I know there must be some reason to lay out 100's of $ for a swaging tool, but I don't know what it would be when I can just whack ferrules with a hammer to crimp them. Maybe if you are making 100's of snares or is there some other advantage?

You can swage differant breakaway tests of ferrules with a swage for moose release, I plan on buying one for that exact reason.

You can pick one up at home depot for way cheaper than that. Maybe 30 bucks or less.

Yep, I got a Lowes special for $19.99 on sale one time that is the hand one and does all the sizes from 1/16 up to 1/8. I just stick that in my bench vise and then I have a bench swager. Works great and not $100+ to buy.

-TJ

I got the home depot one. built a bracket to hold it to the bench. Just like loading bullets now. I think ADC has the pic.s I copied from.
oregon.hunter

I might look into that Home Depot one. I took a 1/4" nut to the end of my right thumb at high velocity today as I was pounding it on the end of a trap anchor cable. Sucker slipped from under the hammer, split my nail and gave a blood blister. It's sorta talking to me right now. One good reason to get a swagger and ferrules!

AIH also has the hand ones thats where I got mine looked to be a little stouter than the others I looked at it will also do 1/16 thru 1/8

Here's what I use for pressing nuts or ferrals onto the cable to build snares, cable stakes, etc...

It looks like this...





Very simple to opperate. You just put a 6-32 or 8-32 nut in the end of your cable (aluminum stops or ferrals work just as easy) put it in the press...



Pull the handle down to compress the nut/stop....



All done. No cracking and holds great!...



Here's a short vodeo on them in action...



~ADC~

Your shop is disgustingly neat and clean!

Well maybe it was not ADC's that I copied. here is the bracket.





Hope this helps, made it supper simple for me.
oregon.hunter

I got the cheap home depot one and have had problems with crimped stops failing it really sucks when you have wolf tracks all over and a snare looking at you with the stop popped off. Now I have one very educated wolf on my line. I went back to beating stops on

Beat stops, crimp ferrules.

I have 2, as one does GREAT 1/16th, but crappy other sizes. The other does the other sizes better, but crappy 1/16th.

Nope that's a copy of possumskinner's "rigged up" design.

~ADC~

Took me two hours to get that corner of the shed cleaned up for the video White. LOL

~ADC~

LOL !! Took a big man to admit it !

I think the real reason to switch to a real life swagger is as Martenpine so eloquently stated that if your looking for a consistent breaking/slipping point for snares then it's a reason to use a swagger. These are essential for wolf snares meant to release moose/caribou.
Otherwise the hammer/anvil method works great and as people have stated is much cheaper, however a little dangerous at times (smalltimetrapper).

If your not doing breakaways and don't mind things not looking "pretty" I would do it the way that works. But the swagger is consistent and safer on your body.

My 2.5 cents