scrounging .22 rimfire brass and doing that swaging thing

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janobles14

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well the title pretty mych says it all...

we have running tons of rimfire brass laying around and a little machine that can clean it up. i have heard some guys here mention swaging these into .223 rounds. is this something that requires a ton of knowledge and setup or can most anyone do it?
 
I'm planing on getting into swaging .22 into .223. Cast Boolits has a dedicated forum to the subject. Wish I, could find just a half ton. Woo is me.
 
One of the guys at the gun club west of town has been swaging his own 223 bullets. They appear to be good enough for blasting at a hillside, but they sure aren't match grade. Barely even hunting grade. Mostly just blasting grade.
 
Here's some examples of what I swage.
SwagedBullets.jpg
Left hand group is .224", center is .357", and right is .429"
 
MichaelK,
Is there a source for the swaging press and dies that doesn't value them near the national profit of some smaller nations?

I've looked at a couple of vendors offerings, but haven't been able to justify the outlay versus the cost of jacketed bullets due to the steep entry price.
 
One of the other guys mentioned looking on Cast Bullets for info. They seem to have a good wealth of knowledge but it is pretty pricey to jump into it. Corbin has a lot of good info on their website but you have to dig to find it. A few people modify Rockchuckers and Lee Classic Cast presses to swage the jackets and the bullets but the concensus is you are better off with a dedicated swaging press designed specifically for the task. I found a guy in PA that would sell me a new but modified Rockchucker and a set of dies for $2250. That price doesn't include the core cutter (cuts appropriate size lead wire to length) or core forming dies. Some people cast their cores (more equipment). All in all it is pretty expensive to get started when you consider how many bullets you could buy for the same amount of money.

Would love to hear from someone who does it on the cheap.
 
The .224 bullets were made on my RockChucker press with a die set made by SportFlite (out of business) for 125$. The middle .357 bullets were made on a Swagomatic press I bought at a gun show for 73$. The .44 bullets on the right were made on my RockChucker using a CH die set www.ch4d.com for 134$. I also have a .357 and .40 die set from CH.

Here are some pics of bullets I made with those two.
380Autocaseto357bullet.jpg
These .357 bullets were made with .380 auto cases.
9mmcaseto40caliberbullet.jpg
These 175 grain .40 S&W hollowpoints were made out of 9mm brass.

You can get creative deciding which kinds of brass to convert into which kinds of jackets. In general, you always want to swage up to your final diameter for the best core/jacket bond. The .380 auto cases in the top pic mike out at about .370-.371". After annealing, I first draw their diameter down to .356" with a Lyman lubesizer, then swaged back up to .357" to seat the core. You can also use .223 brass cut in half to make .357 bullets.

The 9mm cases mike about .393-.394" and are easy to swage up to .400".
 
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