I promise, there is a legit topic and a couple serious questions about swaging here, but first. I love a good play on words, especially for a topic title.
Rock of Swages
What’s my Swage Again
Third Swage
Swagecoach, The Musical.
Parsley Swage Rosemary and Thyme
Turn the Swage
Swage in a Cage
Minimum Swage
Okay, now that I got that outta my system… Swaging.
I have a bunch of NATO 5.56 brass that needs to be swaged. I’ve seen several videos and read about a bunch of different ways to accomplish this, but I’d like to get some first hand real world input.
Of all the tools, I like the bench mounted lever type such as the Frankford and RCBS offerings. They look like they would do a nice clean shear. I also find the RCBS reloading press swaging die and shell holder set interesting but fear it will make a mess of the press.
Since I have a couple few thousand cases to process, I was also thinking about a case prep center so I could swage but also chamfer debur and clean necks and primer pockets more easily. Just deburring eats a lot of time when bulk processing. My main concern with prep center swaging is that it’s not really swaging, it reams out the pocket, and it looks like it could deform or oversize pockets.
Now, about spent brass. I have mostly Lake City, which I know what I’m dealing with, but also a bunch of other 5.56 brass, and some 223 brass that looks like NATO spec. Some 5.56 brass does not have the NATO ( cross in circle) stamp, Actually, only the American Eagle M855 has the NATO stamp. IMI (Israel) and Poongsan (S Korea) are NATO spec, with sealed and crimped primers, but no NATO stamp.
Really confusing is the FC brass that looks like 5.56 brass, Annealed just like M855, has the mysterious secret large and small dimple binary code (gonna figure that out one day), and primers are sealed and crimped, but is marked .223. I need to know if the cases are thicker like NATO or just unsexy 223 that Federal uses the same mystery codes on.