, set the stop collar and get at it. One hand runs the UNIVERSAL case chuck, and the other runs the drill motor. Fast and accurate. Been using this set up for 20+ years. Ran the cutter by hand prior to that.

Good lord, am I seeing that price right? Looked on their site and they want $400+ for the trimmer and ONE caliber specific cartridge cutter. Glad I never drank THAT koolaid  

Easiest: 1050

Gosh, I forgot I had a super swager. It's much wasier than all the other power tool options. I had tried all of them. You do need to separate headstamp by brand.. not necessarily by dates. I separate LC and TAA for example but dont care about date stamp.

RCBS primer pocket swagger.

No filings to pick out of the carpet or the garage.

I'm guessing those require a separate single stage press? I only have a Dillon 550B on order.

RCBS makes 2 different swagers. A press mounted one and a bench model similar to the Dillon 600.

I tried the RCBS press mounted unit. I found the "spirited" handle operation to be very tiring on my hand.

Then I tried the Dillon 600 and that was much faster and easier. You need to sort by head stamp.

I found that both the RCBS and Dillon gave me inconsistent primer seating effort.  I tried adjusting the Dillon and sorting by head stamp and year. Still not impressed.

I sold both of them and bought the Hornady primer pocket reamer. I chuck it in a cordless drill. I get nice uniform primer seating effort this way. I can do about 1000 in an hour.

I use the hand powered Lyman primer pocket reamer.  Very time consuming. All you really need is a primer pocket reamer you can chuck in a drill.  I'd rather spend all that extra coin on components for my time being

The RCBS press mounter swaging kit does NOT fit my Lee Turret press.  I think its a wise investment for people who have RCBS single stage presses, but was a waste of $30 for me.  

That said, I would wager it would not fit in the dillon presses either

blue press has the swager 600 for 99$.   I got one last week and i feel like an idiot for waiting so long.

Buy already processes brass.



But seriously, if you do buy a Dillon Super Swage, check out the youtube videos that show various tweaks for speeding up the process.

I'm new so bear with me.  I assume swaging pushes the brass back to the original shape before the crimp, and reaming shaves the brass back to the original shape before crimping?

Is there a benefit to swage over ream?  I assume regardless what you do this is all a one time thing considering it isn't normal practice for reloaders to crimp primers, or am I wrong?

Love my RCBS primer pocket swager.

Yes, one time deal. No good way to crimp in primers on reloads. Ream or swage, both work. Dryflash's method is the lowest initial cost.

I have the RCBS on press swager, and I bought a $30 LEE SS to run it on. Didn't really like it till I did that. Works well for me now. I don't sort anything. I run the press by feel.

I use the Hornady reamer like Dryflash.I cut about 3 inches off an old cleaning rod and chuck it up in the drill press.

Asking, "What is the best tool to use to remove the military crimp?" is a lot like asking, "What is the best brand of new pickup truck to buy?"   You'll get a lot of different answers that are based on results, brand loyalty, "I've always done it this way and you should too," the length of time it takes to de-crimp a case, and reasons I haven't thought of.

I've tried the Lyman crimp cutter, the kind with a handle, which drove me slowly insane looking at 4,000 cases that needed attention and made my wrist sore.  Then I chucked a variation of it into a drill, with better results, but it was still slow and made my wrist and fingers sore.  I tried improvising with quality drill bits carefully sized, which worked the best and was also slow and also made my wrist sore.  

Then I started looking at the various mechanical and electrical processing devices.  They all had a stiff price in common.  Some had a pretty big workbench footprint, and I just don't have that much space.  So I bought a Dillon Super Swage 600.  It worked OK, but it was also slow.  Sure, I had to sort by headstamp, but not by year.  That's no big deal because I do that anyway for consistency.  The adjustment takes me maybe five minutes.  Then I set up the Super Swage in a Rube Goldberg setup using a spring on the case holder that causes the case to fling off when I let go of the holder.  The case is captured in a carefully positioned box.  (You can find the method on YouTube.)  That makes the swaging go quickly.  But if I find something better that's just as fast, I'll use it.  (That is, something that's not the price of a Dillon 1050, but I can dream.)

So what works best for you is what works best for you.  If you only have a few cases to cut or swage, any tool will work, really.  If you have thousands, then mechanization or throughput might be important.  If you can borrow a swage tool from a friend to try it, that can save you some money.

I ream them with a tool like Dryflash posted in my Hornady caseprep center at the same time I trim and deburr.  Very convenient.

I have the Hornady case prep center as well, it's got three stations, very convenient.

Ream, primer pocket uniform, or set it up with chamfer, de-burr, reamer, all in one pass.

BUUUUT, I also went to a 1050, sweetest de-crimping there is. Most expensive as well.

I meant this thing.  They shouldn't have named them both Case Prep Center



I'll generally take a batch of sized cases and trim, deburr the inside of the mouth, the outside of the mouth, swipe it with a brush, then ream the primer pocket, all at once.

