Making My Own 45 Caliber Jacketed Swaging Dies

[Iron45acp]

so I acquired a 450 Bushmaster. I also own numerous 45 caliber handguns and reload for 45 acp and 45 Super, and low level 460 Rowland using my 45 Super.

I tossed back and forth buying a 450 Bushmaster and 458 Socom. I eventually decided to go with the 450 Bushmaster because of my vast supply of 45 caliber (.451 & .452) bullets i managed to stock up over time. I also hunt with my Smith & Wesson 5" revolver in 45 Super using 185 gr Hornady XTP bullets. My average velocity is 1350 fps using 11.3 gr of Power Pistol. So that is my back story.

I want to take my reloading skills to the next level and start swaging my own jacketed swage bullets. I'd like to use the bullets I make for my 45 Super and 450 Bushmaster. I know it probably won"t be cheaper to make my own but I love tinkering and that's the whole reason I actually started to reload in the first place.

I plan on using commercialy available jackets to start, possibly dabble in using 40 S&W cases later on. I plan on trying to make my own swaging dies. I know you can buy dies from Corbin or BT Sniper, but I really want to make my own and save some money.

Ok to start...... I have a buddy who basically has a entire machine shop in his garage. He owns his own business and makes parts for printing machines that you can no longer buy. He also builds one off stamps for making parts in large presses. I'm talking like 300 ton presses that are 30 feet high. He has agreed to help in this endeavor and will also show me how to use his equipment.

I plan on starting with Hornady full length size dies, specifically the 308 winchester and 243 winchester. The 243 winchester will be used for truncated bullets with possible stems to make a hollow point cavity. My buddy said about using the 308 die and making custom stems to fit inside the die and will sit against the shoulder angle. Then we can let a pushrod out of the top to be able to tap the bullets back out of the die. Then we can take the stems that we made and carve the different bullet shapes out of the stem tip. This is the plan anyway. Reading through all the material I could on the web, I came up with some good drawings. The Corbin website is quite confusing but there is a ton of information on it.

I plan on picking up a Lee classic cast press and modifying it as per the instructions that I have found on this website. The other thing I plan on using commercially is Lee bullet sizing dies for running the bullets through after they are done. Also I plan on using already cast lead bullets to start and then eventually getting into possibly casting myself or just ording lead wire for slugs.

The few questions we have is what materials should we use for the stems? Hardening the material isn't out of the question but would rather not go through the hassle. He doesn't have the ability to do it himself. If he needs stuff like that done he sends it out.

Also am I completely over thinking the swaging process or is it really this simple? How does it seem he thinks this will work for $200 to $300 bucks when companies selling swage dies are $1000 to $2000?

Here is the drawings I came up with. We don't have exact measurements yet. We need to actually measure the inside of the dies. Or possibly try and find SAAMI minimum case measurements. My buddy thinks this is completely do able but I'm a little concerned. I already have spare dies to start. The only thing I need yet is jackets, lead cores, and the Lee size dies. I definately need .451 and .452 sizing dies. He also said about getting .427, .429, and .430 for sizing the cores down to fit in the cases and also to use the stems with our dies.

Anyway I figured this is the best place to find help. Any help or tips and pointers would be extremely appreciated. So far I have nothing invested in this. The spare dies I already have I bought in a buy out from someone getting out of reloading. I'd like a bit of help or possibly some warnings before I spend any money going down this road on the wrong stuff or even a warning before we get so far into it that it would have just been cheaper to buy swaging die sets to begin with. Thank you guys so much! I can't wait to hear back from everyone!

[flyingmonkey35]

Wow what a project.

You are right though. The high cost is that you are paying someone for their time expertise and cost of maintenance shop etc..

Someone once asked me what I would charge for my own cast bullets. And dam when I charge for my hobby it's not cheap.

I am cheap by nature but have no qualms paying for experience.

I saw this sign up on a plumber shop.

We repair what your husband fixed.



Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[Iron45acp]

I know what you're saying. I'm hoping my buddy can fill in this void. I'm a professional certified welder by trade. I'm also a shade tree mechanic with help from my father and brother who are both professionals certified mechanics.

I'm usually the one in the family who goes and fixes what their husbands messed up lol (at least on my wife's side of the family).

I know some of you have made your own dies. I seen one guy on here made his own dies with a drill press but never really elaborated on what he did exactly. Also a lot of the threads are old and pictures don't work. I'm hoping I can get some advice before I head down this road.

[clodhopper]

For the "stems" you have planned I recommend O-1 drill rod. A three foot length of annealed 1/2" diameter costs about 16 bucks from Fastenal and other suppliers. You can buy it annealed, so it works easy. Then it will need to be heat treated to harden it, and tempered to make it tough.

