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Buckshot
06-05-2005, 08:01 PM
...........I have a regular swageing press from RCE Enterprises (Richard, not Dave Corbin), but toyed around with the idea of one for the reloading press. CH made them and I don't know if they still do or not. Dave Corbin does continue to make them but they're a couple hundred bucks.

Other then ultimate strength there are 2 problems with swaging in a reloading press. The first and most problematic is that there is no means for automatic ejection of the finished product. To save myself some headache I decided the KISS principle would work, so they get tapped out of the die.

http://www.fototime.com/41BFED592F4B871/standard.jpg
Above is the setup. I made this to create SWC and WC boolits with hollowbases. I thought they might make good target boolits for a 45 Colt. On the left in the photo is the ejector rod, which goes through the guide and nose punch seat. It's threaded 1/4-28 to accept the nose punches.

Next to the right are 3 washers of .05", 0.1" and 0.15" thickness. These can be used on the rod above the nose forming punch to help regulate it's height in the die. Next it the diebody itself. The top 1.5" is threaded for .75" to 5/8-18 for the guide/nosepunch stop, the bottom 1.5" is bored and honed to .4535" with a .5" long tapered lead in.

Finally last up is the 2 nose forming punches. The flare of the light kind of washed out the WC nose, and then there is the SWC punch. Below is the base punch which forms the HB and applies pressure via the ram.

http://www.fototime.com/350C9999B0095F7/standard.jpg]
Here are 5 swaged slugs. Starting from the left is a 500gr core slug that was .443" for use in the Corbin setup to make paper patched slugs for the Whitworth. To it's right was one I cut in half with a pair of side cutters, and it weighs 263grs. Next is a 190gr Lee SWC, then a 230gr Lee RN and finally a Lee 255gr. The 3 cast boolits are all WW alloy, the smooth sided slugs are pure lead.

http://www.fototime.com/DC4CBD73B8E232A/standard.jpg
A rather poor dark photo of the boolit bases. I'll need to cast up some of these in pure or very soft lead and then swage them to see how they do in the Vaquero. The die works real well and you don't have to lay across the handle to swage the boolits.

You can vary the height of the boolit in the die bore for it's length, and to place the press handle correctly. You can adjust the die's position in the press, you can adjust the ejector pin guide up or down in the die body and you can use one or more of the washers on the ejector pin below the pin guide.

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

Wayne Smith
06-06-2005, 09:16 AM
I imagined that's about what you were describing, and I don't think it will work with my heeled bullet, you'll swage out the heel. For my bullet the base of the bullet has to enter the die first, fit into the heel diameter, and then be swaged hollow base. Could you do that with the bullet entering the die base first, without messing up the lube grooves and nose?

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, it's a bullet for the .41 Long Colt that uses a heeled bullet like a .22 rimfire. Buckshot is modifying a Saeco mold for me, and our conversation went in this direction as well.

Buckshot
06-06-2005, 10:21 PM
...........Wayne, you're right. For a heeled slug the base would enter first. What is the nose forming punch would become the base forming punch. The punch in the ram would form the nose. Due to the pressures involves and the way reloading presses are set up, there couldbe no smooth ogival type noses.

They'd have to be a SWC type, a full WC, a HP or a kinda SWC but with a round nose. The nose form die has to have enough material in the circumfrence to withstand the pressure. Also you woul dhave to lube the slugs first. This fills the lube grooves to support them under pressure. You can see in my photos that where the crimp groove wasn't filled it disappeared. Since you're moving the metal around, the LG placement can also shift.

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

Wayne Smith
06-07-2005, 07:53 AM
Too bad all the bullets for the .41 are round noses, eh? I suppose, since they are pure lead, that the swage die could make them any shape you wanted, even in a reloading press. It is a thought, but is it worth it just to get a HB? Let me shoot it after you've modified it and I'll get back to you.

Buckshot
06-13-2005, 05:17 AM
.............Last week I cast up several pounds of the Lee 452-255RF in pure or very soft lead. I'd like to get most of these all lube-sized and then swage up a bunch as SWC's and full WC's. Then also shoot some of the 'as cast' also as knd of a control to see how they do.

