I'm interested to hear all stories of the learning curve you all experienced with your first set of swage dies and/or additional sets of swage dies in a different caliber. Doesn't matter what what brand or caliber.
What challenges did you encounter?
What went well? What didn't?
What was easier then expected? what was more difficult?
What took longer? What went quicker?
etc. etc.......
My hope here it to help others that are/or possibly will be experiencing the same challenges. I also hope to be able to better my products and/or instruction manuals to make this learning curve as easy as possible.
I'll share a few...many stories of my own personal experiences as I have time, maybe even some experiences I have helped customer's threw (while changing the names to protect the innocent ).
I suppose it would be a good thread to also list anything that may have helped the process of making better, faster or higher production numbers. What techniques did you find out for yourself that worked well? What didn't..... etc.
For example I know a customer that mentioned the use of a progressive press with auto feed brass and cast bollit core feeder to complete the first few steps of making 40 cal bullets from 9mm. He used the progressive to 1. bell the case 2. seat the core (simply push 120 grain cast boolit into bottom of 9mm brass) and 3. XTP notch the topof the case. When he was done with a run he had thousands of pieces of brass with seated core and notched tip ready for one final point form in a single stage press. I recall he made over 50,000 bullets in the first couple months he had the dies.
Good shooting and swage on!
Brian