Time to swage 223rem jacketed bullets again

[forrest r]

Awhile back I was given +/- 450 22cal copper jackets and never did anything with them. I'm running low on bullets for the ar's so I decided to make up 5000/6000 bullets. I made a new de-rim die this year for making jackets out of 22lr cases. The last 1 was toast from scoring. I made up jackets out of the 22lr cases that I had, mostly eley. After these are gone I'm only going to use federal 22lr cases for jackets, they're thicker.


I used the copper jackets to make bullets for the 223 contender 14" bbl. Decided to go with 62gr bullets and made bullets that have:
a round fn fmj nose (left)
a round flat lead nose (2nd from left)
A small cupped hp nose.(3rd from left)

Also in the picture are 58gr hp's I make for the ar's that are made out brass 22lr shell cases. (far right)


The big decision I'm having now is should I anneal the 22lr jackets or leave them hardened. The annealed jackets are a little more accurate but the harder jackets flat out put a smack on whatever they hit.

It's nice to have the ability to custom make bullets for the 223's. I kinda wish I didn't sell the 3 sets of swaging dies I made for 223's that had different point forming die designs. Probably should play around and make up some more point forming dies anyway.

 

[AJC1]

I was very intrested in making bullets from 22 cases until I found out how much the dies were. If I could make a set on my lathe I may consider trying this myself for plinking ammunition for my son.

 

[Heir Kommt Die Sonne]

I was very intrested in making bullets from 22 cases until I found out how much the dies were.

Kinda reminds me of my plan to make .300 BLK from the surplus .223 rem cases everywhere. For me this is more practical, because I could always use cast if needed for bullets.
But I think it's cool that you can make .223 bullets from .22 LR cases.

 

[AJC1]

Kinda reminds me of my plan to make .300 BLK from the surplus .223 rem cases everywhere. For me this is more practical, because I could always use cast if needed for bullets.
But I think it's cool that you can make .223 bullets from .22 LR cases.

That's actually how a company started. I think it was speer but not sure.

 

[edwardware]

That's actually how a company started. I think it was speer but not sure.

RCBS. . . Rock Chuck Bullet Swaging equipment. . . for swaging .22LR cases into .224 bullets, to hunt rock chucks.

 

[forrest r]

I've made sets of swaging dies over the years along with custom expanders for Dillon owners and a bunch of gas check makers. Doing this kept me in primers, powders, molds, equipment for years.

While rcbs got it's start with the bullet swaging not all presses from rcbs are created equal. The early rcbs presses still go for big $$$, the A2's. I wouldn't try swaging bullets with one of the rcbs presses that have the slot in them for the priming arm.. I use the SR series rcbs presses to swage bullets with. Used a SR #2 for decades and finely wore the pins and ram out on it. RCBS still had a ram in stock for it along with the pins so I rebuilt it. The SR#3 that I have was nib until 4 years ago when I finely started using it.

I see "The Cost" come up all the time with casting and swaging equipment. Never could understand that one????
Right now I'm using a deluxe set of dies from corbin that I have $600 into. I've swaged 40,000+ bullets so far with these dies from free lead/free 22lr cases for jackets. I'll probably make another 40,000+ bullets with this set before I'm done.
The reality of it is:
$600 isn't going to make or break me. It's actually an investment in something I can use for years and turn around and sell it for more $$$ then what I have in it. These swaging dies are paying me to use them. I've done the same thing with bullet molds over the decades, bought and sold 100's of them.

Anyway different points of view. Some look at $600 as a lot of $$$ for a set of swaging dies. I look at it as money in the bank that allows me to make all the free bullets I want for the ar's. Then make $$$ selling that same set of swaging dies when I'm done with them.

 

[troy fairweather]

I'd really like to get into doing this, wish I had the money to get started.

 

[Heir Kommt Die Sonne]

It's all a game of economics. For me, $600 on just one aspect of a caliber that I don't even plan on loading all that often isn't worth it.
But this is the fun of reloading, determining what is or isn't worth it for you and adding it to your process.
If you can make 40,000 bullets out of your dies, then you're more worthy of your spending than I am, haha. I can cast a few hundred bullets per session, but my lead starts to run low.

 

[Laphroaig]

The big decision I'm having now is should I anneal the 22lr jackets or leave them hardened.

If you don't anneal won't many of them crack or split during the point forming process?

