Wow. You mean SWAT finally got around to doing something I did twenty years ago? Wow.
BTW, my .243 bullets were made out of .22 Mag cases, not .22 LR. cases. I made a die and punch to iron out the rim, folding it back --it left a little ding where the primer had impacted, made a mold for lead cores for it, and another die for forming the nose over the lead core. Not very accurate at all, and I only fired about five rounds of them. My son still has the dies I cut for the project. I quit because the principle had been demonstrated, and I was getting a little concerned with possible adverse effects on the barrel I was firing them out of.
The .357 bullets were made by turning the bases of the .30 Carbine cases down to an ogive, leaving a big hole where the primer pocket was, trimming them to length, closing the hole with "something," I forget what, filling them with lead (by pouring --I did not bother making a mold for the lead cores,) and loading them into .357 brass. I do not recall what powder I used --probably Unique. Again, accuracy was "eh!," but the principle had been demonstrated.
I have also made .38 Super cases from .357 cases by grinding a tool bit to the profile of the .38 Super rim and running it into the .357 cases in a lathe. The nickel-plated cases came out looking funny because the tool bit cut through the plating at the head end, so I ended up with cases that were "silvery" at the front and "brassy" at the back. These actually worked pretty well in a Colt Airweight in .38 Super I had at the time.
I had been having trouble finding either brass or ammuntion for the .38 Super, so I went that route. Nowadays .38 Super is a little more popular, as people start realizing what a great round it is. I always regretted getting rid of that gun. AFAIK, my son also still has that tool bit I ground.
As far as priming from strike-anywhere match heads is concerned, you have to slowly cut the tips off one at a time, keeping this operation separate from both the uncut matches and the cut-off tips. This was the diciest operation I ever played with, and I made sure I only kept about ten of the cut-off heads in a shot glass before using them. They do ignite pretty often as you are doing this. I also kept an ABC fire extinguisher around. I had made another punch and anvil to iron out the primer cups and re-inserted the tips and the anvil and reloaded them into cases. Very dicey, and I do not recommend the operation as a substitute for using commercial primers unless it's a Real, Gen-you-ine Honest-To-Gawd SHTF scenario. Better to just buy a couple of thousand primers for future use and let it go at that.
All of this was done many many decades ago when I was known as an aggressive experimenter, and I am only providing this information as a benefit of my experience, not as "recommended practice."
But I was a darned lucky (and careful) "aggressive experimenter" and still have two arms, two legs, two eyes, ten fingers, and no wives.
Lucky, like I said.
I believe this post is within the purview of the original post, that is, regarding the feasibilty of certain operations in SHTF literature. My premise, as mentioned, is that almost nothing is impossible to the resourceful "main character."
Or to the "aggressive experimenter."
Terry, 230RN