Wilson Trimer Primer Pocket Crimp Reamer?

[Danny]

Has anyone used the primer pocket reamer for the Wilson Case Trimmer that chamfers the primer pocket of military cases for primer installation? I have the Dillon Superswage and over the years of using it, haven't found it to be the wonderful tool others have described. I either ream too little (usually) or too much. In the case that too little has been done, the cases need to be done again slightly more, and in the case of too much, it raises a welt at the mouth of the primer pocket. Even in the case of same lot or same headstamp cases, if you do get enough crimp on most of the cases, there are still plenty of cases that fall below the needed amount of crimp removal, which will need to be redone. In my opinion, cases are not exact enough to get all cases to come out correctly the first time, but then, it may just be me. I'm considering getting and trying the reamer that clears this for my Wilson Case Trimmer. Any comments on that?

Thanks,

Danny

Information

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[Mike_Mills]

I have one. I haven't used it very much. It works as advertised. It is made to the usual high precision of all the Wilson tools and cutters. It works fast and accurately.

[RicinYakima]

I have done many thousands of 30/06 and 7.62 NATO cases over the last 40 years with one. It is a slow process, what with having to put each case in a holder, but works perfectly once you have it adjusted. HTH, Ric

[Major Tom]

I'm cheap, so I just use a RCBS case mouth deburrer tool.

[45 Caliber]

I have used both for mil 3006 cases and now only use the Dillon Super Swage. I setup the Dillon once and have not needed to change that adjustment. I have done thousands of LC 69s, 72s, 74s, etc. and never had the problems you describe. I might add in addition to swaging the cases I also use a Sinclair uniformer to give the primer pockets the same depth. I use CCI's Mil primers and the RCBS Bench Priming tool. I do not remove the old primers in a press but use the Wilson base and punch. Hope this helps...

[Maury Krupp]

I've done thousands of cases on my SuperSwage and have loaned it to others to do thousands more. Works like a champ.

The most common issue people have with one can be traced to the setup directions Dillon provides. They suck. They tell you to look at a couple crummy black-and-white photos then adjust by trial-and-error

A much better and easier way is to use a case that has never had a primer crimp (match or commercial). Put that case into the swage, screw the swaging rod in until it won't screw any more, then lock everything down.

This way will get you the right amount of swaging every time with no muss, no fuss, and no guesswork

Maury

[joem]

I'm with Maury on the dillon super swedge. I've done thousands of cases with no problems.

[Parashooter]

Any swager that supports the case from the inside is dependent on case web thickness for uniformity. Consider these three sectioned cases -



If these are swaged with the same adjustment, all would show different results because of the differences in web thickness (and contour). In addition, the presence of any significant inside burrs (as on the R-P case here) will have a small effect on the swaging action (and possibly a major effect on the flash hole opening if the burr is mashed by the support rod).

Uniform results occur with uniform conditions, best assured by processing cases of the same production lot together and inside-deburring flash holes before swaging. Re-adjustment of the tool is often necessary to maintain uniform pocket swaging when a different brand or lot of cases is processed. If case lots are mixed or unknown, or cases exhibit poor uniformity within a single lot, pre-sorting by weight may help (and may also enhance accuracy).

[Danny]

Ok, I got a lot of good comments here and just about all of them are valid. I have to say that I do believe that those of you that have gotten good results with the Super Swage, I do believe that you have experienced that. I just myself haven't also experienced the same, but that doesn't mean that either of us are all correct or are all wrong.

45 Caliber talks about doing a lot of LC Cases with his and getting good results. I'm sure he does. I've not done only LC Cases and think that this may be part of the problem. I've done other case stamps such as "RA", WCC" with the Various LC Vintage, and calibers 5.56 and 7.62 NATO as well as .30 Caliber. That's a bit more variation, and that leads into Parashooter's posting about Web Thickness, which I was getting at in my initial post, but was vague on it to see what I'd get people posting on. I've worked on lots that were all same headstamp and year as well as mixed headstamp, same headstamp, mixed years and other varied combinations of non-same brass. Yes, the same headstamp and same year stuff worked much better than the mixed combinations, but I still always found some that needed "tuning up" within the lot when I went through them the first time.

Maury Krupp posts about doing thousands of them without trouble, and then loaning it to people that have had the same results as well. I believe his results and posting. I just haven't experienced that. I wonder if he's also done a less variations of brass than I have been doing. He also mentions about the crappy instructions and photographs, which is also the problem I discovered just after buying the unit. I think the photographs are the worst part of it. I can at least follow the instructions fairly well, but the photos are just about useless. I also came up with the technique that Maury described after frustration with the settings I was getting, but I didn't get a good setting at all. I set it up that way and tried it on the lot of brass I was doing and "Wow", was that too much swaging. Obviously the web thickness issue raised by Parashooter was rearing its ugly head in this scenario. To be honest, I haven't done much flash hole deburring on my brass, even though it's used primarily at 600 and 1000 yds. When I have, I can't say if any of it was the lots that were processed on the SuperSwage. Maybe I should go back to adding that to my regimen.

RicinYakima has used the Wilson Tool and says that it's slow. I believe that, based on having used the timmer some (I primarily now use a Giraud for my high-volume work, though). I have found that once I get a kind of routine and cadence going, it can be worked surprisingly fast. If I couple that with not ever having to touch the brass twice or more like with the Dillon unit, maybe it will actually overall be faster.

Danny

[Parashooter]

If you're using bulk military brass or range pick-up, you're probably getting mixed production lots even if all are the same headstamp, including year. Sorting by weight before swaging may be worth a try.

Basically, production tooling is checked, changed and/or adjusted after each lot, resulting in variation. New cases (or new ammo in original packaging) are usually from a single lot and more likely to give uniform results. Even so, you'll find a few cases abnormally light or heavy (thin or thick web or walls) in most lots. If you're shooting serious long-range competition, sorting cases (even of the same lot) by weight is one more way to reduce velocity variation.