Bullet Swaging - I Need The Real Facts

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perdurabo93

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Allright, I've been trying to do do my homework yet again and I'm still not really coming up with all the answers I want. I'm considering investing in bullet swaging equipment for making my own bullets. Pulled milsurp bullets will not be around forever and I have no desire whatsoever to pay the premium for commercial rifle bullets like Sierra and Hornady. I reload for one reason and one reason alone: high volume value. I realize swaging presses and dies are absolute buckwild crazy expensive (though honestly, I don't see why, they don't seem much different materially that standard $20 Lee reloading dies), but at some point ammo might become so overpriced as to make this kind of purchase well worthwhile. But the fact is that I need a way to make projectiles out of common non-proprietary components for my autoloading rifles that will shoot full pressure loads without smoking and lead fouling.

So here's the deal: I need a set of swaging equipment that will allow me to make 9mm/115gr LRN, 45acp/230gr LRN, .223/55gr FMJ, and .308/147gr FMJ with minimal to zero need for melting lead for cores/bullets and which uses scrap or common components available at your local hardware/plumbing store.

Swaged lead bullets for pistol rounds are pretty straightforward as far as I can tell, but Im not exactly sure what is required to get the lead into a format that usable by the swaging press. Do you have to melt the ingots and re-form them into tubes or somesuch? I assume you have to lube them through a lubing die just like cast bullets as well. Any other gotchas here?

Rifle bullets are another matter alltogether. Theres a Corbin swaging kit that allows you to take fired .22lr cases and make them into jackets for .223 bullets. This sounds fantastic until you see the $600 (!!!!!) price tag for this kit thats just a few dies. Is this for real? Is there a way to get this thing cheaper? Also, I'm confused about the cores. Do they have to be cast in a mold just like cast bullets or can the cores themselves be swaged out as well? I'd like to avoid having to melt lead as much as possible.

For .308 FMJ bullets theres the issue of making jackets. There seems to be multiple ways of doing this from using copper tubing to copper strip, but from what I can tell from the Corbin site, the copper tubing and copper strips used to make jackets is highly proprietary and cannot be gotten at the local hardware store. Is this really the case? Must you actually buy all your jacket material from Corbin? Is there ANY way to make any usable .308 FMJ jackets out of any commonly available material? Also, is it really necessary to use a fancy ($$$) tubing saw to cut the jacket tubes? Whats the absolute most economical way of swaging 147gr .308 FMJ bullets?

Does Corbin have any competitors? If so, who are they? How do they compare? Who makes the equipment that the big commercial bullet makers use to swage their bullets?
 
For tubing check out McMaster Carr, www.mcmaster.com

Also try MSC 1(800)645-7270

You can also check local steel suppliers, find out what size (wall thickness) you need and call around. Brass would be another substitute, I've seen people make bullets from rifle casings.
 
Swaging is not the best nor the most economical way to go. Your bullets will be a bit softer than you want and putting copper jackets on lead bullets is beyond the scope of most home reloaders.

Save yourself a lot of buying a lot of unnecessary equipment and work. Just cast lead bullets using wheel weights. Easy to do, very econonomical and the equipment doesn't cost a fortune to get going. You can get going in casting lead bullets out of wheel weights for around $150.00 - $200.00, including shipping costs.

Here's a simplified description of the process:

1. Get a Turkey Cooker with a cast iron pot to smelt your wheelweights into ingots (keeps your bottom pour casting post clean). (approximately 60 bucks)

2. Get a bottom pour pot to convert your clean ingots into molten lead for the molds. (approximately 50 bucks)

3. Get a mold for the caliber you want to load. Note: Make sure to do a serrosafe casting of your chamber and bore to match the round to your bore for accuracy and leading issues. (approximately 20 bucks)

4. Cast the bullets.

5. Get equipment to lube the bullets. (Pan lube to start with, you can get a luber/sizer later on. 20 bucks)

6. Size & Lube the bullets as necessary.

7. Learn how to match loads to your firearm in order to prevent leading and get maxiumum accuracy.

Note: I use mostly lead I've cast myself to load most calibers I own. I don't get leading and I do get excellent accuracy. My costs for .45 ACP are $1.75 a box of 50. Might be a bit more now, with primers going up. But brass and bullets are still the major cost items.

