Quality of various swage die makers?

[truckjohn]

Hey all,

I tried getting into swaging about a year ago....
Bought a cheap-o Ebay die.... and pretty well got what I paid for...
Goal was to re-swage cast and lubed lead pistol boolits.
It is a simple SWC die (Straight die, flat base w/ ram mounted nose punch)

Inside of the die is pretty rough, makes bullet ejection pretty tough.
Dimensionally -- runs as advertised.....
and I promptly split the nose punch soon after I started using it.

So......
Who do you folks recommend for good quality swage dies...
1. Good internal finish for proper ejection
2. Proper dimensions -- runs as specified
3. Durability... Dies and punches made and heat treated properly
4. Delivery time -- I really don't want to wait a year for a "standard" bullet die.

Thanks

John

[Red River Rick]

truckjohn:

PM Buckshot. He does some pretty nice work for himself as well as for a few other forum members, perhaps he may be able to help out.

RRR

[rbt50]

richard corbin or dave corbin i think are the best ,but they are not cheap.

[creekwalker]

RCE, Corbin and CH4D are the one's I know the most about and RCE and CH4D are the one's I plan to do business with this year. The old Herter's die's if they were well taken care of are a great product, I bought a set myself and they work very well. W/O seeing your swage die set I couldn't tell you if they could be polished out or not, but suspect if they're just rough they can.
I'm somewhat aware of using a custom bump die to reshape a bullit but don't know to much about the concept of reswaging to reshape the same caliber into something different. Swage die's are designed (as I understand thing's) to form a soft lead core into a bullet, either with or without a jacket or gas check. I seem's to me that using such a die for something other than what it was designed to do cold well invite problems. I hopw BuckShot or one of the others can clear this up for me. Hope you find out what the problem is.

Creekwalker

[pjh421]

truckjohn,

Corbin's LSWC-1-S is what I use to make 200 to 300 grain baseguard bullets for my Smith 629. I think casting is faster. Swaging is easier and cleaner though. Nobody can fault the Corbin's on quality. If you are wanting to make boolits inexpensively, swaging is not the way to go. If you want them all to weigh the same or would like a hollow point or a cup base or anything special like that, casting can't hold a candle to swaging. The convenience of swaging is vastly superior to that of casting. As far as durability, if you don't try to swage hard lead and you use a little lanolin to lubricate the piece being swaged, your dies should outlast you. The Corbins frequently have popular die sets and presses in stock so unless you want something they are out of or is somewhat of a custom proposition, you wouldn't have to wait any longer than, say, getting a mould from Midway. Really, anything these guys make is worth the price and worth waiting for. You know that good feeling you get when something works as advertised?

Paul

[truckjohn]

The die is a "Swage-it" die.

Tool marks inside and on the punches are pretty severe. Looks like boring was done on a lathe, probably without a reamer. Definately no finish reaming or lapping.

Consequently, ejection is rough -- Quite a few good hard whacks with a 3lb brass hammer. Bullets are good and round.... once they finally come out.

The base punch had a large chamfer on it -- which made a crazy looking 0.030" deep "Cup" in the base of the bullet. One of my tool maker friends ground it flat for me -- and then re-swaged cast boolits had really nice flat bases...

Unfortunately, this die would probably need to loose 0.010"/side to ream and polish it out...... This means new nose and base punches. While a 0.470" Martini Henry SWC swager die would be interesting.... A 520g lead cylinder with a 1/4" long Keith nose would probably look kinda funny. Not sure how it would fly, either. Maybe a 520g 577/450 Martini reswaged grease groove Keith nose Hollow point....

On the other hand, it might ream out to a dandy 475 Linebach/480 Ruger SWC die....

Hence my question -- I am willing to spend the money to get good quality gear. I really don't want to spend more money on stuff that is no good.

Thanks

John

[azvaquero]

Hi Truckjohn --

Have you tried shooting any of your swaged cast slugs for accuracy? Did swaging seem to help you any??