Ah projects, and MORE projects :-)! I need ot start writing them down as I'm losing track of'em.

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

Swagerman
06-14-2005, 08:38 AM
Nice work there, Buckshot.

Can you make a die body that can shape the ogive with a small flat top in .44 (.4295) and .45 caliber (.4535) for revolver work.

My present setup is the Herter's presses, using C&H swaging dies, plus my some of my own self made nose punches that seat on the shellholders with a shank that runs through the primer hole w/nut and washer attached.

Your pictures of your finished bullets have deep hollow bases. Are those for rifle. My revolver bullets don't require that deep of a punch hole, about 1/8 of an inch is plenty with softter lead...sometimes even less depth.

Wish I had your experience and machine shop equipment.


Swagerman

Buckshot
06-15-2005, 01:21 PM
Nice work there, Buckshot.

...........Thanks. It's sure a lot of fun!

Can you make a die body that can shape the ogive with a small flat top in .44 (.4295) and .45 caliber (.4535) for revolver work.

............You mean make one to form an ogive with a flatpoint?

Your pictures of your finished bullets have deep hollow bases. Are those for rifle.

.............No, for the Ruger Vaquero I have.

My revolver bullets don't require that deep of a punch hole, about 1/8 of an inch is plenty with softter lead...sometimes even less depth.

............I had no idea about how deep or wide to make it :lol: . I just made it so it looked sufficient. Pretty scientific, eh? :)

Wish I had your experience and machine shop equipment.

............Lots of years of tinkering and a burning desire, but only 16 months of doing so with a competant lathe. I have a nice sized machine with an 11" swing, but trust me you can do just as well with one of the 7x12" mini-lathes that are offered on sale for less then $400. Just on some stuff your cuts may be a bit smaller because of their size, but they are nice accurate little machines. Plus they come very well tooled too with steady and follow rests among the accesories and a very useable #2MT in the tailstock quill. They're now making Aloris type QC tool holders for them too.

Do a web search for 7x10 or 7x12 Lathe and there is a tremendous amount of info out there on them, and a wide variety of uses they're put to. People make some darn amazing things on'em.

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

Swagerman
06-15-2005, 01:37 PM
Can you make a die body set like your pictures that can shape the ogive with a small flat top in .44 (.4295) and .45 caliber (.4535) for revolver work.

............You mean make one to form an ogive with a flatpoint?


================================================== =======

Yes, exactly. Sort of a typical Colt type .45 RN with a flat point.

If you would be interested in making up a set or two for me for a price, please contact me by PM or email...we can discuss the details.

Thanks, Swagerman

Buckshot
06-16-2005, 01:50 AM
...........Swagerman, yes I can make a smooth transition ogive swage die, as below for the swage press:
http://www.fototime.com/C3EE3AD183E490A/standard.jpghttp://www.fototime.com/91FC94E9095DE0C/standard.jpg
Left photo: On the left is the ejector, the die and the base punch. In the right photo, the die is setting on the ejector assembly as it would be in the press after ejecting the slug. You can see the ejector pin in the mouth of the die.

To form these:

http://www.fototime.com/5A94DEA526A1BFB/standard.jpg
On the right is a cast Raphine 580gr Pritchit. On the left are 3 examples after having been through the swage die. The base cavity is shallower and thickens faster in addition to having a step inside. I intended to mimic the parent Minie's ogive and got pretty close, but as you can see it's a longer arc then the original. The hollowpoint is formed by placing washers under the ejector to make the pin ride higher in the die.

To make one for use in a reloading press is problematic. You have to bore the nose in the body of the die itself to have a smooth stepless transition to the ogive. The problem in doing the same in a regular reloading press is the inability to effectively eject the finished slug without driving it out. In the swage press, on the upstroke the die rides down over the ejector pin, which smoothly pushes the boolit out.

