Bumping up little boolits to bigger boolits

[Swagerman]

Wish you had taken some pictures of that failure, such things need to be made a record of fact...in case someone else has trouble. But glad ole Lee came through with the sterling character they usually show its customers.

When I first converted the Lee Classic press to duty swaging, I was thinking maybe this won't work because the two linkage side bars have cones extending into the bottom of the ram piston on both sides...I was thinking maybe the cones might give out from swaging stresses???

Well, happy to say it never happen, nor did the cones show any signs of wear.

Besides, I had a backup plan for the cones in case they did fail...it was to remove them and run a big a$$ bolt through their slots all the way through the ram piston and the off-side of the linkage bar.

Glad we both like Lee Classic single stage presses.


Yeahbub, did you know you can attach a gas check to any none GC lead bullet, whether or not it has smaller shank. One can even increase a bullet's weight by four or five grains, even if they are plated or copper jacket.

All you need is a swaging die like C-H makes that has an ogive round top in side. You place the bullet upside down on the ram's flat punch, then gently ram it up into the die body until you feel it touching the ogive curve. It doesn't require a lot of pressure, then back the bullet back down out of the die. There will be a slight ogive taper to the bullets base, it can then be seated in good Hornady gas check, or other brand, then set it right side up back on the flat base punch to swaged it into the swaging die nose shape die of your choice.

All this is shown on another thread in the Swaging Bullets section...just have to look for it. Please give it a try and see if you like it.


Jim

[Bent Ramrod]

If you don't wish to modify the ram on your compound-linkage reloading press, an extension can be made (for the RCBS at least) that is threaded 7/8" x 14 on the inside and 1-1/4" x 12 on the outside so it screws into the die adaptor hole on top of the press. Here's a picture of mine below.

The point, as Swagerman says, is to adjust the die so the maximum protrusion of punch into die can be made at the absolute top dead center of the ram travel. This not only serves as an automatic stop adjustment for the ram, but also gives the advantage of the maximum leverage, which happens at the end of the stroke. The relative ease with which, for instance, you can iron the rims off .22 shells to turn them into jackets with the extension in place versus without it is the equivalent of 2-1/2 times the production of jackets before your arm needs a rest.

[Buckshot]

..............Swagerman, I used the RCBS Rockchucker unmodified to do the swaging shown in my post# 11, and these were cast of at least WW alloy. By adjusting the die and/or the stop assembly ( as yeahbub also mentioned) you can achieve the 100% swage at the top of the ram's travel.

I'm sure my method is similar to what you must use without having the ability to bleed off lead. That is to run the doner slug up into the die, then run the die down until swaging begins. Continuing the downward adjustment you will reach a point where lead is no longer readily flowing to relieve the plunger's pressure.

At that point I eject the slug to check it's appearance. If it's satisfactory the die adjustment is complete and I can commence. Also I mentioned muscle memory. Just as a musician can play a tune while holding a conversation with someone, they're relying on a form of muscle memory. As your hand can touch your nose, mouth or eye in a blacked out room, you'll learn pretty quickly when the slug comes up solid in the die, vs really horsing down on the handle for that last little bit (which is probably the press and linkage yeilding )

In addition to the dieset in post #11, I also made one to duplicate the old British 45 cal 'Manstopper' lead boolit. This not only has a substantial HP but an equally large HB and it was to be used in a regular reloading press with compound linkage.

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

[Swagerman]

I have never worked with a Rockchucker press in swaging, but it looks like your swaging die may have to be mounted pretty high up on its 7/8X14 threads if the ram is not modified...similar to Bent Ramrod's configuration in his photos.

It is better for me to be able to work the die down lower down into the press, especially with the liter weight and shorter bullets...the nose punches can be made longer, or shorter depending on the requirements. With the lower mounted die I can see the bullet placement better.

The important thing is to be able adjust the die to handle the TDC sweet spot.

There may very well be some presses out there that can handle swaging in an unmodified state, but you still have to deal with stress pressure on the linkage pin, it would profit you to use one that has a heavy duty linkage pin...1/2 diameter is just about right. 3/8 pins don't hold up very well...just from my experience.


Jim

[yeahbub]

Swagerman,

That linkage fracture was a result of shear stress at the 1/2" dia. studs where they enter the ram. I routinely swaged over TDC on my Hornady 007 and the linkage pins are 3/8 or smaller, so it was a real mystery how 1/2" studs would shear so cleanly and during a light operation after several months of full tilt swaging. The folks at Lee were taken aback at this, and after some discussion with them and the metallurgical people here at work, we came to the conclusion that the simplest and most likely answer was contamination (solvent?) of the material while still porous, prior to the furnace phase of manufacture. Without metallurgical analysis, it's difficult to know, but Lee isn't known for wimpy tool design and the replacements have stood up well. You mention the idea of running a bolt through them and continuing. I was going to reproduce them in half hard 4140 and use press-fit hardened pins to have a no-fail arrangement, but couldn't come up with a handle attachment with the range of the original parts. Anyway, the replacement parts from Lee are doing just fine and my plan would have made for unnecessary work and delay.

