Die damage?

[Tatume]

Hello Folks,

As someone who is brand new to bullet swaging, I’m still on the steep part of the learning curve. Since I don’t have a supply of 40 S&W cases and cores prepped and ready for making jacketed 44 caliber bullets, I’ve been swaging cast bullets. I have found that commercial, bevel base, coated SWC bullets make very nice plain base round-nosed hollow point bullets. I’ve also found that they accept a gas check very nicely as well. I have also swaged my own cast SWC bullets into round nosed hollow points, after lubing with LBT Blue Soft lube. The lube preserves the lube groove under pressure. I am using an RCBS Rock Chucker reloading press and CH point forming die.

These bullets are fairly hard. The commercial bullets are probably made from hardball alloy (92/6/2), and my own bullets are close to that as well. Here are my questions:

1. Am I at risk of cracking my point forming die?
2. Does the RCBS reloading press limit the pressure I can apply, thereby reducing the risk of cracking the die?

Thanks, Tom

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

1. yes
2. sort of, but if you add a 3' pipe to the press handle, you'll be able to apply more pressure

[tiger762]

Agreed. I'll add that you can sometimes get away with point-forming harder alloy but if the OP wants to swage the core? Fuggedaboutit. Not with hard alloy and dang sure not with a reloading press. Trying to get hard alloy to extrude through the tiny hole in the center of the concave punch the CH4D swage dies come with, is a non-starter. I have 38 and 44cal CH4D swage dies. I actually squashed the core swage punch using "range scrap" which is not as hard as what the OP Is using. What I found i that once the lead started to extrude, the resistance dropped but it was still too much for the punch which Dave@CH4D told me they purposefully make softer than the die so that the punch is ruined before the much more expensive die would be.


1. yes
2. sort of, but if you add a 3' pipe to the press handle, you'll be able to apply more pressure

[Wolftracker]

I cast, then swage my 452 caliber bullets into a round nose die. Next steps are reduce to .451, powder coat, then re-swage in round nose die. This makes a very smooth, fully coated bullet at .4525. The reasons for casting first are 1. The cast bullets are fairly hard so it is safer to start with something that is closer to the shape I'm swaging to. 2. No need to use a squirt die because cast bullet weights are close enough for pistol work. I will try this with pure lead soon, run through a core swage die, to see if I can eliminate the casting step. I'm not sure how well pure lead coats. I know, a lot of steps, but I get great accuracy, no leading, and I'm not trying to make a living at it.