Lee APP depriming and swaging? (speeding up 223 brass processing)

Anyone ever used the Lee APP for depriming and swaging with 223? I am trying to figure out a faster pipeline for loading blaster 223, and I keep coming back to my Dillon 650 - but lack of on-press swaging is a deal-breaker for doing everything on it. (Not going to use a Swage-It, sorry.)

Right now, I've got to FL size/deprime on a turret/single-stage and then use a Super Swage, which is just stupid slow comparatively. Brass prep takes probably 50% or more of my total 223 load time, so I'm trying to aggressively work that part of the problem. End goal is to be able to make 100% of my 55gr 223 for competition and classes. Current total production rate of about 100rph is not going to cut it for my needs.

What I am thinking is:

• Wet Tumble #1
• Lube
• APP Pass #1: FL resize/deprime
• APP Pass #2: Primer pocket swage
• Wet Tumble #2 (honestly, I might skip this, but it cleans primer pockets and gets rid of lube)
• Giraud: Trim+chamfer+deburr
• Dillon 650: Primer+Powder+Check+Seat+Crimp

If anyone's used the APP and wants to weigh in on this plan, that's what I'd like.

Of course, Dillon 1100 with a trimmer would do this way faster, but I'm only buy $150 more bits in this case, vs $2000+. OTOH, I may wind up with it anyways depending on how end of year bonuses look... we'll see.

I have two tool heads for .223/5.56 for my 650

First head is a Lee Decapping die in position 1, and a sizing die in position 2.

I clean and lube, then run it through head 1. It goes VERY quickly.

Then, I run them through my Super Swage while watching TV.

The second head has no die in Position 1. The power/expander in position 2. Bullet seating in position 4.

Run the sized/swaged brass through this, and end up with loaded rounds.

The APP looks nice, but too bad it will not decap and swage both. So you will need to set it up to decap, run the cases. Change over to swaging, run them again.

I wonder if I can set it up to feed from my 650 case feeder????

Pinecone said:

I have two tool heads for .223/5.56 for my 650

First head is a Lee Decapping die in position 1, and a sizing die in position 2.

I clean and lube, then run it through head 1. It goes VERY quickly.

Then, I run them through my Super Swage while watching TV.

The second head has no die in Position 1. The power/expander in position 2. Bullet seating in position 4.

Run the sized/swaged brass through this, and end up with loaded rounds.

Click to expand...

When do you trim? This is basically what I would do if I had a 1050/1100 and could do a round of swaging.

The APP looks nice, but too bad it will not decap and swage both. So you will need to set it up to decap, run the cases. Change over to swaging, run them again.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the APP requires two setups (ETA: but it uses Lee Breech Lock, which is super fast). But I also don't bother doing brass prep until I'm basically out of brass and have acquired quite a bit more to process. If they had somehow engineered this thing to be able to FL resize/deprime and then swage in one full pull, it would be a no-brainer.

I wonder if I can set it up to feed from my 650 case feeder????

Click to expand...

I have heard of people doing this. Probably mostly just positioning the case feeder correctly.

erwos said:

What I am thinking is:

• Wet Tumble #1
• Lube
• APP Pass #1: FL resize/deprime
• APP Pass #2: Primer pocket swage
• Wet Tumble #2 (honestly, I might skip this, but it cleans primer pockets and gets rid of lube)
• Giraud: Trim+chamfer+deburr
• Dillon 650: Primer+Powder+Check+Seat+Crimp

Click to expand...

I deprime with a universal decapping die and THEN wet tumble. I resize, trim, chamfer, deburr, dry tumble with a little Nu-Finish and have a super swager on the bench next to my 550. I swage just before priming.

Don't think that will help, but the use of a universal decapping die before wet tumbling may save you a second tumble.

I'm done with swaging. I use a crimp cutter head on my RCBS prep station. My arms, shoulders, and wrists have suffered enough repetitive use syndrome. My parts is wore out.

teratos said:

I deprime with a universal decapping die and THEN wet tumble. I resize, trim, chamfer, deburr, dry tumble with a little Nu-Finish and have a super swager on the bench next to my 550. I swage just before priming.

Don't think that will help, but the use of a universal decapping die before wet tumbling may save you a second tumble.

Click to expand...

I definitely agree that the second tumble is not strictly necessary. I guess I could see having the lube on there as being a plus when it's time to drop powder and not get hung up on the funnel.

outrider58 said:

I'm done with swaging. I use a crimp cutter head on my RCBS prep station. My arms, shoulders, and wrists have suffered enough repetitive use syndrome. My parts is wore out.

Click to expand...

I have the Lyman case prep station and it's simply too slow for the quantities of 223 I'm loading.

erwos said:

I have the Lyman case prep station and it's simply too slow for the quantities of 223 I'm loading.

Click to expand...

It would be nice if there was a way to speed them up. Like Pinecone, I turn on the TV and go into robot mode.

I trim when the cases get too long. I do not trim every loading.

I use a WFT trimmer. Another while watching TV job.

But if you want to trim every time, set up a Dillon trim die/trimmer on the first head. Decap, size, trim

When I started out loading, I bought a Dillon 550, the only other model from Dillon was the RL1000.

For processing bulk once fired military brass I have used an RCBS lube/decap die in station one, two is blank, station three has a Dillon size/ trimmer die, with station four blank. The brass goes back into a tumbler to remove the lube. Then the Dillon swage tool is used for the crimp.

If I had a 650, I would do the same setup. It certainly would be faster than having to manually insert cases and index as with a 550.

My method for 556/223 has always been the “large batch” method. I will process a large amount of brass; clean, resize, deprime, trim and remove the crimp. That brass will be reloaded then fired. It all goes into cans of the same batch. Once it has all been reloaded and fired it all gets reloaded again. That doesn’t mean it gets reloaded all at the same reloading sessions. This way I know all of the batch has been fired the same number of times. When the brass needs trimmed, the whole batch is run through the trimmer. Then the process starts over. I will fire the batch of brass till it needs trimmed again, then trim it. When it needs a third trimming it goes to scrap. This method doesn’t require counting how many reloads. Just to clarify, the process trim is just to make everything even. After that, the brass only gets trimmed twice before scraping.

I have just updated my tooling and hope to have things setup shortly, hence my referring to the 550 in past tense.

Hmm, I may need to get a couple of those lube/decap dies.

I normally just lube the cases going into the case feeder, but then I need to give it a wipe with an alcohol dampened paper towel to remove the lube.

I get the whole robot it while watching TV thing, but there's honestly other stuff I'd rather be doing even while watching TV.

I have enough range pickups every session that I can't rely on not trimming brass every time. I do try to be conservative with my trims (tending towards max length rather than min length), but my circumstances don't work well towards tracking individual pieces of brass (or even groups of it) beyond "this is now trimmed, deburred, chamfered, swaged, and primed... ready to load".

I really should just get a Dillon 1100 and trimmer, it sounds like.