Reamer or swager?

[Nitromike]

i recently bought a large lot of .223 military brass with the crimped primers for really cheap. Question is should I buy the primer pocket reamer or spring a few extra dollars for the RCBS swager combo? Anyone have experience with both styles of products and have a favorite of the 2? I've got 500 cases to prep.

 

[Ckgworks]

I use the Dillion swager for 223 and have had great results......I also have a Lyman case prep station that I used the reamer on a few times but it always felt like the primer pockets were looser than they needed to be so I gave up on it. I guess I figure why remove brass when you can push it back.......just my experience, and it might be one those 6 of one, half dozen of the other things....

 

[MudRunner2005]

i recently bought a large lot of .223 military brass with the crimped primers for really cheap. Question is should I buy the primer pocket reamer or spring a few extra dollars for the RCBS swager combo? Anyone have experience with both styles of products and have a favorite of the 2? I've got 500 cases to prep.

I use one of these plugged into a drill adapter and ran on my drill. Works quick and cuts clean. You can cut a couple hundred an hour even taking your time.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/2...er-straight-cone-military-crimp-remover-small

I also have a benchtop mounted swager, but it doesn't work very good compared to the crimp cutter. The crimp cutter leaves a nice bevel on the lip so your get really nice primer seating with very few issues.

 

[turkn8r1]

I say swage all the way. Myself and my partner probably process 30 to 40 thousand 223s every couple of months. It's too easy to mess up the primer pockets with a reamer and we found them to be inconsistent. Plus one for the Dillon. We have 2 but just got an automated Dillon 1050 with the swage it attachment. That's WAY more than you want to spend to do primer pockets. FWIW the RCBS works good but it is slower.

 

[MudRunner2005]

I say swage all the way. Myself and my partner probably process 30 to 40 thousand 223s every couple of months. It's too easy to mess up the primer pockets with a reamer and we found them to be inconsistent. Plus one for the Dillon. We have 2 but just got an automated Dillon 1050 with the swage it attachment. That's WAY more than you want to spend to do primer pockets. FWIW the RCBS works good but it is slower.

I hope you went with a Mark 7 autodrive unit with the Swage-Sense and all the other sensors... It will save you tons of headaches when loading your processed brass. I used to run 6,000+ 5.56 cases a day processing on autodriven 1050's. Keeping 3 running consistently with random range brass was an all day nightmare, every single day. I developed quite a distaste for Ammobots (used for processing only). We had all 3 units (Mark 7, Ammobot, and Mark 7 Revolution). For loading and processing, the Revolution will not be topped. But the Mark 7 Pro 1050 comes in 2nd place.

 

[mobenzowner]

I use the the RCBS swager for 223 and 308 military brass and have no issues with it. Pretty sure the reamer would probably work equally well.

 

[bigedp51]

I just bought the Hornady single stage swager after trying reamers and many other type press mounted swagers. And it is much easier and faster to use than the RCBS unit and the swage is carbide.



Or if you have the Hornady Lock-N-Load press they have a more advanced model.

 

[turkn8r1]

I just looked at the RCBS that you were probably talking about at Sportsmans Warehouse about an hour ago. My experience was with the one in/on the press. The stand alone one should be fine.

 

[Nitromike]

I use the Dillion swager for 223 and have had great results......I also have a Lyman case prep station that I used the reamer on a few times but it always felt like the primer pockets were looser than they needed to be so I gave up on it. I guess I figure why remove brass when you can push it back.......just my experience, and it might be one those 6 of one, half dozen of the other things....

That was my thought exactly i think I'd rather reform evenly than cut and potentially make a loose seat for new primers, but I'm new to reloading so wanted some experienced opinions!