Here's a link to a good forum whose main focus is lead bullet casting, you can flesh out the simple list I gave above and learn how to get to where you want to go casting wise:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/

Hope this helps,

Dave
 
Casting for pistol rounds is easy enough, but what about for rifle? Even with gas checks theres no way Im going to get a cast .308 bullet to approximate the ballistics of a 150gr FMJ, and even if I tried to get close the leading and fouling would be a major issue since the vast majority of the shooting I do is with semi-autos (M1A/FAL/G3, etc).

It seems the best and most economical way to make jacketed .223 bullets is with one of the Corbin .22lr case kits, but what about .308 bullets? Whats the cheapest way to make 150gr .308 bullets that can me loaded into full pressure/velocity loads?

I realize the cheapest way to do it now is to buy pulled milsurp bullets, but I want to prepare for the day when even those are unavailable or crazy overpriced like loaded ammo has become.
 
perdurabo93 said:
I realize the cheapest way to do it now is to buy pulled milsurp bullets, but I want to prepare for the day when even those are unavailable or crazy overpriced like loaded ammo has become.
Click to expand...
Um, how many do you think you need in ordered to be prepared for such a day? I ask because it seems to me that you could buy a whole lot of pulled milsurp bullets for less than what you'd spend for equipment capable of manufacturing jacketed bullets and the materials to go into them. And by a "whole lot" I mean tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. I find it hard to believe that wouldn't be enough to be prepared for just about anything. So just buy $500 worth of pulled milsurp bullets now and stick them in the basement, and you'll be covered.
 
With proper bullet fit, gas checks and the right lube, the guys at the cast boolit site can get velocities up above 3000 fps without leading, so you don't HAVE to use jacketed bullets for full power loads in most cartridges. Still problems with the very high speed varmint cartridges like the 220 Swift and 22-250; casting 22 caliber bullets take lots of skill and the velocities (3600-4000 fps) can exceed even the best lubes available now.

Still, trying to swage jacketed bullets just for yourself isn't the way to go; too expensive and too much equipment not to go ahead and pay for the more automated stuff and sell the results to others as well as yourself, and go broke doing it. Look at how many precision bullet makers for the benchrest crowd have come and gone, some made money until they died and had the company die with them, others just went broke; but only a few managed to become profitable companies that outlived their founder (Barnes, Speer etc, looks like Berger will eventually join them).
The swaging dies are much more expensive than reloading dies because they are much more precise, tolerances +-.0001" or better to form proper jackets and cores, not the +-.001" for reloading dies. Cores are formed from lead wire, basically a machine cuts even lengths from the wire to start the core, then this core is swaged into a die set that has a small hole to allow excess to be forced out to get cores that are within a 0.1 grain weight tolerance. Then the core is put into the jacket and pressed into another die set to form the bullet. Jackets are formed by punching a circle out of a strip of metal, then a series of dies form the circle into a cup and draws the cup into a jacket. Doing this all by hand takes lots of time - to the point that it's MUCH cheaper to just buy a bullet instead of spending the time to make them; and the hand equipment is also very expensive. Buying the automated equipment is even more expensive, but then you can produce enough bullets to sell and try and make the money back and still pay yourself for your time. Lead core wire and metal strip for jackets is sold by Corbin, if you want to invest the money go direct to the lead and copper foundries and buy it from them in quantity like Corbin does before breaking it up into smaller quantities to resell.
 
But the stickied posts at GunLoads make it clear that target loads should be 1600fps and hunting 1800fps.

I've read here a bit, and found that a 190gr at 2900fps out of a 30-06 is what I want to do. There's a range I want to join that is 600 and 900 meter, and I need affordable long range plinking ammo.



Sorry to dredge up an old post, but it's the most similar to what I'm looking for without starting a new one.
 
Here's how I understand this process. Making jackets out of pure copper is asking for trouble. Normal jacket metal is closer to bronze than pure copper. It is a alloy of zinc and copper. Pure copper jackets will foul badly, it is too soft alone.

There is a mold for pouring cores, IIRC it is adjustable for different lengths/weights. But then comes the problem of obtaining pure lead to make the cores from. Scrap lead usually has tin and antimony in it, making it too hard to swage into bullet cores.

You're pretty much forced to get your supplies from corbin. Since that's the case, you're money ahead to just buy your bullets ready to load from sierra, nosler or others. Not to mention the very high shipping costs for getting spools of lead wire, and jackets.
 
