How in the world does one swage a lead bullet at home? Don't you need like a huge machine? I just can't imagine how you generate the kind of pressure that must be required to 'smush' lead.
How in the world does one swage a lead bullet at home? Don't you need like a huge machine? I just can't imagine how you generate the kind of pressure that must be required to 'smush' lead.
Mark Dickinson
USAF, Retired
It doesn't take as much as you would think I was sizing and installing gas-checks on a run of 7mm castboolits this morning and found one of my test slugs that was mixed in with hard cast , water dropped silouette slugs and when it went into the Lyman 4500 it colapsed like a marshmallow!
It depends on the size and shape of the bullet being formed, and whether it's jacketed or not. I use an RCBS Rockchucker for swaging jacketed .224 bullets and it's not stressed at all.
You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore
I used to swage .357 SP's. I cast 30 caliber 120-gr Lee Carbine boolits out of soft lead and used them as the cores. Made some nice 131-gr SP bullets. All on my Rock Chucker.
Echo
USAF Ret
DPS, 2600
NRA Benefactor
O&U
One of the most endearing sights in the world is the vision of a naked good-looking woman leaving the bedroom to make breakfast. Bolivar Shagnasty (I believe that Lazarus Long also said it, but I can't find any record of it.)
This is all you need to make your own jacketed bullets.
The orange Swagomatic press on the left makes straightsided SWC jacketed .357" hollowpoints. The green RCBS RockChucker press has CH dies to make .44 Mag hollowpoints.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |