So off I went to the Gunstop to get a Dillon Model 600 primer pocket swager, and it was right around $100, which is only 80 more than the cheap RCBS setup. The thing a respectable chunk of steel, and you don't want to drop it on your foot!
It has a tilting case shaft that flops down into the swaging position, so getting a case on it is very easy. The sawging rod can (and should ) be set so that it's swaging the crimp just enough to seat a small rifle primer securely, and you actually do this to set it. After that, you just keep pulling the lever and swaging the pockets. The ram has a huge amount of compound leverage built into it, so no matter how much the pocket was crimped, it will get pushed back to allow primer seating. This setup is FAST and EASY, and I was swaging primer pockets at a rate of about 15 a minute, which is one every 4 seconds! That's 450 in half an hour, or 900 in a hour. Just eliminating the hassle factor of the cheap RCBS setup makes this worth the price alone, much less the speed you get. While I don't have a problem (hell, I actually enjoy it!) hand priming cases and reloading with a turret press, but swaging primer pockets is about as fun as trimming brass to length, and it's a job you want over as soon as possible.
