Paper patch hammer swager

[freedom475]

I was looking through the pages of my copy of "The Paper Patched Bullet" by Randolph S. Wright. and in it he has a picture of a swager that you use with a hammer to swage cast bullets to a uniform size.

Is any one familiar with this or know where to buy one?

I might post this in the Paper Patching forum later but I thought you guys would be a good starting point.

Thanks and good shooting.

Freedom475

[floodgate]

freedom475:

I was just reading the Second Edition of Dave Corbin's "Discover Swaging", and he describes those old "Pound swages" and says his company has made a few of them for traditional "chunk shooters".

That was several years back, but it might be worth checking with him.

floodgate

[bigborefan]

Freedom475,
I have Randolph Wrights book "Paper Patched Bullets" and looking through it to find the swager using a hammer, I can't find the picture that you mention. Can you tell me what page you found this on?

[freedom475]

Freedom475,
I have Randolph Wrights book "Paper Patched Bullets" and looking through it to find the swager using a hammer, I can't find the picture that you mention. Can you tell me what page you found this on?

It starts on page 4, and the pictures/ drawings are on pages 5 and 6.

Thanks Freedom475

[KCSO]

I believe that Ned Roberts The Caplock Muzzleloadig Rifle has photo's and descriptions also. These whould be a snap for even an amature with a lathe.

[powderburnerr]

when he first wrote the book back in the early 80s I had a machineist make me one up in kalispell , It was a lot of work to use it because I was dumb about the principal but 20 years later later and with what I know now It would be a handy tool to have . the thing with the one I had built is it had to be loose enough to get the bullet into then when you swadge it it would be hard to get out and obviously it would be an even bigger bullet. maybe if it had been tapered in its design leading to a formed chamber it would have been a better tool .I still have the old thing and admire the workmanship of it. although the feller that built it while being a darn good machineist probably wasnt real knowledgeable in the swageing business. it mostly trues the base and smoothes the nose and is best used with pure or close to it lead....Dean

[Buckshot]

..............Richard Corbin @ RCE Ent will make you pound dies if you want them.

.............Buckshot

[JerryW]

I believe that Ned Roberts The Caplock Muzzleloadig Rifle has photo's and descriptions also. These whould be a snap for even an amature with a lathe.

A snap you say ho ho. Jerry W

[freedom475]

..............Richard Corbin @ RCE Ent will make you pound dies if you want them.

.............Buckshot

Thanks Buckshot, I contacted Richard and he wants $175 to make me one. I think I'll keep looking.

[JerryW]

Thanks Buckshot, I contacted Richard and he wants $175 to make me one. I think I'll keep looking.

$175.00 for one is a good deal if you are going to use it much. I made 6 door stops and paper weights before I got one to make a slug the right fit for my Bresin muzzleloading slug rifle. May they all be X's. JerryW

[bigborefan]

freedom475,
Thanks for the page number. Evidently Randolph S. Wright has more than one book out on paper patched bullets. My copy is "Paper Patched Bullets" a beginner's guide. No wonder that I couldn't find it.

[Buckshot]

Thanks Buckshot, I contacted Richard and he wants $175 to make me one. I think I'll keep looking.

...........HA! Well that's $105 cheaper then then one of his regular swage die's Just like they say that speed costs money, so does accuracy. How accurate do you want it? If not too accurate you can get by using a drill motor and a fractional, letter, number, or metric drill bit to make a hole in a piece of steel, hopefully somewhat close to what you want. A file should suffice to turn a bolt into a base punch. How you'd profile a nose punch I can't say.

On the other hand you could drop $15,000 or more for a lathe and milling machine. Another couple thousand for tools and still not have everything you might need. Plus tooling wears out and has to be replaced, and it ain't cheap. Say a honing machine to finish interior surfaces, laps and lapping paste ($16/3.5 oz), etc, etc, ad nauseum. Then several years worth of experience and know-how on how to effectively use the machines. Add in raw materials you need to have on hand, and that represents money laid out that isn't doing anything.

So what that $175 represents is $20,000+ in capitol investment you don't have sitting around, several years learning "How to do it", etc, etc & etc. Something like a swage die accurate to within a couple tenths (at least) isn't something whipped out in a half hour. Trust me on that. Last time I was in Pep Boys the sign said Shop Labor was $82.50/hour, and that is just labor. Of course we HAVE to have the car so we think bad thoughts, but we pay it.

Now if a person can do the work then they've saved that 2 or 3 hours labor. If they HAVE THE TOOLS, and the experience to use them on a problem they're capable of handleing.

................Buckshot

[Bent Ramrod]

JerryW knows whereof he speaks. An amateur with a lathe can fairly easily make a polished bullet-shaped cavity in a piece of steel and make a punch to fit it. What is a little harder is to make this setup in such a way that the bullet gets formed to its correct final shape and weight, and is removable from the die with little effort afterwards.

I seem to recall Ned Roberts enlarging on the ringing of steel against steel punctuated by improper language as shooters were trying to knock bullets loose out of the pound dies the master gunsmiths had provided to the shooters as accessories to their target rifles. Sometimes they had to heat the dies to free the bullets, sometimes merely a half hour of pounding and cursing sufficed. Production definitely suffered.

And then there was the story that Fred Huntington told (can't remember where I read this) of making his first RCBS .22 jacketed bullet die, testing it and finding it worked perfectly. He figured he was going to be coining money in this business, as he had produced the prototype in a very short time. But it took him three or four more die sets, each of which were made the same way and looked to the eye exactly the same as the first one, before he got another one that made the bullet correctly and allowed it to be removed the way it was supposed to.

A tool and die maker is a significantly advanced ranking over even an expert with a lathe. Which is why the stuff they make costs so much.