What is that thing?  It looks like it belongs on a fire truck as a hose manifold.

Well I have the money for a 1050, but my reloading buddy insists to never try to learn reloading on one. Telling me to get a 550B since it'll reload everything I need including 338 Lapua.

+1

I use a lyman case Prep with a custom fabrication I found on the internet to mount the case trimmer.....  I would paste in a pic if I could figure it out... thing saves a ton of time

As was mentioned, "best" is very subjective. For me it is consistency, ease of use and speed. I had 4 or 5000 cases to do. The hand turn tools were out. The RCBS press mounted one was slow and really hurt my carpal tunnel. The Dillon was inconsistent even when sorting by head stamp. Many love the Dillon so it could have been me. I found the Hornady reamer to be a good choice for me.

wet tumbler with stainless pins will get the primer pocket so clean and smooth that a 21st Century Primer will prime 308 Lake City without swaging with medium pressure 9 out of 10 times.

The 10th time, I just touch the primer pocket with a hand reamer and then the primer goes right in.

Counter sink drill bit

I use the point of this.... http://www.midwayusa.com/product/465641/rcbs-chamfer-and-deburring-tool-17-to-60-caliber?cm_vc=ProductFinding

I originally purchased a used RCBS press-mounted swager.  Bleh.  It does a good job, but it's a bit of a pain to use on my Lee single stage.  

To replace that, I bought the RCBS Trim Mate Crimp Remover.  It's a little more expensive than the Hornady reamer but I felt the hard depth-stop was worth the extra few bucks.  I also thought this one would be a little more fool-proof than the Horndady as I have read one too many reviews about the Hornady cutting too deep or off-axis (I realize those issues are likely user error).  

So far I am very happy with it.  It cuts the slightest bevel around the primer pocket which removes the crimp and makes the brass easier to prime (this time on a Lee Classic Turret).  I have it chucked up in my drill press via an 8-32 coupling nut, and I'm running the drill press at 750-ish RPM.  I've also chucked it in my hand drill using a miniature Quick-Grip clamp to set the trigger.

I have only cut 200 or so pockets, so the jury is still out on the longevity of this piece.  Most reports say it's durable, but at least a couple of reviews say it dulls too quickly.  If it does go dull I believe I can sharpen it with a credit card sized diamond hone, though I am not sure it would be worth the trouble.

Easiest way is to throw them in the trash.

Smartest way is to buy the Dillion Swager  

I ream them. It works perfectly with minimal effort and cost.

I swage on my Dillon 650 during the processing pass. I don't sort first. It's been working so far.

I use one of the kits sold on Ebay.

If your no running a 1050 this is about as fast as you can get.  




I can run a few thousand a hour without killing my hands.

I also use this motor for trimming.

The "best way" to remove primer crimps is subjective from a number of angles.  How many cases are you going to process at one sitting?  Are they all the same headstamp, or are they mixed?  What's your ultimate use for the brass you're processing?

Here's the point: the Dillon swager does best with large batches of IDENTICAL brass.  The way it works requires the case webs to be as close to identical as possible, and if you have too much variance the crimp isn't fully removed.  

The Hornady reamer works on any case, but for me it takes a bit more time per case.  I have rubberized gloves for holding the cases while reaming.  It's not that I'm all that delicate, but I need to be able to use my hands for something more than holding brass, especially after a few thousand cases.  (FYI, 9mm cases are harder to hold than rifle cases.)  Reaming removes material, which winds up on the floor, your lap, your bench, etc., so you need to pay attention to that as well.

If you have a SuperSwage properly adjusted, you can get pretty much exactly the same primer pocket profile every time.  If you're careful with a purpose-made crimp reamer, you can get pretty close to that.  Some folks figure that if everything isn't totally and precisely identical, it's crap in terms of precision.  I don't completely agree with that, but getting the most consistent primer pocket profile does mean that priming is more consistent.  That's a big deal with progressive loading, but it matters in single stage loading too - consistent primer seating DOES impact accuracy.

Using a countersink bit or motorizing a chamfer/debur tool can "sorta" work, but it requires a lot of attention and precision, and usually leads to WAY overdoing the cut.  The RCBS and Hornady reaming tools are built to control both the depth and angle of the cut, so it's hard to overdo, and it's hard to goober the angle too!  (That's experience talking...)

NO crimp removal process "un-does" the crimp.  Swage tools push the crimped metal out of the way, usually downward into the pocket, while reamers cut away metal.  Once it's done, it's done, and that case is easy to prime now and in the future.

Wow, that's a lot of words, huh?  Bottom line: DO NOT use a countersink bit, pay attention to what you're doing, and weigh the strengths of the various APPROPRIATE tools for the job you're doing.

That is down right scary looking.

Vince

Like anything in reloading just pay attention to what your doing.