ToddDubya
NES Member
Okay, I may be taking some liberties with the term "study" here, but I did a little experiment last night and I wanted to share the results. Don't worry about taking notes, I put an equipment list at the end.
First, a little back story. The last time I loaded 5.56 I removed the crimps with a friend's Dillon Super Swage. I had a bit of a hard time getting the primers seated and found that seating the primers called for two throws of the press to align the case, then seat the primer. It worked just fine but was not efficient. My friend suggested I use a deburring tool after swaging it to knock any remaining edge off the crimp. That made sense, but introduced yet another step to an already lengthy list.
Then, much to my surprise I found another tool that might be the Holy Grail of primer pocket swaging in Jim Finnerty's The Reloading Bench (see page 14, 3/13 GOAL newsletter). In his article, Jim recommends the Weldon 90 deg deburring bit. I ordered one that day and was ready to see how well it worked. Shipping cost more than the bit, yet combined was only a fraction of the Super Swage.
The Experiment:
For my experiment I started out with 100 pieces of military 5.56 brass that had been cleaned, sized, deprimed, trimmed (where needed), deburred, chamfered, primer pockets uniformed and flash holes deburred. Jesus, that's a lot of steps. The last step to get these ready to go was to take the crimp out the primer pocket. I decided to try a few techniques and see which one(s) worked the best for me.
Last night I sat down with the Dillon Super Swage, the Redding deburring tool, the Weldon deburring bit (chucked in a drill) and 100 pieces of brass. I sorted them into four groups of 25:
1. Dillon Super Swage only
2. Dillon Super Swage plus Redding Deburring tool (five twists of the tool)
3. Dillon Super Swage plus Weldon Deburring bit (a second or two with the drill spinning at a fairly slow speed)
4. Weldon Deburring bit only (again, a second or two with the drill spinning slowly)
Off to the press!
After spilling primers all over the god damned place, I loaded up the press with all 99 primers (yes, I lost one somewhere in my reloading room) and set to work seating them.
Results:
1. Dillon Only - 1 misaligned (required two throws to align and seat) and 1 seated with a significant clunk.
2. Dillon + Redding - All pretty smooth, a few maybe too easy.
3. Dillon + Weldon - 1 wouldn't hold a primer at all, 2 very easy, the rest pretty smooth.
4. Weldon Only - 1 wouldn't hold a primer at all, the rest went in with a nice little clunk. This is the same little clunk I get with Federal small pistol primers; just enough to know it's in (![[wink]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/002.gif "Wink [wink]")
).
Conclusions:
1. I do not attribute the too-loose primer pockets to any of the techniques I used. Upon inspection there is no noticeable difference, and in one case it almost looks like the crimp wasn't removed enough. Maybe those just have sloppy pockets. Nobody likes a sloppy pocket.
2. All four techniques gave similar results. I like the little clunk that I got from the Weldon-prepped cases and that technique is by far the quickest and easiest (and cheapest, assuming you already own a drill or drill press). Unless I find any reason to change my technique, I'm sticking with the Weldon.
3. JOIN GOAL! A 3-year membership cost me $75 and this one little tidbit I learned from one issue of their newsletter saved me $85 in tools.
I hope this helps someone. It was a neat experiment that if anything, gives my technique some scientific credibility. Happy reloading!
Equipment List:
Redding Big Boss II
Dillon Super Swage 600
Redding Deburring Tool (09000)
Weldon Deburring Bit (DB-14)*
TulAmmo .223 Small Rifle Primers*
Redding Primer Pocket Uniformer*
Sinclair Flash Hole Deburring Tool*
* Where I couldn't find a link to the manufacturer, I went with any old vendor that had the product listed. No, Midway will not ship components to MA.
Your pal,
ToddDubya
First, a little back story. The last time I loaded 5.56 I removed the crimps with a friend's Dillon Super Swage. I had a bit of a hard time getting the primers seated and found that seating the primers called for two throws of the press to align the case, then seat the primer. It worked just fine but was not efficient. My friend suggested I use a deburring tool after swaging it to knock any remaining edge off the crimp. That made sense, but introduced yet another step to an already lengthy list.
Then, much to my surprise I found another tool that might be the Holy Grail of primer pocket swaging in Jim Finnerty's The Reloading Bench (see page 14, 3/13 GOAL newsletter). In his article, Jim recommends the Weldon 90 deg deburring bit. I ordered one that day and was ready to see how well it worked. Shipping cost more than the bit, yet combined was only a fraction of the Super Swage.
The Experiment:
For my experiment I started out with 100 pieces of military 5.56 brass that had been cleaned, sized, deprimed, trimmed (where needed), deburred, chamfered, primer pockets uniformed and flash holes deburred. Jesus, that's a lot of steps. The last step to get these ready to go was to take the crimp out the primer pocket. I decided to try a few techniques and see which one(s) worked the best for me.
Last night I sat down with the Dillon Super Swage, the Redding deburring tool, the Weldon deburring bit (chucked in a drill) and 100 pieces of brass. I sorted them into four groups of 25:
1. Dillon Super Swage only
2. Dillon Super Swage plus Redding Deburring tool (five twists of the tool)
3. Dillon Super Swage plus Weldon Deburring bit (a second or two with the drill spinning at a fairly slow speed)
4. Weldon Deburring bit only (again, a second or two with the drill spinning slowly)
Off to the press!
After spilling primers all over the god damned place, I loaded up the press with all 99 primers (yes, I lost one somewhere in my reloading room) and set to work seating them.
Results:
1. Dillon Only - 1 misaligned (required two throws to align and seat) and 1 seated with a significant clunk.
2. Dillon + Redding - All pretty smooth, a few maybe too easy.
3. Dillon + Weldon - 1 wouldn't hold a primer at all, 2 very easy, the rest pretty smooth.
4. Weldon Only - 1 wouldn't hold a primer at all, the rest went in with a nice little clunk. This is the same little clunk I get with Federal small pistol primers; just enough to know it's in (
).Conclusions:
1. I do not attribute the too-loose primer pockets to any of the techniques I used. Upon inspection there is no noticeable difference, and in one case it almost looks like the crimp wasn't removed enough. Maybe those just have sloppy pockets. Nobody likes a sloppy pocket.
2. All four techniques gave similar results. I like the little clunk that I got from the Weldon-prepped cases and that technique is by far the quickest and easiest (and cheapest, assuming you already own a drill or drill press). Unless I find any reason to change my technique, I'm sticking with the Weldon.
3. JOIN GOAL! A 3-year membership cost me $75 and this one little tidbit I learned from one issue of their newsletter saved me $85 in tools.
I hope this helps someone. It was a neat experiment that if anything, gives my technique some scientific credibility. Happy reloading!
Equipment List:
Redding Big Boss II
Dillon Super Swage 600
Redding Deburring Tool (09000)
Weldon Deburring Bit (DB-14)*
TulAmmo .223 Small Rifle Primers*
Redding Primer Pocket Uniformer*
Sinclair Flash Hole Deburring Tool*
* Where I couldn't find a link to the manufacturer, I went with any old vendor that had the product listed. No, Midway will not ship components to MA.
Your pal,
ToddDubya
![[smile]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/001.gif "Smile [smile]")
