Is there anyone else that is losing interest in making swage dies or swaging?

[bigjake]

I've been laid off since april. since then, ive been busy at the little south bend reaming, polishing and measuring. sometimes more than once or twice for each die. I dont know if its the anxiety over being laid off, Joe Biden or just getting burned out from the constant patience that is required to make these dies and actually trying to make quality bullets.

Anyone else feeling this or part of this? By gosh, i'm not going to give my hobby up that easily maybe a break from it is in order?

Thanks for the replies if you want to reply if not thats cool too.

Mike, aka (bigjake)

[MUSTANG]

Not a machinist; but do swage. With winter coming on I am actually setting up to do a lot of swaging. Swaged about 2,000 bullets from 22LR (60 Grains) over the last week or so. Earlier this month I made a 1000 (+) .308 jackets from 5/16 copper tubing. Will cast some cores to make 175 Grain bullets next week, then swage the bullets. After that; will probably spend the rest of December de-rimming 10K to 20K of 22LR that I have gathered and sorted and put on the shelf last couple years. Then cast a bunch of cores for them.

I will process 10 to 200 of each step; take a break and visit with wife or watch some news/TV for a bit; then go back and do another 10 to 200 units of work (De-rimming, or cutting tubing, or core casting, or core seating, or nose forming, or...). I do not want my hobby to become "Work"; so I do a little at a time to keep it interesting and keep my mind fresh. I am in process of making the front porch a 4 season porch/extension of house; currently it is house wrapped and insulation over window holes, and wall insulation in - so I can heat it and use it for Swaging through the winter. Going out to the reloading shed is more like work; so I decided to do the swaging on the enclosed porch this winter. Next spring I'll move all the swaging stuff back to the reloading shed, put up drywall, complete electrical, tile the flor, etc.. and finish he porch out.

Keeping the swaging effort (and your die making) as a diversion and enjoyable should be the objective. Most of us have no desire to turn our hobby into a Work effort.

[bigjake]

I'm not a machinist either. Im a fabricator/welder by trade. I know just enough about machining to be dangerous you are right Mustang, I dont want this to turn into work. the easiest part of this undertaking was the auto ejection system. the dies up to the point forming dies werent too bad, the point forming headache is the tough one especially with this 1932 lathe, and chinese mill/drill.

thanks Mustang for helping me keep my head up.

[firefly1957]

Patients or interest? A couple years ago I started cutting dies to swage .25 caliber light weight bullets for my .256 WM The body comes out great the nose section no mater what I do is ruined by the chips getting caught in reamer. Last try got better but still not there I have a old set for .224 bullets I am forming them then bump them up in homemade die 55-60 grains open well from pistol in water no bullets made today open well at 10" Contender velocity.

[BT Sniper]

I was a very patient person before I attempted to make a quality set swage dies. I figure I used up more then half of all my patience on perfecting the point form die. It took me a long time, I recall it was a couple years with the point form dies alone before I really felt I had achieved a level of perfection I was looking for. It was a lot of learning, some blood, not many tears but certainly plenty of frustration. I tried it all and had a bit of success with different techniques but it wasn't till my custom reamer supplier and I had both learned what we could do and what I needed in a reamer before it all really came together.

As far as this year's craziness........ it was easy for me to get emotionally down, angry, upset, you name it.... since March for me when they closed the schools. It wasn't till just now when my family came over for the holidays that I felt better and decided I was no longer going to let local and world events bring me down. I limit my social media to only my business pages, no longer browsing FB made a big change in how much better I have felt.

I'm back to work with a much better attitude and actually look forward to machining a new run of dies this spring including many more of those challenging point form dies.

In my opinion when it comes to point form dies...... the less material you have to lap the better. Lapping a point form die is a gamble you never know if your going to win till you test the die by making a bullet. When I was starting out I over did it on a lot of 22 cal point form dies that where reamed out to 6mm or bigger. Of course getting a good finish from the reamer that doesn't require much lapping has everything to do with the quality and precision of the reamer. I was successful a few times with reamers I made myself but would not have made it in this business without an actual reamer shop to make me what I need.

Hang in there. Do more of what makes you happy, limit the time spent with anything that doesn't (especially social media).

Swage on!

BT

[MrWolf]

I was a very patient person before I attempted to make a quality set swage dies. I figure I used up more then half of all my patience on perfecting the point form die. It took me a long time, I recall it was a couple years with the point form dies alone before I really felt I had achieved a level of perfection I was looking for. It was a lot of learning, some blood, not many tears but certainly plenty of frustration. I tried it all and had a bit of success with different techniques but it wasn't till my custom reamer supplier and I had both learned what we could do and what I needed in a reamer before it all really came together.

As far as this year's craziness........ it was easy for me to get emotionally down, angry, upset, you name it.... since March for me when they closed the schools. It wasn't till just now when my family came over for the holidays that I felt better and decided I was no longer going to let local and world events bring me down. I limit my social media to only my business pages, no longer browsing FB made a big change in how much better I have felt.

I'm back to work with a much better attitude and actually look forward to machining a new run of dies this spring including many more of those challenging point form dies.

In my opinion when it comes to point form dies...... the less material you have to lap the better. Lapping a point form die is a gamble you never know if your going to win till you test the die by making a bullet. When I was starting out I over did it on a lot of 22 cal point form dies that where reamed out to 6mm or bigger. Of course getting a good finish from the reamer that doesn't require much lapping has everything to do with the quality and precision of the reamer. I was successful a few times with reamers I made myself but would not have made it in this business without an actual reamer shop to make me what I need.

Hang in there. Do more of what makes you happy, limit the time spent with anything that doesn't (especially social media).

Swage on!

BT

Smart staying away from FB and such. I never bothered as I never saw the attraction of knowing what time you went to the bathroom. Plenty of other issues are much more important. Hopefully this winter I will get to play with some of the stuff I have bought from you. Told myself 2020 was fixing up my place after back surgery and that for 2021, half my time is work around here and the rest of the time is mine. On a disability retirement so everything takes 5 times longer to do. Good luck folks.

[plus1hdcp]

Great question and another great response from BT too. I plan to spend some time this winter making me a swage die for my 9mm to allow me to transform them into a hollow point simply to see what difference it may do to a couple of watermelons next summer. I have a general idea in mind and also the round design with a hollow point should be a lot simpler than creating an ogive design. That would be way above my limited skillset.

[M.A.D]

Wait till you start playing with carbide

[bigjake]

Wait till you start playing with carbide

Carbide reamers or carbide inserts?

[BT Sniper]

Dies made from carbide, yep inserts.

[onomrbil]

Carbide: the only way to go!

[Dukeconnor]

Take a break from it. Go fishing. Get back to it when you feel like it.