First, let me say that I am extremely happy with the swaging tools I have received from BT Sniper. I have the following tool sets:
- .224 from 22 LR brass
- .30 cal (150 grain and 168 grain currently in production) from 5.7 X 28 FN brass
- 380 auto bullets from 223 remington brass
- 9mm bullets from 223 remington brass
- .40 S&W bullets from 9mm brass
- .44 caliber bullets from .40 S&W brass
- 45 ACP bullets from .40 S&W brass
- 500 S&W Magnum bullets from 45 ACP brass
The 224 sized bullets, the 30 cal bullets, the 380 AUTO AND 9MM bullets are all made from cast and swaged cores. The balance of the pistol bullets are made with cast boolit type cores. All of the resultant jacketed bullets are amazing quality. The rifle jacketed bullets are all shooting .25 MOA or better, even out at 300 meters. The pistol bullets shoot same POA as factory XTP bullets. And, every one I have shared samples with rave about them.
I have recruited two of my shooting buddies, Pee Wee (Keith) and Eddie to assist me with punching out bigger and bigger volumes of these amazing bullets from BT Sniper's die sets. So far, I have had two single station RCBS Rockchuckers mounted on my bench, each modified for the swaging operation:
- Grade 8 primary pivot pin to replace the factory grade 2 pin
- Custom made threaded rams to replace the standard T-Slot rams which are used for regular reloading shell holders. The 1/2-20 threads allow BT Snipers bottom punches to thread right in, and make setup a JOY.
- BT's design extractors for pushing swaged pre-forms and swaged point forms out of the top dies
- Aluminum thread-on polished handle extensions, making the handle length 2 feet instead of the factory one foot long
Up until yesterday, we were operating with only two presses, and the odd man out was having to wait until one of needed a break.
Well, I discovered "Inline Fabrication's" Press plates. It uses a mounted bench plate, and then a plate which attaches to the bottom of each press. The press plates are custom made for each press (in my case I needed one bench mounting plate, and a press plate for my Dillon 550b and for my RCBS Rockchucker. After installing the bench plate, and a plate on my extra Rockchucker (already outfitted with the custom ram and extractor system, grade 8 pivot pin, and handle extension (Thanks, Pee Wee for bringing your system from home), we were able to set up a third press, allowing each of us a place to do an operation.
So, here is a image of our current set up.
So, now we can, for example, swage cores on one press, which feeds to the second press where we can seat cores, which feeds into the third press, where we can point form. In one morening session, we were able to produce almost 1,000 150 grain 30 caliber bullets (these are the ones we needed most). Since the presses are already set up, a quick adjustment on press one will change the weight of the cores for what we need for 168 grain bullets, and we're ready to make a few thousand of the 168's!
And, next after that, a complete (approximately 1/2 hour change over) reset to make .224 bullets, soup to nuts.
Best of all, when one of my reloading classes comes along (I do them every couple of weeks!), I can just remove all the swaging gear, and will have three single station presses to handle even more students at a time.
Then, when I want to do my own reloading on my Dillon 550b, it's a quick change of plates, and off I go!
This is a very sweet system!
To date, Keith, Eddie, and I have made many thousands of the 30 cal bullewts, many tens of thousands of the .224 bullets, and several thousands of the pistol bullets. The guys are begging me to set up for the 230 grain 45 ACP XTP look alike bullets. Asd soon as Keith gets the brass pin tumbled and annealed in our new kiln, we will be ready to run with those.
And, I just sorted out all my small primered 45 ACP cases, which I use as the jacket donor material for the 500 S&W Magnum, my next need.
So many bullets to make, and now.......... a much faster way to make them!
Here's a link to Inline Fabrication:
Flush Mount Plate, I just added a couple of washers underneath the mount corners
https://inlinefabrication.com/collec...tem-base-plate
Top Plates, which are press specific:
https://inlinefabrication.com/produc...es?s=recomatic
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