Random swaging pics

Here's a few pictures and tips from some recent, random swaging.

A trick I came up with is to wet tumble finished bullets in standard air-rifle BBs in the standard case cleaning solution of dish soap/Lemishine. The BBs "shot peen" everything nice and smooth and the detergent sure makes them shiny!

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These aren't tricks but here's a comparison of a sectioned 300gr .375 made from .223, 7.62x39, and .308 brass. I'm liking the .308 jacket for heavy game! It takes four dies (.458, .430, .410, then .375) and annealing after the .430 and .410 steps. The .308 jacket also takes a much smaller core.

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And here's something interesting... While making the .375 from .308 brass, I was really cranking on the core seating die to ensure the cores were fully seated. I hear that sickening "POP" a home die maker hears when they've made a bad die and it cracks. Eject the seated core assembly and what the heck is this line?!?! Well, apparently, the pressure was so high and the top punch fit tight enough that the core caused the jacket to separate and force lead through the break in the jacket! Makes a swager think again about how the core might be deforming the jacket if seated with too much pressure.

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And, lastly, some recovered .411dia/350gr bonded bullets. First two are from a big spruce stump used as a target backer and the last on the right is from water.

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AWESOME!

Yep, lead pressure will sever the jacket if too much force is used during core seating step, Don't see it too often with brass jackets but when using small caliber commercial jackets it is easy to have happen. Luckily it is that jacket that breaks and not the die.

That 308 jacket and bullet looks very good and strong, I may have to try some in future.

Swage on!

BT

Yeah those look good!


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Here is some pictures of some bullets i swaged from 7.62 nato brass and the biggest moose i have shot whit them to date, he was quartering away from me so the bullet went through a little more then 1 meter of moose before it stopped.
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/g...psizpnaaxj.jpg
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/g...pshf2qllmk.jpg

Great thread
Mike

PWS, are those copper plated BB's, (do they make anything else ?)

math, what weight is your Moose bullet ? Note to Self: I really need to work on my ability to upload pic's

Hi nun2kute
They weigh 375gr

Hey Nun, they're the cheaper zinc plated ones but I'm sure the copper washed ones would work the same. The Palmolive/Lemishine mix seems to polish up the BB nice and shiny too.

Math, that's awesome!

I had a chance to shoot a few swaged slugs into a brown bear carcass but only found one picture of the results. One bullet was recovered from a quartering shot on a 150lb blacktailed deer.

I was trying to get smaller diameter mushrooms by playing with alloys but the softest cores seemed to hold together the best. This picture was posted in another thread but fits here too.

Attachment 231903

I tried some cheap zinc plated bb's when I first started wet tumbling. I also used some zinc plated steel wire that I cut into little chunks like SS pins. Fearing the zinc, I ran them through a tumble operation without cases BUT I put in some muriatic acid to burn off the zinc. What it ended up doing is to create that "black zinc" finish on both the bb's and wire. I still am very careful to dry this media after use but the black coating is very hard and seems OK for tumbling.
I haven't used these much because I ended up buying Stainless Steel pins. I wish I had noted how much muriatic acid I put in with these. (there are a few pieces of Stainless Steel pins in there also)
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Originally Posted by PWS

Math, that's awesome!

I had a chance to shoot a few swaged slugs into a brown bear carcass but only found one picture of the results. One bullet was recovered from a quartering shot on a 150lb blacktailed deer.

I was trying to get smaller diameter mushrooms by playing with alloys but the softest cores seemed to hold together the best. This picture was posted in another thread but fits here too.

Attachment 231903

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I have had best luck with cores made from 50/50 pure lead and clip on wheel weights, they did not hold together when i tried using only pure lead. My V5 for a 375grains bullet is 715 M/S

Hey Traffer, I also tried the BBs for case cleaning but they didn't reach into the extractor groove or primer pocket corners so I case clean with commercial SS pins. The pins clean the heck out of bullets too but the one time I used them, a few would get speared into the soft point noses and bullet noses that didn't have any stuck pins were a bit chewed up too. Seems like I saw a video of Berger bullets coming out of a cleaning bath and they had some kind of industrial media like steel shot for cleaning and polishing. Hmmmm, wonder what regular ol' steel shot for shotgun shells would do???

Well, just peeked at eBay and there are all shapes and sizes of stainless shot, pins, chips etc used for jewelry cleaning!

Math, looks like we're running our bullets around the same velocities. The ones in my picture are all bonded cores which really helped keep them together. I would like to have a smaller mushroom for deeper penetration though.

I see you add a cannelure to your bullets. That's something I intend to try to limit expansion but haven't done much with yet. I have been able to get a mushroom to stop expanding at the cannelure but that was due to the jacket breaking and weakening the mushroom.

Too many other projects going on right now but maybe later this winter I'll play with this again.

In my opinion, the cannelure on the bullet is necessary, especially for the taper crimped bullets. But, also for any roll crimped cartridges. I don't cannelure any of my rifle bullets, just because I never crimp those. The friction on the inside of the neck (properly sized) against the outside of the bullet is always sufficient to hold onto the bullet while all of the powder burns inside the case, before the bullet leaves the case mouth.

Also, in my opinion, one of our vendor sponsors makes the BEST cannelure rolling machine available anywhere. LINK FOR THE CANNELURE MACHINE

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Originally Posted by PWS

Math, looks like we're running our bullets around the same velocities. The ones in my picture are all bonded cores which really helped keep them together. I would like to have a smaller mushroom for deeper penetration though.

I see you add a cannelure to your bullets. That's something I intend to try to limit expansion but haven't done much with yet. I have been able to get a mushroom to stop expanding at the cannelure but that was due to the jacket breaking and weakening the mushroom.

Too many other projects going on right now but maybe later this winter I'll play with this again.

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PWS, all my hunting bullets are bonded, i used yo make jackets from copper tubing before i tested making them from spent casings. For me the best casings has been military as they have at least here in Sweden up to 0,1mm thicker walls. I also found out that if you make the cannelure to deep combined with a small lead tip it will shear at that point, making a spectaculare hole in the test media but not helping penetration ;)

Some .40 cal jacketed............and a few .45 lead SWC.

RRR

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Originally Posted by Red River Rick

Some .40 cal jacketed............and a few .45 lead SWC.

RRR

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Whoa!!!!!


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Double whoa!


Are the SWCs formed in a closed die then knurled with the disc or do you have some sort of "roller" die to make them?

One of these days I am going to "save" money by getting into swaging.:kidding:

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Originally Posted by Marshall

@All,

SS tumbling media may work better than BBs.



It is used by jewelers to tumble clean and gently polish jewelry.

Marshall

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Indeed SS pins work fine. However I believe that BB's work just as well when the tumbling something that does not have tiny places like primer pockets to get into. I think that is why the OP was using them.

Here's some more results from odd-ball swaging - double jacketed silhouette bullet? 357 cast bullet for core, 9mm case inside 40S&W case makes a 280gr full jacketed ??? (Plus a normal type soft point with just the cast bullet squashed in a 40 case)

Attachment 233209