Sure you could use a lot of things instead of O-1. Grade 8 bolts are popular, but O-1 is very forgiving, you could miss your intended temperature by 50 or100 degrees, and use leftover oatmeal for a quench and still get a pretty hard punch.

Most of us here on the swaging forum would call those stems a nose forming punch.

Making punches like your drawing does make me wonder if one for a .243win die would be thick enough to stand up to it's intended use.

Here's something to think about.
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/49...-7-8-14-thread

With a die like this your punch could be just .0015 under bullet diameter, adding much strength to the punch.
This would be your form die.

The rifle dies, like .308, or .243 would be useful for preforming the edge of your jacket small enough to not hang up on the nose form punch.

A core seat die might also be useful in achieving uniformity.

There is lots of ways to make bullets. I look forward to reading about how you make them.

[Iron45acp]

Yeah actually after looking at dimensions with him this afternoon we might go the route of a blank die to start. Since the rifle dies are actually tapered from the bottom to the top it might not work the way we want it to.

For bottom punches we were just going to use the punches out of the lee sizing dies. Then make our own nose forming punch. He was thinking D-2 tool steel.

[clodhopper]

D-2 has even better properties than O-1, so go for it.
The punches from lee sizing dies might be a little soft, but a great way to start. Making similar punches is also a good starter project for new lathe operators.

Those blank dies are available from the manufacture five bucks cheaper, but the shipping might be more.

http://www.pacifictoolandgauge.com/p...14-thread.html

[Iron45acp]

How are the C&H 4D swaging dies? I talked to the guy this afternoon over the phone. They are considerably cheaper then others. A good start I kind of thought over making my own?

[Iron45acp]

Anybody want to help a new guy to start out swaging? Only person I was able to talk to about their dies was C&H 4D. I've emailed BT Sniper and never heard anything back. Thanks!

[Stephen Cohen]

Your custom stem tips for bullet shapes top row number 5 is similar to what I tried a few years ago, I found that the tip is prone to swell out under pressure if you don't leave a bit more thickness at the start of the orgive, this will mean you will have a bit of a semi wad cutter shoulder on your swaged bullet, which in my view will make it cut a better hole through game as well. Looking forward to seeing more on your project. Regards Stephen

[clodhopper]

You might get more response on the CH 4D question if you start another thread with it.
I have no experience with the dies, but understand they are mostly for lead or half jacket bullets.

This is because the form die bleeds excess lead out the side.

Half jacket bullets have fallen from favor for not enough gain in performance, over gas checked cast bullets.

[Iron Whittler]

Too bad you are so far from where I live as I am set up with the W-H swage press and an assortment of dies from RCE and BT Sniper that can make some of the bullets you desire. Would be happy to tutor you and make some of the needed tooling. Buttttt, It is a long ways to S W Louisiana from your place. Best wishes in your venture.

[Zbench]

I'd encourage you to read Corbin's excellent online book at swaging where he does give away quite a few trade secrets. For instance, your bullet stems which come to a knife point won't stay that way for long, the very thin piece of steel gets pressed into the die walls under the pressure of the lead and break off leaving a ragged edge. The only way to make many of those shapes is to prepare a weight controlled core first, then run it into a point form die.

Corbin does have a die which does everything you want in one step and I have moved to them from the two step approach. It uses a sychronized ejector which is also what forms the hollow point. Works fantastic and does allow you to make a lot of precise bullets fast. If you are making pure lead bullets, he also makes one with bleed holes for precise weight control. So, you need only cut your wire just above the finished weight of the bullet, drop it into the die, run it to the top of the stroke and it will form and bleed off excess weight in one step.

A word of caution, the pressure required to do this kind of work goes up with the size of the bullet as the force which you can apply with the press is spread over a larger cross sectional area. That is why folks can easily make good bullets in .224 with an ordinary reloading press. But, if you get into the larger diameters like your (452) you will discover the force required it pretty extreme for a hand press, at least one with a normal size handle. You should really consider buying a real swage press and then make dies to fit it. There is a great thread that is stickied about building your own swage press in this forum at the top.

Just trying to save you going down many rabbit holes when that sort of good information is available already.

[Iron45acp]

I still plan to move forward with making/modifying my own dies. I'll be sure to document my progress and post it here so others have a step by step guide if they want to try it. There are other posts about this but none that I found with actual good pictures and how to

[garandsrus]

Did you see this thread?
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...l-well-sort-of

Here are a couple other interesting threads:
http://www.corbins.com/design.htm
http://www.corbins.com/specs.htm
http://www.corbins.com/csw.htm
http://www.corbins.com/cs.htm
http://www.corbins.com/pf.htm

As was mentioned, Corbin offers quite a few books on swaging:
http://www.corbins.com/books.htm

Good luck! Keep your tolerances tight.