Here is the link to the other Corbin brother, Richard. He also has a bullet swaging business and his prices are competitive, but also on the high end.

http://www.rceco.com/

As mentioned, bullet swaging isn't cheap, and shouldn't be viewed as a way to make inexpensive blasting ammunition. That's not the purpose at all for these companies. They exist so you can make something that isn't offered by the mainstream bullet makers. It's a niche market.

C-H/4D also makes bullet swaging dies and equipment.

As for the question about the high prices of bullet swaging presses, they are expensive because they're designed to take about 10 times the stress as the average loading press. This means different design and materials. There are tremendous pressures involved in swaging, much more than sizing brass.

I've swaged pistol bullets and have the core molds, dies, etc. It's a lot of work and slow. Formed jackets are almost as much as completed bullets to buy, plus the cost of the pure lead, etc.

I've toured both the Nosler and Sierra bullet plants. Most of the current bullets are made on old World War II punch presses that have been reconditioned. I've got samples from Sierra's process and there is a lot that goes into the forming of the jacket, swaging the core, putting it into place and the final forming of the bullet. It's not a simple process and certainly not cheap.

As several posters have pointed out, you would be money ahead to put the funds into stockpiling surplus bullets. You might also look into buying factory "seconds", which sometimes become available. Nosler offers them on-line, and Sierra used to offer them at the factory. I've bought them by the pound and very seldom find one that isn't loadable.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
I've read here a bit, and found that a 190gr at 2900fps out of a 30-06 is what I want to do.
Click to expand...

That's really beyond the capability of the .30-06. That's right up in "Hi Energy" or "Lite Magnum" territory and isn't achieveable with the powders and loading techniques available to handloaders, even with jacketed bullets.

Try Ed Harris "The Load," 13.0 grains of Red Dot behind any reasonable bullet in .30 caliber cartridges from .308 Winchester on up. Ed developed this load for high power target shooting, and with well-cast and lubricated bullets, it shoots well, albeit you have to make serious sight adjustments for long range shooting.
 
No one has asked yet, but what rifle are you shooting? If an AR, Mini 14, etc, you might want/need the jackets.

Also, what kind of shooting are you doing? Precision, plinking, hunting, tactical training, etc?

From what I've seen, cores just need to be cylindrical and uniform - cast your own or buy on a spool. The swaging process will reshape the core at the same time it closes up the tip of the jacketed bullet.

Oh, and it it expensive no matter how you look at it.
 
Not trying to stir up trouble.

One response mentioned just stocking up on pulled parts with the money that you would spend on equipment to make your own jacketed bullets. At Pat's reloading, $520 would get you 8000 147 FMJBT projectiles (64.99/1000).

Just something to think about.

D
 
Quote:
I've read here a bit, and found that a 190gr at 2900fps out of a 30-06 is what I want to do.

That's really beyond the capability of the .30-06. That's right up in "Hi Energy" or "Lite Magnum" territory and isn't achieveable with the powders and loading techniques available to handloaders, even with jacketed bullets.
Click to expand...

Sorry, Vern, but that is easily (and safely) doable by any reloader with RL22 and the 190SMK. Myself and another shooter have been shooting this load for years. I was able to place 3rd this year at 1,000 yard F Class with my load in Norma brass that clocks at 2920fps.

Don

Win06t1.jpg
 
USSR,

Where are you getting you data ? Not one of my loading manuals at 190grns show a load that hot. 2724fps is the hottest load in my lyman 47th ? :confused:
 
How to blow up a 30-06: 2900 with a 190 Pure BS

2900 with a 190 uh huh. here's the loading data from Hodgen for 190s in a 06'. You gotta be running 80,000 CUP or so. It takes a 300 Weatherby to get 2900 with SAFETY, so be glad you have the "triple rings of steel".

190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 H4831 .308" 3.220" 57.0 2514 44,100 CUP 61.0C 2668 50,000 CUP
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 H4350 .308" 3.220" 51.0 2451 39,500 CUP 56.5 2692 49,200 CUP
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 H414 .308" 3.220" 48.0 2398 39,000 CUP 53.0 2640 49,500 CUP
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 H380 .308" 3.220" 47.0 2369 40,900 CUP 51.5 2555 48,700 CUP
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 Varget .308" 3.220" 43.5 2450 41,800 CUP 46.5 2608 49,700 CUP
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 BL-C(2) .308" 3.220" 43.0 2312 39,200 CUP 47.0 2510 48,600 CUP
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 H335 .308" 3.220" 40.0 2271 40,200 CUP 44.0 2465 48,400 CUP
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 H4895 .308" 3.220" 41.0 2380 41,400 CUP 45.5 2525 48,000 CUP
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 IMR 7828 .308" 3.220" 55.0 2429 46,200 PSI 59.8C* 2646 58,700 PSI
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 IMR 4831 .308 3.220" 51.0 2445 46,300 PSI 55.0C 2639 57,000 PSI
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 IMR 4350 .308" 3.220" 51.0 2466 47,200 PSI 54.5 2647 58,500 PSI
190 GR. HDY BTSP 190 IMR 4064 .308" 3.220" 45.0 2485 50,900 PSI 47.7 2593 57,600 PSI
 
