Does anyone make their own bullets with swaging? I realy want to get into it but the only website I can find is Corbin's and their website is really confusing. From what I could understand I'm looking at about $1000-$1500 to start from there?
I know some can be made using a reloading press instead of a swaging press.
How did you get started? Where do I start because I really want to do this?
About 20 years ago, I made 6mm benchrest bullets for a while - 68 grain, .2435, flat base, I seem to recall 7 ogive.
What do you need:
- three dies - squirt die to make cores of a uniform size and weight, core seater die to seat the cores in the jacket, and a point up die to form the pointy part of the bullet. My dies are carbide (at least the point up and core seater are carbide) and I think they were originally made by Simonson or Detsch. Speedy Gonzalez reburned my point-up to a new ogive. The dies are 7/8x14.
- Punches for the squirt and core seater. I have core-seater punches that are in one tenth steps. My squirt punch and ejector have hemispherical faces - the thought was that they would seat better. I don't know if that works or not.
- I have three presses, one for each die, each with ejector frames. They are repurposed RCBS - each ram was machined to fit its punch. I think one of them is an A2, the others are probably Rock Chuckers. They are plenty stout for this purpose - most forces are low.
- You need lead wire for cores. I used to buy pre-cut chunks that were about 45 grains each and squirt them to the weight I wanted. If you want to do it yourself, you can buy a device that will cut lead wire.
- You need high-quality jackets. I bought mine from J4. I think you can get J4 jackets from Lester Bruno or Berger. Other people also make jackets, I think I got some 30 cal jackets from one of the guys are Holland.
- You need jacket lube. This is typically pretty special stuff. It needs to provide enough lube to eject the bullet from the point-up die while still being thin enough to not change the shape of the bullet. Mine is a combination of vaseline and anhydrous lanolin. There may have been some alcohol in there. If I got back into it, I would want to make new lube.
Assuming that you have the gear and you know what you want to make so you know core weight and you have jackets, the process: is:
- Squirt cores. Set a chunk of wire on the punch and lower the handle to run it into the die. Excess lead squirts out the holes in the die. Raise the handle, the ejector frame pushes the sized core out of the die.
- Lube the jackets. Too much lube is bad. Not enough is worse. Just right is VERY hard to determine.
- Seat cores. Drop a core into a jacket. Flip it over and set it on the punch. Lower the handle to run it into the die. Raise the handle, the ejector frame pushes the seated core out of the die. When the punch is compressing the lead, you want it to stop about a zillionth of an inch from touching the jacket. Don't cut the jacket. If lead should flow around the punch, that may unbalance the bullet.
- point up. Set the jacket/seated core on the punch, lower the handle to run it into the point up die. Raise the handle and the ejector pushes the bullet base first out of the die.
In my case, the point-up ejector is about 0.060 so the meplat is about that size - that's pretty big. Couple things to keep in mind
- If you set the squirt die wrong, you get a core that is too light. Throw it away, no great loss.
- If you set core seat die wrong, you cut a jacket. Throw it away, no great loss.
- But don't get a bullet stuck in the point-up die! Since the die is lined with carbide and the bullet is small, you have to be VERY careful getting it out of there. That is the voice of experience. I had a friend EDM a hole in the base of the bullet, we tapped the hole, threaded a screw into the threaded hole, and pulled the bullet. I had to do that twice and it cost me a lot of beer.
When you have the gear set up right, you can make hundreds of bullets in a reasonable time. You do batches 1,000 cores then seat a thousand then point up a thousand. I still have a few hundred - maybe a thousand - from those days. In the mid-90s I was making bullets, shooting matches, doing okay but not great. My guns stopped shooting well. I thought it was my bullets - I was pretty new to it so that seemed reasonable. I swapped scopes between the guns (Leupold 36x targets scopes, state of the art at the time), neither gun would shoot. It had to be the bullets. I found myself in a political shit show at work so I put it all aside. A couple years later, thinking I would get back to to it, I had a 24x scope so I threw that onto one of the guns, took my crap to the range, made some ammo and shot a mid-2. CRAP! Bullets good but I had two bad scopes. Send both scopes to Leupold and they fixed them but the work situation got worse and I never went back to BR. Sold the rifles about a year ago - a light and heavy varmint, Stolle Pandas glued into McMillan stocks, Arnold Jewel triggers, Hart barrels with low round count, made by Dan Dowling. I hated to see them go. Dan makes really nice guns.
The bullet-making gear is just sitting there.
I also have some steel 30-cal dies. Made for and used by a famous shooter from before my time. At this point, they are curiosity. I don't have presses and they may be missing punches.
