CH Dies

[Daywalker]

I know I have not posted much here being new and all. I will give a breif introduction, 33 years old, live in VA, reloading right at a year now, casting a few months. I love hunting, fishing, and fun on the lake wether fishing,swimming or taking the -jetski out. The family loves to camp. I am a father of 3 with a stay at home mom. I drive a truck hauling freight to coal mines when needed as a hotshot crew.

Got interested into swaging when a friend from another site told me about CH dies. in research found this site and all the work BT has done with his.

Tody my .451 dies have arrived. Im excited to get everything together and testing it out. My brass is in the oven on self cleaning as many discribed on here. Owned the oven now 3 years when we moved into our home bought the oven. This is the first time the self cleaner has been used LOL.

I will keep you all updated as my progress goes. Thank you all so much for the work you all have done and the posts. Most of my questions were answered as I searched for them and read past posts. If there is anymore questions that I have and unable to find, ill ask them here. I may after I get everything up and running do a youtube vid of the process. Youtube is another hobby even tho I do not do many vids. If someone else has a vid of what I am going to do as far as educational purpose, then I wont do a vid. I do not see a reason to repeat someone else LOL.

Thanks to all of you....

[CWME]

Nice to meet you Daywalker=) The way I see it if you want to do a video then do a video. Everyone has different ideas of how to do something. I for one like to see the ideas so I can make choices on what I think will work best for me.

My introduction, 30 years old, live in Maine, been reloading for 15 years now(spent first paycheck to buy my RCBS Rock Chucker and second a Taurus .357), casting about 4 years. I also like hunting, mostly squirrels and upland birds, fishing, also like to spend time at my camp on the lake boating, fishing etc. I am a father who's little girl will be one next week and a two year old German weimaraner. I am a office Manager during the day and a jack of all trades at night.

P.S. Look forward to seeing your results!!

[Daywalker]

Nice to meet you to CWME, I see your point on the vids lol. So far I have tried 2, both cases crumpled. So, back in the oven for a longer period LOL..

Cross fingers. I have a taurus pt 1911 that is waiting for these. Then my Ruger Blackhawk will be waiting on the 44's...

[CWME]

I gave up on the anealing for now. I was getting crumpled cases too. I am using as fired casings. Must be my technique and haven't spent enough time with it yet... I believe the core is hanging up on the brass causing the issues. I think sizing the core down a bit will help, need to try it. Working on making wire for this.

Try non anealed brass and see what you can get. Adjust the die down until the brass stops rolling in and starts going straight. Then adjust your nose punch to fully form the nose of the bullet.

P.S. I found they fomed better with the nose of the 175 bullet facing up or out of the case.

[ANeat]

Im looking forward to seeing the 45 bullets there DW, what are you using for your "jacket"


For the record, 44 year old machine tool repairman, 20 year reloader, 15 year bullseye shooter, beginner swager ;)

[Daywalker]

Nice to meet you ANeat, right now im trying the 40 case. Seen some was able to get it up past the .451 mark.

I am trying this in 2 steps. The cores I have are around .372. So I am trying to use the core seater to seat the core into the case and bleed off the extra pure lead. Then if I can get that to work, off to the second die the swage die. I am not sure if I can run the smaller core into the brass and do it all in one step. Might try that though.

I will try the non annealing process CWME. Thanks for the advice!!

[ANeat]

What diameter is the core seating punch? I would think that it has to fit inside the brass.

[Daywalker]

oh darn ANeal, your right. Duh!!! it does not fit inside the brass. Man, I should have caught that. I was so excited to have these and try them out, that the 40 brass siting on the punch even, dag on it. ok, time for plan B!!!!

[ANeat]

I would say flaring or expanding the case somehow. Will a 45acp expander fit?

[Daywalker]

I have a universal expander going to try that. I tried just the one step method, I still get small crinkles in the case, some that I do not, seems to only be bellowing out to .440 in diameter. I also think in order to get the right length of bullet, I may have to trim the cases down a bit. Ok, I am going to head back down to the dungon. Might be a looonnggg night for me LOL...

[CWME]

In thinking about what I suggested you try I forgot that you were using the 45 dies and not the 44s. You will probably have to aneal those cases to get them to bump up to .451.

New to this stuff too so I was just passing along what was working for me. Didn't mean to lead you astray.

