The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I thought it would be cool to seat the primers on my 6.5x55 resized cases on my newly acquired Wamadet press. It came with two priming arms unfortunately they are to big to accommodate the 6.5x55 cases. I could of turned one of the priming arms down but I did not really want to do that. So I made a new one. The one on the left is original the one on the right is the one I made and it works. YIPEE.

Nice, what is the diameter of the long thin section?

Its 6.575mm(.258") a little oversize I may be need to run it in the lathe and take a bit of emery paper to it to get it right it needs to be nearer .224 I guess. The unfired lapua brass go over it but its a snug fit the fired resized cases do. It will be OK. Actually it would probably double up as a neck turning mandrel.

6,5mm is bigger than I thought so not so bad. I have to machine firing pins from time to time and some of them have very small diameters over extended lengths which are always fun to turn.

As a long time Wamadet man (35+ years) I had the same problem with priming 6.5mm cases when a few months ago I bought a 6.5 x 55. I used to prime 357 cases with one of the pin things before moving quickly to a Lee autoprime (still using the original one which must now be over 30 years old) and a friend of mine turned the second one down so I could prime 308 cases where the slow rate of priming was not such an issue. I like the part you made to prime 6.5 cases, it looks great. Unfortunately I don't have a lathe and dare I say it on these pages but I now use a Lee Ramprime to prime both 308 and 6.5 cases and at risk of being struck off, it's great.
Wamadet presses are worth their weight in gold though and I use mine all the time.

Bewildered out of interest how do you set your full lentgh dies up on the Wamadet do you do the same as a normal single station or is it different. I am running the die in until it touches the shell holder then 1/4 turn more. Is that how you set it up.

Bewildered, nothing wrong with the Ram Prime, use whatever works for you :) All my priming is done using an RCBS Universal Hand Priming tool.

Alpha1, there's no need to screw down the extra 1/4 turn, once it's in firm contact with the shell holder that's fine :)

Alpha1, there's no need to screw down the extra 1/4 turn, once it's in firm contact with the shell holder that's fine :)

Is that the procedure for the Wamadet press or a standard press.

Both, there's no benefit at all to screwing the die that far further down, all you are doing is applying unnecessary extra force on the press's action/linkages.