.40 S&W as jackets

[nun2kute]

Making 458 bullets from 45 acp case, leave the primer in no prob.s ... Making 308 bullets from 9 mm case, primer will not reduce evenly. always dimples out, still experimenting with weights and procedures and haven't tried to get around that yet. But for pistol bullets and my socom, works real good. I really enjoy recycling.

[ubetcha]

There is a guy on you tube by the name of mannyca who shows how to make 44mag out of 40 s&w and 357 mag out of 380 brass using standard sizing dies and cast bullets. I would like to try it as soon as I find the discarded brass at the range. One of the things he says must be done is to be sure to run the finished bullet through the proper Lee sizing die to bring it to the correct size

[GhostHawk]

It works Ubetcha. I've made quite a number of .430 jacketed bullets out of .40sw brass.

One trick I learned was to put a buckshot in the case first on smaller cast boolits so the nose gets swaged into a cone. Also lets you adjust weight.

The other thing I learned was to use a Lee .430 sizing die as a sorting tool.
Any brass that dropped through or went through too easy went into the reload pile.
Brass that takes a good shove to go through ends up the perfect size for reloading into .44mag or .444marlin.

The .380's I have yet to have much luck with.

[JimB..]

Here's another way to do it:



These are .40 S&W cases into .44 bullets, but I've also made .45 caliber bullets with the same process. I don't trim my cases, but rather use the hollow pointing punch to roll the excess brass into the hollowpoint, similar to the Gold Dot bullets.

I also anneal my cases with the cores installed, which results in bonded cores without the use of any flux. I avoid flux, since it's acid and I don't like taking my swaging dies apart to clean the flux out of them after every swaging session. I also anneal at a higher temperature, 1,125 degrees F. I let the cases and cores cool over night in the kiln, and they'll still be over 250 degrees F. after 12 hours of sitting in the kiln after it's turned off. I picked 1,125 degrees F. simply because that's what Starline uses to anneal their brass between case forming steps, and I figured they'd already done all the research to know what worked best.

Here's a picture of my kiln and cases/cores:



And another one after they've come out of the kiln:



Hope this helps.

Fred

Fred, think one could accomplish the same with brass in a casting pot? Can find kilns pretty cheap, but tying up the space for one isn’t practical in my situation.

As for temp, do you know how long Starline soaks at 1125F?

Thanks!

[ReloaderFred]

JimB,

I watched a video Starline has on their website about how they make brass cases, and it shows a conveyor belt machine for annealing their brass between steps. I would estimate the soaking time is fairly short, which may be the reason for the high temperature.

I stumbled onto my process by accident. I didn't want to try to lift the annealed cases out of the kiln with the molten cores, so I just left the kiln closed overnight, after turning it off. The next morning they were still hot, but below the melting point of lead. The byproduct was, the cores are fully bonded to the cases, so I'm assuming they're bonding on the molecular level, rather than mechanically, such as using rosin or flux.

The brass probably doesn't have to get up to 1125* to anneal. I just picked that temperature because I figured Starline knows what they're doing, so I copied them. The soak time was incidental due to convenience for me, but not by design. It was just easier that way, and it worked even better than I thought it would.

There are a lot of different methods of annealing, and most of them work. I started out by holding the brass on a steel rod in the flame of a propane torch. It was just too slow, even when I went to two steel rods and cases, so a friend gave me the old kiln to try, and it works. It is bulky, though...

I believe some people use the Lee casting pots for annealing by covering them, but I haven't tried it. Maybe one of them will chime in and give you first hand knowledge based on experience.

Hope this helps.

Fred