Funny you should mention swa cable and glands Andrew, I have been doing some 2.5mm and 6.0mm swa recently, and had a real job to get the glands fitted properly, mainly due to the piss poor, only just big enough glands, with huge undercuts at the top of the fixing thread so that the locknuts, which were incredibly badly threaded, and paper thin, screw onto the gland in a wobbly angled fashion, then drop into the undercut and spin freely, meaning you have to find the best locknut you have to secure the gland to the box, and use another two at the top of the thread in the undercut to act as washers! As for getting a good firm grip on the SWA, I know exactly what you mean, they simply will not do it, due to dimensional inaccuracy which goes to the point of believing (possibly correctly) that your supplier has sent the wrong size glands. Perhaps this is why a lot of sparkies are using an extra core as earth, and not trusting the SWA to have good continuity. Did you also notice how hard the plastic insulation was to cut? I could not believe it. I started fitting swa glands about 1970, and have done it on and off ever since, so I know what I am talking about. Recently I fitted a new 3 phase dis board in my own workshop, which involved stripping back the gland and shortening the old (1974) cable. It was a real trip down memory lane, cable easy to strip, insulation soft and pliable, gland fitted perfectly and really got hold of the swa, even the locknuts fit the threads perfectly, and no undercut to lose a locknut or two into. It is not you Andrew, we have to work with rubbish today, makes me really glad I no longer work full time in the industry!
Phil