To work in a reloading press with the ram supplying the pressure and forming the base, the hole for the ejector pin in the nose would need to be solidly closed. After the bullet was swaged, the piece to close off the hole could be removed (unscrewed). Then an ejector pin would be placed in the hole and tapped down to eject the formed slug.

I would be afraid that unless the ejector pin was fairly broad or the nose was, as in the case of the SWC and WC noses, that tapping them out would damage the nose to some degree. I'm thinking the difference between a smooth continual push, versus a series of sudden impacts, as in taping them out would produce.

An option would be a nose with a step. Wether the nose was formed by the punch in the ram, or one contained within the die is that the nose forming device has to have sufficient material for strength at the thinnest part. This to preclude spreading it tightly against the die wall by the pressure of swaging.

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

Swagerman
06-19-2005, 01:41 PM
Thanks for detail info, Buchshot.

I've had a brain fart about ejector woes, why not use an Arbor press. There is a little 1/2 ton model that Grizzly.com sells for $34.95...has a three inch opening.

Would require cutting the Arbor press in half, removing the base alltogether, drill and tap the upper half cut-off for 1-1/4 inch shaft rod with a welded on flat base plate with bolt holes. Have this configured to fit your swage press so it mounts over the top of your swaging die ejector rod button. The base woulld be mounted on your reloading press as to height over the swage die in place.

Instead of the usual Arbor press little lever, maybe a large wheel with handle.

I don't know how much cranking and Arbor press requires to get the ram to depress the top of the swaging die which sometimes has to range about 2 inches.

The ram could also have button punch about the same size as the swage die.

Arbor presses can seat bearings they ought to be able to push the swage die ejector rod back down to push the swaged bullet out of the die. I have no idea how much per pound pressure is required to eject a swaged bullet...anyone have any figures on that???

What do you think?


Swagerman

Buckshot
06-20-2005, 08:15 AM
............So far as the effort to push out a freshly swaged boolit goes, a nice 2" wide flat topped plastic knob could be thumped with the palm of your hand to eject the boolit. It's just that after 25 or so your palm would be a bit the worse for wear :-). No huge amount of effort is required. In my swage press, the effort to eject the slug isn't even noticeable, but leverage multiplication has a huge effect there.

I have thouhgt about the simplist way to accomplish it without modifying the press to any degree. A possibility would be to have a bar of say 3/8" thickness with a male 'T' to fit into the ram, as a shellholder. The bar would only be long enough to clear either side of the press. A rod threaded through both ends could extend upward to another bar. This other bar would extend across the ejector pin in the die.

These connecting rods could be 1/4" in diameter and would be plenty strong enough in a straight down pull. They would bear no load on the ram's upstroke. The basepunch, instead of having the 'T' slot machined into it would merely be flat bottomed with a 1/4-20 threaded stub screw to thread into a hole in the ram's crossbar.

This still doesn't address the question of ejecting a smooth ogival swaged slug. During this forming operation the end of the die has to be sealed by the ejector rod against the pressure of the lead being formed. I'm no engineer so I have no idea if the ejector pin captured by the crossbar over it would suffice.


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

Swagerman
06-20-2005, 01:46 PM
Hey, I think you've got something there, if I'm reading you right.

That set up would be something like the old Lyman #45 lubesizer press having two side rods with flat support beam on top to carry the return the ejector rod punch.

I've drawn up a sketch and will be taking it over to my local machinest 50 miles away...drat...wish he lived closer...that's a hundred mile trip and I'm getting too old to hack it anymore.

I've designed a cup like affair to fit on the big fat top on the Herter's 1-1/2 inch ram, it will have a smaller hole just to allow the Herter's shellholders to portrude through. It will also have cross bar wings to hold the two support rods of about 1/4 of an inch in diameter. These rods range above the top on the press and swaging die ejector rod punch.

Its hard to describe in words what your mind's eye sees and thinks will work.

If this all comes together in time, will take a picture of it and post it here...if it works.

You know the Herter's press requires a good rap on the ejector rod to eject the formed bullet. You can't palm rap it out...break your freaken hand if you're older that dirt.


Swagerman