Removing .223 crimp?

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shorttrac

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I have not looked real hard so i apologize if the topic has been beat to death but here goes. I have quite a bit of Lake City .223 military brass and would like to know the best way to remove crimp? I used a chamfer tool to see how it worked and it worked alright but obviously left a bit of a chamfer on the pocket. Do you think this meathod is plausable or just ruining brass? Also if anyone has noticed any changes in reloading these cases vs normal brass? Any help appreciated.
 
There are two ways to remove a crimp and many different tools you can buy to do it. You can cut/ream the crimp away, or you can force it away it by swaging it bigger.

Lyman and most reloading tool makers have a reamer that goes in a drill or manual handle, they spin and you hold the case up to it and remove a bit of material.
You can chamfer them and get a similar effect but this takes forever.
You can also put a countersink bit in a drill and ream them.
You can cut them with a knife also slow.

To Ream them RCBS makes a die set for a press that does large and small pockets, it's slow and can pinch you if you're not careful. It must be set up to each brand of brass.
RCBS has a new tool that mounts on bench to swage
Dillon makes the Super Swage which mounts on the bench and I hear is very popular and quick
Dillon also has a tool that works on their higher end progressive presses.

I have the RCBS swage die set, a Lyman reamer and a chamfer tool. I find that I use the Lyman reamer chucked in a drill press most of the time now. I don't think you're ruining cases and your way is fine but slower.

Don't let people confuse you with talk of primer pocket uniformers or primer pocket cleaners they are different tools that do NOT remove crimps from primer pockets on surplus brass.
 
I used a (Lyman?) bit in a drill for a while to cut out military crimps on a pile of brass I had. It was slow, but it worked. I worried about consistency, since it was a hand tool, and seemed to remove varying amounts... the chamfer it cut was clearly visible. That lot of casings is on firing #3 now and no problems. But it was painstakingly slow process, and tedious. You have to pay attention around drills... And after 500 or so, that gets old.

I got my hands on close to 5000 pieces of military brass a couple years ago - and I got the Dillon Super Swage to do that pile. Totally worth the money.

I don't load rifle ammo on my Dillon 650 - I don't think the loading is precise enough and I use if for pistol, only. But I thought I'd try a handful of loads for close range on it. The casings with the crimps CUT out worked fine. The casings with the crimp swaged out did not work as well. The primers didn't seat well with the Dillon650, although hand priming those casings worked fine.

So if you are going to run your loads through a progressive press, you may need to experiment a bit to make sure the swaging or chamfer is enough.
 
The only way to go is the Dillon Super Swage. I have tried the others and as far as I am concerned the dillon is by far and away the best.

Graydog
 
I use a standard deburring tool. Spin it in my little Atlas lathe. Any stationary power source would work. Very fast and easy.
If cutting, as opposed to swaging, don't cut too deep.
I have never had good luck with the old RCBS swaging tool.
 
I have used the Lee chamfer tool for a bajillion .223/5.56 milsurps. After a while you get the hang of the proper depth and pressure required.
 
I've been using a Dillon Super Swage for about a year and I love it. I have it mounted to a pair of 2x6 wood that I just clamp to my bench. It works great for .223 but is very difficult to use on .308.

Expensive but very very quick. You can also go the chamfer/deburring tool method which is cheaper and still effective.
 
You know what works really well for like 2 bucks? That Lee chamfer / deburr tool. It absolutely sucks for what it was designed to do, but it destroys primer crimps in military brass.
 
I put a counter sink tool in the electric drill and clamp the drill in a vice. Process a couple thousand cases quickly. never had a problem with the ammo.

Tool is about $6.00 at the hardware store.

Or buy a pak of them on ebay. see item #121013934386
 
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I first started out removing primer crimps with angled cutter bits ala princess auto in a cordless drill/drill press. iy works but sometimes it cuts too deep. its ok if you only want one or two loadings out of a case. So I bought a dillon super swager. Then I sold it, I have bins full of mixed brass, the dillon is very hard to use if you constantly adjust it for different web thicknesses. I wanted something that I didn't have to sort brass by headstamp etc.... PITA if you ask me......

I bought the CH4D primer pocket swager instead. It goes in the top of the press, uses your shell holder then swages the pocket on top of your press. I then run it through a RCBS case prep centre. Uniform primer pockets etc.

RCBS also has cutter heads for the case prep centre to cut out crimps. They work on light crimps but I find that heavy crimps oval the pocket and IMHO the only way to fix that is to swage.

If you plan to load that brass more than once, it will need to be trimmed. I recommend the WFT. Put in in a drill or drill press and it references off the shoulder of the case. Really fast!

Cheers!
 
I use a countersink bit (by hand, no drill needed there is very little effort needed to cut out the crimp) then I use a primer pocket uniformer to make sure I got everything out of there.
 
The RCBS VLD chamfer tool works for me for 223 (normal chamfer tool for 308) - it's flat on the top, so you can't damage the primer pocket. When set up in the Case Prep Center, it's really easy to use and fast - sold my Super Swage because I wasn't using it any more.
 
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