Swaging Lead Boolits

[Lizard333]

I was poking around on RCE's website and saw that he offers a die to make that swages a 430 boolit with each pull of the handle. Now, my knowledge of swaging is small to say the least, so excuse my ignorance. How do you lube this boolit? Just curious.

[GRUMPA]

After they are made a lubricating liquid is poured over them which hardens and acts like lube. The boolit itself is generally of soft lead limiting the speed at which they can travel. Heck I have a box of Hornady swaged lead boolits for 38cal, although rather soft they have lube all over them.

[Reload3006]

I knurl mine and tumble them in 45/45/10 or straight up LLA. or you can tumble your cores in powdered graphite and then just shoot them. ... I like knurling and LLA

[Lizard333]

Is the "knurling" like a cannalure? So you swage the boolit, then apply a rough texture on the outside of the boolit, and apply alox to fill in the groove and provide the lubrication?

[Reload3006]

yep you got it

[Reload3006]

I got my knurling tool from Corbin MFG ... Yea expensive but worth it IMO

[MIBULLETS]

I think lubing a smooth bullet is very tempermental. It can work very good for some and not at all for others. I think it has a lot to do with how well the bullet fits the bore. It has to be very close, too big and it all get scraped off.

[a.squibload]

Heard you could use a file to roll a boolit on a bench top
or something. Redneck knurling tool. Maybe a wood rasp
would work?

[muzzleloaderll]

i shoot lead boolits for target in my 357 ruger security six my barrel throat is.3565 my smallest cylinder throat is 3580 i use a swaging die of .358 and a sizing die of 357 i use a lot of wheel weights in cast bullets(swc) these are too hard on my swaging dies but plumbers lead in my swaging dies( r n )and i have never had a leading problem the trick is to size the bullet a little larger than the barrel(slug the bore then slug the throat) then you get no blow by. hope this helps someone

[johnson1942]

i both knarl then lube with alox and paperpatch smooth sided pure lead bullits. both work perfectly in my muzzleloader with a barrel made for each of these bullets. i use a starter for the knarled bullet and the paperpatch just slides down the bore. both corbin and rce helped me get started years ago.