Reloading Military Brass

You use the dillon 600 to swage the primer pockets. Swaging forms the brass around primer pocket back to factory spec.

If you try to prime crimped brass without first swaging or reaming, you will likely run into all sorts of trouble getting the primer to seat properly

What he said. You must either swage or ream the primer pockets. Primers will not seat in untreated pockets.

The Dillon is not a decapper (deprimer), it is a primer pocket swage tool to remove the military crimp, allowing for normal priming.

Swaging is ok, but using a carbide uniforming reamer is way better. I normally chamfer the crimp away the use the uniformer. Since going that route all my problems went away.

Removing the crimp is a pain, but you only have to do it once.
I mark all the brass I have removed the crimp on on the bottom with a Sharpie marker.
That way when I pick it up at the range I can tell it is mine and has the crimp removed.
(My Mini 14 likes to launch brass a bit so it can get mixed up with other brass on the range)
Any brass that is not marked that I pick up goes into a bucket to have the crimps removed.

I use this, it's not fast but works well and is not to expensive.
Lots of ways to do it.
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1012762394?pid=804809
this one is small primers only
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1012744621?pid=501588

Decapping crimped brass is not much different than uncrimped. No matter how you decap, you must swage or ream before re-priming.

I have the Dillon. Done thousands of 30-06, 308 and 223. Works like a champ.

I like the Dillon primer hole swager, fast and efficient. Not really "match" quality primer pocket dimensions, but good enough for my non-match intended reloads.

The only problem I have experienced using mil brass of unknown provenance is if it originally got shot thru a Machine Gun, the extra headspace a MG requires to be reliable really stretches the brass, and leads to premature case head separations if not noticed. I like to do the inside scratch tool check on all mil brass that I didn't personally shoot the first time as new ammo... and any bright ring around the outside base, or hangup of the inside scratch tool and it gets retired.

wvcardsfan said:

I have learned that military brass has a crimped primer which changes the depriming process some. I have a good bit of brass accumulated, but it is not sorted by head stamp.

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(Tongue-in-cheek) Wow, good to know. I have some work to do.

Kevin Rohrer said:

(Tongue-in-cheek) Wow, good to know. I have some work to do.

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You better sort by volume also...

Kevin Rohrer said:

Wow, good to know. I have some work to do.

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I was wondering who got into my stash.................

I use to use the RCBS pocket swagger set which is a slooow way to go.
I then bought the Dillion 600 swagger and never looked back. I do alot of brass prep so I bought another Dillion 600 so one can be left set up for small primerpockets and one set up for large primer pockets.

I initially purchased the hand held (or power screwdrivered) Lyman. It was tedious, and took a long time and, in addition, shaved brass out of the pocket. I found the Dilllon to be fast, no muss, no fuss, no brass shavings and the "feel" when priming is the same as with non military brass with a hand held primer tool. I purchased the Dillon over the RCBS and Franfort ?? Arsenal based on reviews at retailers. I am 100% happy with the tool. No room on my workbench, so I attached it to a piece of 3x6 and clamped it onto my Black & Decker Workmate bench.