radway green

[Soybomb]

So I'm thinking about getting into some reloading so I can start shooting 5.56 a little cheaper and have a pile of radway green brass sitting here. Can anyone tell me any specific challenges I might see from it? I'm assuming the primers are crimped. Whats a good tool to look at for fixing that? I'm trying to stay with compact tools so hopefully theres something that doesn't need to be bolted to a workbench.

Also I've heard that the brass is pretty thick and sometimes doesn't like being resized. Realistically how bad is it going to be to resize it with a handheld press?

 

[RON in PA]

If that English brass is Berdan primed as opposed to being Boxer primed (standard American) you can forget about repriming or using a standard deprimer. It's not impossible but Berdan primers are difficult to obtain and you need a special depriming tool.

Stick with commercial brass.

 

[flynlr]

radway green 5.56 is nato and boxer primed. I have re used that brass on a 1000 round batch 4 times so far. very easy to swage .the batch I bought from wideners a couple years ago was 179.00 per can with strippers and bando's/ was 92 stamped

 

[Anotherguy]

Dillon has a tool that is designed to swage the primer pockets of military brass.

 

[Soybomb]

So what are my small cheap swaging options? How's the rcbs pocket swager? $25 seems pretty reasonable.

 

[Hutch]

You don't HAVE to swage it. You can use a chamfering tool and sorta grind it out. In my (even) poorer days, I did a lot of that for reloadable .45ACP brass. As soft as my hands were/are, they got sore after a few hundred. It is cheap, tho'.

hth

 

[rcmodel]

How's the rcbs pocket swager?

It works good, but you will have to have a bench mounted reloading press to use it.

Takes quite a bit of force to swage pockets.

If I were you, I'd just ream them out.
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=643126&t=11082005

Years ago, all I had was a sharp pocket knife, and GI brass was all I had to reload.
Not recommending that, but if it's all you got, it will work.

If you go into large volume production of .223 you are moving out of the small hand-tool class of equipment.

At that point, the RCBS swager die set is better.
The Dillon swager is way better.

rcmodel

 

[rodregier]

Dillon Super Swage 600. I use mine mounted on a 17 inch piece of 2x4 across my legs while watching TV. Don't have to bench mount it.