New to Swaging

[largecaliberman]

I've been a boolit caster for the past 20+ years and also hooked up with an indoor shooting range to rid the gentlemen's "rubbish" such as range lead (I'm keeping the lead) and brass. A lot of the brass are 99.99& 22's and I have three 55 gallon drums of it. In the past I used to cash it in for handguns, equipment, etc.

A friend of mine came by last week and he suggested that I ought to go into making jackets for 223's. I might take the suggestion.

My question is----what are the basic equipment for me to get started in this new "realm" of boolits? I've visited Corbins however the terminology etc is a bit confusing. Perhaps viewing a video on how to do it would help?

Open for suggestions.

THANKS IN ADVANCE.

[copdills]

Great Idea , I have often wondered how this process works a video would be alot of help

[454PB]

I have the Corbin set up to make .224" jacketed bullets. I can't even imagine turning a 55 gallon barrel full of fired .22 rimfire cases into jackets. I did a 3 pound coffee can full and it took me weeks! The dies consist of the jacket forming die, a core seating die, and a point forming die. My set will make a bullet from about 35 grains (using .22 short cases) up to a 65 grain bullet using long rifle cases. Theoretically you could go even heavier using .22 magnum cases, but I've never done that. I also have a 4 cavity core mould.

I don't have a video for you, but the basic steps are:

anneal the fired cases and clean off any resulting slag.

Lube the fired cases and push them through the jacket form die. This die is very similar to the Lee push through boolit sizers, except it costs 10 times as much.

Cast the bullet cores, or cut them from extruded lead wire. I tried both and ended up buying lead wire. The cast cores were too time consuming and varied in weight. I made my own core cutter for this.

Place the cores within the formed jackets and use the slug forming die to fully seat/swage them into the jacket. The formed slug then has to be removed from the die. Again, I built my own ejecting mechanism that attaches to the press. Theoretically, you push them out of the die with your hand, but after about 100 your hand and arms get very tired. I leave the lube on the formed jackets, but if your lube is "wrong" or gets wiped off, they need to be relubed before seating the cores.

The "slugs" are then forced into a point forming die and again need to be pushed out of that die when done. The resulting bullet can then be cleaned by washing, or using a case tumbler. I simply wash mine off using a mild degeasing detergent.

Here's a link to an old post I did with pictures and more description:

http://reloaders.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=288