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Military crimp

2K views 23 replies 14 participants last post by  Mrblackguns 
#1 ·
Well I have begun loading ammo with my cheap ole Lee setup. It is slow going but educational. I am currently dealing with those pesky miltary primer crimps. I tried my first hoandloads yesterday with the help of a more knowlegable friend. He has the RCBS case prep machine that allows you to use the crimp remover attachment. I dont have one of those and don't have the $ to get one rightnow. Instead I am using the little lee camfering tool. It seems to work fine for the task. However I am having a heck of a time actually detecting the crimp from inside the primer pocket. I cant tell if I have removed enough material to make the priming safe. I am using my mic right now but I would like to find something that will server as a test jig. Something that will simulate the sive of a small rifle primer. Any idea?
 
#5 ·
I snagged about 600 once fired 223 brass. 99% has the military crimp. I drill out the crimp hole with my drill press and then shave off the sharp edge with a bigger drill bit by just touching the primer hole to the drill bit as it is rotating in the drill press. I've reloaded primers into about 250 of them and they fit in snugly but they go in using a Lee auto priming tool. kwg
 
#8 ·
Try forster precision products-they have a primer pocket chamfering tool that can either be used with their case trimmer base or like I do-simply chuck in a battery drill and drill out by hand.Removes crimp and bevels the primer pocet opening.Costs slightly over 20 dollars.;)
 
#9 ·
I use the RCBS swaging die. Hit the pocket 2-3 times and then use the reamer to clean up the edges. Once you done this you don't have to do it again. I have Lake City brass that has been shot 10x with no problems and the brass is a lot cheaper then commercial brands. Military brass is heavier then most commericial brass and holds up well.
 
#17 ·
I load lots of military .223 on my progressive, and found that my decrimp wasn't actually doing anything on the VAST majority of the brass. I found that most the crimps are practically cosmetic. My brass is the cheapest mg fired mix and match, so I have almost all headstamps. I haven't found any that consistently have a "real" crimp. One kind is more frequent, but it's not a NATO. Even the ones that have the staked crimp (dots, not round) usually are OK.

What I do, is set the decap pin to just barely push the primer out, and then the ones that have a "real" crimp, the primer is left in, so I decrimp those ones. I use the RCBS swager. I have found that the sharp edge of the crimp shaves the primer a little here and there, but still seems to work ok.

Something overlooked if you load surplus, is the rim. MGs tear up the rim with their mean extractor. Rolling the brass between a couple steel plates takes the nasty ding down so the rim doesn't hang up in stage 1 of my progressive as the case is inserted.

On my stuff, I only have to decrimp about 3 to 5 % :) Much saved time!
 
#18 ·
I bought a RCBS prep station a few months ago. It reams the pocket and then uniforms the depth. I just bought a Gracey case trimmer that saves a lot of time. I have about 500 case primed and ready to load and another 200 ready prime.
Both of these tools are saving a lot of time with military case prep.
 
#19 ·
I just reloaded 2000 .223 with lots of different headstamps, 600 of them where RORG. I found with putting the deburring tool in the drill press and with a light touch on the primer pocket works very well for me and is very fast. I can do 100 in less than 5 min.
 
#22 · (Edited)
I agree. I only use the rcbs swager, which works as well as I could imagine anything could work, but I have no doubt the Dillon is the fastest except for the built in swager in the Dillon progressive machine. four figure cost on that tho...

Only reason in my opinion to buy something else is cost.

PS beware of using the ram to "test" the crimp. It is too small to catch some that need to be swaged, and when it sticks in, it is an ABSOLUTE PITA. The lever only pushes UP. The only thing to retract the ram once it is stuck is the little spring in the ram. Gotta take the whole thing out. Assuming you are testing in the machine.

The best test I have found other than setting the pin to only push out non-crimps, is to slip the swager in the pocket. It slips right in if it doesn't need a crimp.
 
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