 

[forrest r]

If you don't anneal won't many of them crack or split during the point forming process?

No cracks or splits, accuracy can be affected.

When a 22lr case is de-rimed/turned into a jacket the diameter of that jacket is .222". When a core is seated into the jacket it expands the jacket to .223". When point forming it expands the jacket to .224", the final bullet diameter.

The 22lr cases can get work hardened and spring back can occur. When this happens you get void in the core/jacket bond that can affect accuracy. How much spring back depends on the hardness of the 22lr case along with how much work hardening occurred. Annealing the cases takes this out of play. The trade-off is the harder jacket's affect on the amount of damage the hp does.

I probably will anneal those 22lr jackets and make a run or quality bullets.

I can always make a watered down version for blammo ammo for the ar's. I have a couple ar's (M 4's) that I don't expect much out of, 2 moa. For these it easy enough to make the jacket, toss in a casted core and point form the bullet. These bullets will do 2 moa in the ar's and 1 1/2moa in my highly accurate test rifle, namely a hb savage axis.

 

[Toprudder]

The annealed jackets are a little more accurate but the harder jackets flat out put a smack on whatever they hit.

How do you measure or quantify "smack"? I don't think that is a standardized unit of measure.

 

[Demi-human]

I prefer softer, accurate bullets. I would anneal.

Those are some fine looking hollow points, @forrest r .

 

[forrest r]

How do you measure or quantify "smack"? I don't think that is a standardized unit of measure.

Heck there's several different ways, most common is the dumb look on their face. Everyone measures the "quantity" differently. You'll have to get in front of a mirror and give yourself a good smack paying careful attention to the dumb look you get on your face.

I highly recommend you do this several time to get a baseline/consistent dumb look. Then do this several times a day every day for a couple weeks so you get proficient of judging dumb looks on faces.

Myself I've always thought it was better to give then receive so I use different bullet designs to smack things.

 

[Laphroaig]

No cracks or splits

That sure wasn't my experience when making 57/58 gr. hollow points, very similar to yours, with Corbin dies. If the cups weren't annealed to dead soft, a very high percentage of the noses split during the point making stage. That was frustrating, going through all of the steps and ruining the bullet during the last step. Ruining might be an exaggeration, as they still could be used for blammo ammo.

But I will defer to your experience, as I quit making bullets long before I reached 40K.

 

[forrest r]

More than most likely it's your de-rim die.

I don't use the corbin de-rim die, takes the cases down too far/to skinny. My corbin de-rim die makes a .220"+/- jacket and would not even think about using a federal case. I make my own de-rim dies and they actually make a .2225"+/- jacket out of 22lr cases. This pretty much is the max amount due to getting them to fit into the core seating die. That de-rim die is also the perfect size for federal cases.

Federal cases are thicker than other 22lr cases which is a good thing for the faster twists. I made a custom de-rim die that made a longer jacket and was able to make 62gr hp's with them.


The 1 in 7's blew a lot of them up so I opened the de-rim die up and made 58gr hp's like you do. The new de-rim I made makes a short jacket with standard cases and a .700"+/- jacket with federal cases that .2225+/- in diameter.

The closer you get your 22lr cases to .223" jackets the less work hardening occurs which leads to no splitting of the cases. The trade-off is you can't polish out any scoring caused by the glass in the priming compound. But I make my own de-rim dies out of 7/32 drill guides (3 for $15/ebay) flaring the openings with carbide and then final polishing the hardening tool steel with green polish.

Anyway I've made 3 different sets of dies to make 22lr cases into bullets, learning/testing things with each set. I was selling the sets for $300 and to this day could sell them as fast as I could make them. Same with the gas check makers I make, sell them for $100 apiece and they sell faster than I can make them. Sold 18/20 of those gas check makers and turned the $$$ in custom molds. I fell into these corbin dies (with extra's) and used the $$$ from the die sets I sold to buy the corbin's. I do need to make another soft point point forming die. It took 4 tries to make a good 1 that made a 69gr soft point bullet out of 22lr cases. It ended up getting sold (real fast) with 1 of the die sets. I still have the d-reamer that I made to bore the rough out with.

It all comes down to how much the 22lr case gets work hardened. Shrink the 22lr case down and bump it up 2 times (3 times work hardened/+/- .004" total expansion of jacket) and you'll have issues with splitting. Do the same # of stages (3) and the case only has to bump up +/- .0015" splitting becomes a non-issue.