Modifying Remington swaged lead bullets

[Wills Point Pete]

I've been shooting those Remington swaged lead .45 bullets for a lot of years. Somehow they got rid of the deep hollow base and now there is just a slight indentation. Trouble is, the old deep hollowbase was just the huckleberries for filling with soft black powder lube for a long barrel and the deep hollow expanded to fill up a .45-70 or .45-90 rifle, as well as worked fine in a .45 Colt.

The new bullet is not nearly so versatile. What would it take to swage a different hollowbase into these bullets? Could it be done on a regular press? Or am I living in a dream world?

[Pepe Ray]

Where do you buy Swaged Lead REMINGTON Bullets?
Pepe Ray

[jcunclejoe]

You could very well add the deep hollow base to your Remington bullets on a good solid reloading press. With a straight through die and punches having the desired nose shape and hollow base shape on the punch tips.
Very possible especially if they are pure or close to pure lead. You could just make them from scratch using lead wire. It would be cheaper than buying bullets just to modify.
There is someone selling swaging dies on Ebite that could possibly work perfectly if the correct shape punches are fitted to the die.
Hope this helps some.
Joe

[Wills Point Pete]

Pepe Ray, I buy the Remington Swaged Lead Bullets at Midway, they are not the only ones selling them, either. Price has gone up lately, they were $25.00 per 500 a couple years ago, now they are up to $50.99.

I suspect that Mag Tech and Speer Swaged Lead are also pure lead and could be swaged into different shapes, Hornady's Swaged Lead bullets are supposed to be harder.

Thanks, Joe, I'll see if I can find someone making dies.

[Buckshot]

.............For soft and moderate soft lead any good "O" frame reloading press would do the deed.



This is a reloading press type swage die setup to reform cast boolits. At the bottom of the photo is the base punch that goes into the ram. It forms a hollow base. Above that in the middle is the nose forming and ejector assembly. The loose nose punch forms a button nosed WC. The nose punch assembled on the ejector rod is to form a SWC nose. At the top is the die body. Once the slug is swaged and the base punch is withdrawn, the ejector punch is tapped down to eject the slug.



The SWC nose punch forms these noses. The button nose is basically simply a WC. There are 3 doner examples and the result. The one far left is just loaded inverted. To produce a true RN the die body itself would have to be bored with the shape, and then there would be a small flat the OD of the ejector pin. If the RN was formed via a nose punch as these above, you would have a sholder formed.

.................Buckshot