[Daywalker]

I did anneal them. My biggest diameter that I have gotten to so far is only .449. I am wondering if pure lead is just too soft to bump it on up to .451? I prob have to have the beefed up internals and swage wheel weights as I believe it will be a harder lead and bump her on up.

I am going to try to post a couple of pics. The first pick will be all my mistakes, also in the pic with the mistakes, I placed a speer .451 jhp very front to the right as a comparison. The next pic will be of the one that I was able to seat, trim but only at .449 and then the last pick will be a dummy round with the .449 seated and crimp just to give me an idea of how it is going to look once I get it to .451..

http://i48.tinypic.com/nqx05f.jpg

http://i46.tinypic.com/r87zbb.jpg

http://i46.tinypic.com/352it0p.jpg

[BT Sniper]

DayWalker,

Your getting there! I have had A LOT of bullet that have looked just like yours and worse. That is one of the great things about this hobby is that any mistakes such as this can be melted qown and used again.

FIY the 44 swage die base punch fits perfect inside the case of a belled 40 S&W to seat the core and expand durning the core seating step. Soft lead will be able to do the job but I don't know about the CH core seating base punch. I bent mine with in first week or so. I now use a strong flat base punch (imagine the final swaging base punch used in a core seating die instead) and seat the core that way. Even use this technique to seat the core with the bullet facing upright helps some times.

Did you try trimming the 40 S&W case a bit shorter? What weight bullets are you coming out at? Anything below 245 grains in a untrimmed 40 S&W is a bit tricky.

The core seating punch I use does not have a bleed hole This is why it is important for me to weight sort things. That bleed may rob you of a bit of PSI but I doubt it. It took me a lot to get the 40 to .455. I have been saying I will post the pics for long enough I better go get the camera.

Stick with it I've been there.


BT

[ANeat]

Remember; BT has a big ol handle on his press, like a million dollar slot machine LOL

[Daywalker]

LOL, yea when my personal press comes in, ill will have to use a bigger handles as well. Right now I havnt trimmed before hand as I am learning. the one you see finished and trimmed is 180 grain. When i get these melted back down and cored back up, im going to try a few more tricks lol. Sticking with it...

[BT Sniper]

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/bulletsandbirthday008.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/bulletsandbirthday014.jpg

Here you go.

[BT Sniper]

Millon dollor slot machine :) Yeh I can see that.

[BT Sniper]

Day walker,

Looks like you need to adjust the top stop bolt for the depth of the HP a bit as it is indenting the top of your bullet a bit. this will also happen if the bullet is tough to eject. This is less of a problem with a little harder core but use wheel weights carfully!

The one step possibility is a bit of a streach for the swage die with the 40 up to .452. If you really want to make it work you need to use the core seat die and I would suggest you pick up the .429 swage die base punch from CH or myself. It will fit just perfect inside the 40 belled S&W case and seat the core to necessary depth without smashing (wrinkling) the brass.

You are one of the few treading uncharted waters here with the 452x40S&W almost a pioneer, though I read it has been done before by a member here.

Good luck and easy on the new dies.

BT

[BT Sniper]

Brass bullet looks good loaded dosn't it!

[Daywalker]

Yes they do look good lol. I am hoping my 44 dies arrive soon. The wife ordered them the .429As soon as it gets here, ill be trying the core seating again. Another friend of mine pointed the core seating to me as well.

The bullets are hard to knock out at times. I need a better lube i believe. trying to get everything set just right is fun. I need to do as CW did and drill tap the nuts to be able to save my settings. Pretty close right now at .449 but like you said, ill need to use the core seater to really get it right.

As soon as my press arrives and the .429 dies arrive, ill be back up and running and playing with this again!!!

I will get up with ya later BT on some more stuff im looking to get from ya....

[Dannix]

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/bulletsandbirthday014.jpg
Here you go.
Wow, you did that on your (modified) Redding? That's sweet. You think your modded up setup would be able to handle making jackets out of copper strip and tubing?

[BT Sniper]

I will try jackets from copper tube some day. I have made severial from the cut off top of a 3006 case. Might be a while before I try a jacket from a copper disk though. I'm pretty sure the press would be up to th ecopper tubing jacket but don't know much about the pressure needed for the strips.

I only bumped up the .455 case in my press so far. The others where given to me as samples with the dies. I am sure it will be no problem and will certainly ollk forward to making some interesting bullets from them.

BT