Regarding putting gas checks on flat and bevel-base boolits, that's an excellent idea. I too use the swage-some-ogive-on-the-heel technique and discovered that it works best when enough ogive was there to allow for a bit of wiggle when the gas check was put in place. It seems to reduce the downward thrust on the wall of the check as the lead fills it from the center out. When I made them a perfect fit and the check would press on with finger-pressure, I got occasional copper flash around the heel. I also discovered that boolits with a narrow driving band between the heel and the first lube groove would sometimes leak some lube downward and create a second "kind of" lube grove just forward of of the check. This doesn't seem to affect their accuracy but since I often start with commercial cast that have been beaten up in transit, I try to be careful to keep boolit bases clean and prevent lube from flowing into the not-yet-filled irregular spaces between check and lead, lest it be unbalanced when it leaves the barrel. I have since had C-H make a gas check shank heel punch which is deeper and has greater wall thickness than a check. It works great and will not collapse the heel band into the first lube groove when the groove is full of lube. Bullet alloy is displaced rearward into the heel punch cavity, forming the shank and the lube grooves/driving bands are left unaffected - as long as the donor boolit is withing a couple of thousandths of the die diameter. I haven't found that link you mentioned, but I'm always open to good ideas. Would you post it if you run across it?

There's another cool but laborious trick that makes some really pretty bullets that produces an exposed-lead softpoint/hollowpoint from a plated bullet (without splitting the plating). In .44 cal, I start with a 300gr Berry's .430 cal truncated cone FP, gently stroking the heel with a fine-cut file, turning it a bit between strokes to keep things even until the copper is removed. Insert it heel-first (backward) toward the nose of the die and swage to shape. As the sides are gathered into the ogive, the core lead will flow forward and create an exposed lead feature - more pronounced with a hollowpointing ejector pin since even more lead will be displaced forward. If your gun likes plated bullets, it's a way to make them legal for hunting, since most states don't allow FMJ's. I haven't tested them for expansion.

By the way, what do you use for swaging lube, if any? I found that if I lay the cast/sized/lubed (or plated) boolits in a pie pan, give them a very light pass with some pan spray coating (Pam or whatever's cheap, mmmm, garlic flavor!), shake them around to spread it all over them so it's almost undetectable by feel, and swage away. It really eases ejection and wipes off easily. . . . . It's a great case/resizing lube too, but wash with lye-based oven cleaner to remove all traces for dry, shiny cases.

[TRX]

> muscle memory

You could make a positive stop for the ram, bearing in mind you're working near the point of maximum leverage.

[firefly1957]

I made a new ram for a Lyman Orange crusher to use old pacific swaging dies it works very well and has enough force to swage Speer 200gr .429 jacketed bullets into .452 bullets that shoot very well. I do not make a habit of of that but shot a few.
Somewhere in this forum someone explained that the reason that RCBS does not recommend swaging had to do with the shell holder slot that may be peaned and could become unusable.

[robroy]

It's odd that RCBS doesn't recomend swaging with their press when the acronym stands for Rock Chuck Bullet Swage. Kinda makes me go hmmm.

[runfiverun]

the slots will become peaned i have one now thats broken on one side from swaging with an old rcbs R/C press.
i'm gonna see if i can have it converted to a threaded ram.
or have a new ram made.
other than that it has held up to several thousand rounds of swaging.
and i can't even begin to count the number of rounds it reloaded before that.

[ReloaderFred]

I called RCBS when I mashed the shell holder slot on my ram swaging bullets and they sent me a new ram, free of charge. In the meantime, I bought a used CSP-1, so the Rockchucker will go back to just loading ammunition.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[BT Sniper]

RCBS still stands behind their products. I completly broke a older RCII press in two after severial thousand swaged bullets. Wasn't any abuse on this press like I have been known to do with others. I told RCBS the truth in a letter, that it had broke while swaging 40 cal bullets, a task I though it should have been able to handle. They sent me a replacement no questions asked. It was a "reconditioned" Supreme since they no longer made the RC II. The replacment press looked brand new. I was pleased.

Yep I recomend anyone to send in damaged or broken parts to RCBS.

Good shooting

BT

[Walstr]

Greetings;
Is is practical to 'bump' a LEE 452-200-RF to .454ish to resize to .453 for my 1911, without a large swaging equipment? Anyone ever use a home made die & plunger/ram for use with a hammer?

[mozeppa]

11 year old thread