I just want to use this opportunity to say thanks to all the contributing swagers out there. My journey started in 2016 when I procured my first press and dies from Corbins. The capital outset was enormous back then as I live in South Africa and exchange rates are not doong us any favours.
The project the stayed dormant for a couple of years. Reason being I was unable to source the correct tubing for the die sets obtained. Due to tough conditions I had to leave the corporate world and had to scratch to make ends meet. That is when I dusted off the swage set and try to make a business out of it.
I started to swage in March 2022 and can say in all honesty it was one of the biggest mountains I had to climb. My first problem was that for some reason I popped the Core Swage Die on my 308 set. Getting another from Corbin was months away so had to find another way. Got a local company to manufacture one for me but that was also not cheap.
My second problem was that doing anything in considerable numbers on a hand press was just not going to fly. So I dreamed up a fancy Hydraulic press. After popping another Die and broken probably 10 punches it was back to the drawing board. From then till now I had to rebuild my presses 3 times.
Started drawing my ideas by hand. Then taught myself to draw via CAD software. I at least had a good lathe when I started off. So had to learn about steels and their properties. Punches got sorted to a stage where a broken one can be replaced in literally 3 hours.
After being done in on my first Hydraulic set, I had to learn how that works and source what I need and assemble at lowest posible cost.
Where this formum was of imense value is making your own dies. To each contributor I want to say thanx you have helped me immensely. I am now building my own dies and have succesfully launched 6 different Calibers of self built dies. We are now doing about a 1000 bullets a day of tubing jacketed bullets. The results of hard work continuous learning and getting your hands dirty is spectacular. Although tubing bullets is not match grade we get a lot of feedback from customers getting 0.5 MOA groups and terminal balistics of our hunting bullets is awesome.
By understanding some of the principles of how things work I am now capable of changing and improving on some of the concepts. Especially to make the manufacturing of the equipment easier.
My next embargo is to do strip jackets and to somehow automate the machines slightly. The strip jackets part from a die perspective is easy, I just need to figure out how to speed it up to a pace that can keep up. Where I had 2 steps producing a jacket I am now going to have 5.
Automation is a minefield right now as I do not know where to start and what is good and what is hogwash. But it will be figured out.
Anyways long story short, thanx to everyone sharing their knowledge and experience.