357 bullets using 222 remington dies

[butch3220]

Here is something I recently tried and it appears I have had some decent luck with it. I have a pile of bad 223 brass (crushed, etc) and after reading all the info on this page I decided to give swaging a try. Looking at my reloading manual I noticed that the 222 remington has a shoulder diameter of .358.

I first cut one down to around the length of a 9mm case. I didn't do any measurements since it was only an attempt. I then annealed the case and ran it thru my lee .358 push thru sizer. The next step was to fill the case with lead. Again, i did not put a ton of time into it since I was not sure it would work so I just melted a 124gr 9mm bullet and poured it into the case. I then lubed the case/bullet and pushed into the 222 die. I then knocked it out with a wooden dowel and then pushed it thru the lee sizer again. The final diameter was .360 and around 160gr which is good for my marlin 1894. And they cycled perfectly even with the wide nose.

I made 5 of these this way but forgot to take a pic before I shot them. I did save one I found in my backstop. The shooting was done at 50 yards and my rest wasn't the greatest so I think there is room to improve.

Sorry for the terrible pics - I used my phone.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_107604ffb0b14ebe54.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=5845)http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_107604ffb0b2161481.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=5846)

[GRUMPA]

Not bad for just playing around with something, looks like some pretty good results if you ask me.

[MIBULLETS]

A .17 Remington die would give you a smaller nose if you wanted that. Nice work!

[butch3220]

I thought about 17 rem dies but someone gave me a set of 222. I figured if i messed them up I wouldn't be out anything. I also like the big flat nose.

[midnight]

I have some junk M1 carbine cases I was going to try but maybe I'l use 223. 223s are usually used to make 375 jackets. Richard Corbin makes a jacket maker for it & I'm going to try it.

Bob

[lukewmtdew]

How far was that group shot from?

[jonblack]

If you click on the photo it is labeled "50 yards - 4 shots."

Hope that helps
jonblack

[rmatchell]

I just picked up a set of used 222 dies I think im going to try this on my day off tomorrow

[skeettx]

Give this a try
Just put a 32 cal unlubed bullet cast of pure lead into the brass

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Lyman-Bullet-Mold-Mould-32-S-W-115gr-Reloading-in-Box-/190746602098?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c69622a72

Mike

[koehlerrk]

Not bad at all... I'm going to have to try that myself!

[rmatchell]

How long are you trimming the brass? I have some junk 380s that im going to try out first.

[roverboy]

Thats all kinds of cool!

[Whistler]

Thanks for sharing, hopefully this will lead to something for all of us. :)

[badluther]

Very cool! I like how people are not afraid to try out new methods & techniques.

[Linstrum]

How neat! Yeah, if you look through a reloading manual you will find all sorts of cartridge components, dies, and tools you can use for purposes other than what the designer had in mind. I like using bullet seating dies as push-through boolit sizing dies because they usually run about 0.002" over barrel bore groove diameter.

rl 1,147

[rbuck351]

Another fellow on this forum showed me how to make this type bullet for my 41Mag. You push an annealed 40S&W case through a .410 sizer die to get the case. His method is different in that he put the ogive on prior to filling with lead by shoving it in a 308 sizing die. You need a piece of 7/8 14 all thread flat on one end to put in your press adjusted so the top of the 40 case just touches the all thread at top of stroke. Then holding with pliers, overfill a little with melted lead, put in press and squish against the all thread. Cases should be preheated to keep lead soft while squishing. I have been making 270gr jacketed .410 bullets without really swaging. When I get more time I'm going to try making .416 bullets using 10mm cases.

[Forrest r]

I’m using a homemade tapered draw die to make .357 jackets out of 9mm cases. I tried using a lee push thru die first but didn’t like the distortion I was getting on the bottom (rim with primer) of the 9mm cases. The longer draw die takes less force keeping the base/case of the 9mm brass more concentric.

The 9mm cases are sooooo easy to find (free) & they make excellent jackets.

I’ve been doing/using the resized 9mm cases for are hbwc bullets. I was casting the lee 311-93-1r bullets to use as lead cores for the hbwc bullets.

I simply used:
a annealed or plain (a little more force) 9mm cases resized for 357 jackets
a small brush & fluxed the newly formed jacket
put a 93g 32cal cast bullet in the fluxed jacket
heated everything until the lead melted, bonding the lead to the jacket.

I’m ending up with the 158g hbwc bullets pictured below.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/38hbwcs.jpg

Their easy to load, accurate & can be turned around and used as a hp from hell.

The draw die I made can fit in any standard press (7/8”-14), is fairly hard (grade 5 bolt), & then I polished and treated to make the resizing of the 9mm case easier. The other thing I did when I made my draw die was to use several different custom taper reamers to make the taper in the draw die. This allows the 9mm case to gradually be draw down to whatever finished size I want, .357, .358, .359, 360, .375, ECT.

I’m going to have to pick up a 222 die to form some bullets, that is an excellent idea. The jacket, cores & the bonding of them are soooooo easy to do. 1 more step to reform them into swc’s or hpswc’s would be a walk in the park.

[rmatchell]

I tried it with no luck not sure what I was doing wrong I used a 380 case with 98gr of lead just seemed to hard.

[butch3220]

Sorry I haven't responded to this. Work has been crazy. I didn't measure the brass before I cut it. I just used a pipe cutter and took a guess. The bullet in the pic had ww for lead and I think it was too hard since it didn't mushroom. I have another pic of a different one with pure lead. If I find it I will post it.

I like the idea of the 9 brass but where did you get the custom taper reamer to draw it down?

[butch3220]

Here is the pic of the bullet with pure lead.http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_10760509bcd9b39a42.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7348)http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_10760509bcda5de0aa.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7349)

[Andrew Mason]

i love the idea of these.
i may sell off my .357 molds and just do this.

where did you get the tapered sizing die?

[Forrest r]

I made my own tapered draw die to resize the 9mm cases to .358”.

I took butch3220’s advice & picked up a used die set for the 222. Thank you butch!!!!!!!!!

They are the 2 die set made by pacific. What I found interesting about the pacific dies is that the seating die will actually make a smaller bullet than the sizing die.

Sizing die=.358”/38spl/357
Seating dies=.356”/9mm

I have some free time & will start making some jacketed hp’s. Here’s what I ended up with after getting the 222 dies & doing some testing/adjusting of the dies. After I made these in the 222 dies I ran them thru a lee (.358”) sizing die for the .358”/38spl/357mag bullets. I haven’t shot/tested the segmented hp’s yet, but I should have time in the next couple of weeks to start doing some testing.

56686

I just wanted to see if I could make 9mm bullets with the 222 dies. The seating die puts out a tapered bullet (.354” front edge by the bullets shoulder to .357” the back edge of the bullet). These could easily be sent thru a .356” lee push thru sizing die & used/shot in a 9mm. I just don’t own/use a 9mm anymore.

Something along the same lines, 44spl/mag segmented hp’s made from 40 s&w cases. I used a set of 6mm Remington dies to make them & then ran them thru a lee .430” push thru sizing die.

56685

And as usual there’s too many irons in the fire. I’m going to try to make some segmented hp’s for the 45acp out of 40 s&w cases.