30-06 at 2900 continued

and here's what the maker of RL 22 says with a 180 gr bullet

Fed. 3.25 24 Fed. 210 Reloder 22 60 2,710 51,000

and I would guess 60 gr is about 98% density, so I'd love to here the magic that gets 200 fps more with no more powder or is it 4" of freebore?
 
Guys, to do it right, and accurately, you gotta spend some money. REAL money. And time. And then you have to buy a lot of jackets, etc., because you really can't make those with any consistency... And you're going to be limited to hollowpoint type bullets.

Buy a LOT of components. Think of if this way - it is doubtful that the stuff will go down in value. You can also buy 100,000 pieces, and sell 'em in 100 piece baggies...
 
You have a good point. Figure out how much you would pay for all the equipment, jackets, cores, and so on, and then use the money to buy a gazillion bullets at bulk prices. Shoot what you want, put the rest into baggies and sell them at gun shows and soon you'll be in the black.:D
 
For the price of a complete Corbins set-up I think one could be a preferred investor in a small-cap mining company, and just ask for your dividends in copper:)

Or you could just play with copper on the future's market, buy people's options that are due, and choose to take possession. My Dad's friend ended up with a back-yard full of potatos because he missed his sell window, but refused to eat the loss. No pun intended:)
 
190 @ 2900 in a 30-06 ??? more info

Vern, maybe it was a typo putting a "9" where a "5" belonged?

Allaint sez with a 150 Sierra:

Fed. 3.21 24" Fed. 210 Reloder 15 53.6 3,005 58,500

I'd like to try that in my 28" new WRA High Wall...wonder what I would pick up with 4 extra inches (no s.a. remarks please!):evil:
 
maybe it was a typo putting a "9" where a "5" belonged?

Allaint sez with a 150 Sierra:

Fed. 3.21 24" Fed. 210 Reloder 15 53.6 3,005 58,500
Click to expand...

There ya go!

Yeah, 3,000 fps is doable with a 150 grain bullet in .30-06, and most powders will churn up 2,900 with little strain. But a 190 grain bullet is a whole 'nother ball game.
 
Bullet Swaging

Wow, talk about the bane of my existence in the last few weeks.

I've also been having some serious issues getting quantities of .223 bullets. And since I usually deal in the 10K+ quantity, I've been looking to actual production swaging as well.

Most of the equipment sold by corbin, RCE, CH etc is for the "home user" they are used in limited production facilities such as prototype labs, and others where they are still designing the bullets that will one day be made by the million.

While capable of making bullets, these are typically slow, and still relatively expensive. For .223 bullets you really need to buy a real swaging press, the rock chucker can handle it to an extent, but when it comes to swaging, the bigger the better. This is because the .223 is so small, you need to use substantially more power to produce a result similar to what you would get with a .308, or a .50.

As for jacket material, most jackets are made of "guilding metal" which typically has about a 7-10% zinc, or tin mixture. This prevents the galling associated with pure copper. This is typically available as strips, which are punched out, then drawn into jackets in several progressive steps.

When the cores are made, they are typically cut from lead wire and are then run through a core forming die (which assures the core weight) and are then pressed into the core seating die, and are then usually dropped out into a canneluring machine.

Personally, I am in the process of getting some machines that will perform these operations. I looked into doing small-scale swaging using tools from the likes of RCE, corbin, and CH but found I just could not keep my production levels high enough to justify the cost. So far I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on this, with hundereds of thousands to go.

Can this be done on a small scale? yes
Do I recommend doing this? Yes, but only for the purposes of learning, as well as making your own custom bullets.
Do I recommend this for high volume production? No

If you just want quantity, stock up, if you want to learn something new, this is the way to go.
 
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