[Huvius]

I suggest that you goof around with some regular reloading dies to get an idea of what you can and can’t do with your setup.
I was surprised at what boolits can be made with an assortment of regular reloading dies.

Looking at your drawings, I think it may be quite simple to make your own dies out of grade 8 bolts with an ejector rod rather than making a number of stems to fit one die body which still may need some sort of ejector mechanism.

[Traffer]

It is as easy as you think. I think that a lot of the cost of making dies is wrapped up in using processes that are overly labor intensive because of the idea that the first attempt must be perfect. I have only swaged lead so far but have recently found that making jacketed 22 cal from spent 22lr cases is not much more involved. Having a very limited budget and literally no machine tooling, I started out having to improvise many of the tools and operations. Some of which accompanied by tools that were not available a mere 10 years ago, have in my opinion, greatly simplified the making of these dies. I have made several videos showing how I accomplish some of these operations...with cheap tools available on eBay from China. Namely diamond dremel type wheels and burrs.
One of my latest videos has just been posted yesterday here on Castboolits...it shows what can be done with (now a cheap Harbor Freight lathe) humble tooling.
Perhaps the one of most interest to you and your machinist friend would be the point forming drill bits. Making dies for me now consists of simply drilling with a modified drill bit and polishing the hole. Occasionally if I don't have the drill bit sharpened quite right I will have to ream the hole also. But it has gotten that simple for me. I use grade 8 bolts 7/8"-14tpi (standard die size). My dies will not last as long as heat treated dies and you may well chose to make them from tool steel and heat treat them. But for simplicity...it doesn't get any easier. Here is a link to the latest video of my swaging set up for 22lr. The 22lr is harder to make dies for because of the heeled base. Straight based bullet dies are easier.
My methods being more "seat of the pants" are not of such that I can make say, an ogive from a mathematical formula. I do it by eyeball. But it works.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...s-report-video
I suggest looking at this thread also: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...aging-articles

[Iron45acp]

I do plan on starting with the dies I now have. They are 243 Winchester, 308 Winchester, and 257 Roberts. My buddy is going to play with the 257 Roberts die and bore it to .454" and then he is going to open the neck up to .343" like a 308 die. Then we are going to put the stem in make a round nose swage. To start out we will be using grade 8 bolts and see how it goes before getting drill rod and making hardened punches.

To finish off the die bodies I'll be honing them with flex-hone tools and then lapping the interior of the dies. I've since changed my design for the nose forming punches. I'll upload a picture later to show what we came up with. I'll be starting the work on them tomorrow.

[Iron45acp]

One thing I'm curious about is instead of making multiple die bodies to swage different bullets what about making one die body with a ID of .453 or .454 but a perfect cylinder. Basically a core swage punch. It would be used as a core swage die and still have a ejector punch on top. Then the bottom punch have the different nose forms. That way instead of having multiple dies for different nose forms you could just make different base punches to make the different nose forms. Would be much easier to do it that way instead of the other way but will it work that way? All the stress and force seems like it would now be at the open end of the die and possibly cause issues?

[Traffer]

I do plan on starting with the dies I now have. They are 243 Winchester, 308 Winchester, and 257 Roberts. My buddy is going to play with the 257 Roberts die and bore it to .454" and then he is going to open the neck up to .343" like a 308 die. Then we are going to put the stem in make a round nose swage. To start out we will be using grade 8 bolts and see how it goes before getting drill rod and making hardened punches.

To finish off the die bodies I'll be honing them with flex-hone tools and then lapping the interior of the dies. I've since changed my design for the nose forming punches. I'll upload a picture later to show what we came up with. I'll be starting the work on them tomorrow.

They are very difficult to machine. Need to be annealed first.

[Iron45acp]

Yeah we have thought that too. We are going to see how one goes and then decide. I tried calling hornady and asking what type of steel they use but no one would tell me. All I was told it is a proprietary tool steel that is hardened. The guy who runs the custom shop is out for the week at a show. I emailed him and I'm hoping he will get back to me soon. I could possibly be worth while seeing what they have to say buy I have feeling it will be no.

Another thing we have considered is cutting the die shorter ( the 308 die is the shortest of all three ) and setting up a fixture to use diamond bits to grind the ojive into the die body instead of machining them.

This is where the idea came up of making one die body and then different nose form punches to use in the press ram. It would be much easier to make forms that way instead of trying to get all the way into the die body.