half jackets 38 and 45

[meeesterpaul]

I'm not familiar with swaging personally. One of the guys that I shoot Cowboy with has 7000 38 half jackets and 7000 for 45 and a CH cannelure tool. He said he wants .03¢ a piece and offers a money back guarantee

[M-Tecs]

I would jump on them. 15 to 18 cents is going rate.

[ReloaderFred]

I'd buy them all!

Fred

[runfiverun]

I'd skip the cannelure tool.
but I'd be all over the jackets.

[just bill]

I'm up for some, maybe the cannelure tool, too.

Bill

[Loudenboomer]

Put me on the half jacket list if they need a home.

[DukeInFlorida]

Half Jacket bullets are old technology. They go back to the "early days" of reloading. If many of you don;t know, the reloading hobby that we know really started right after World War II, when returning soldiers were looking for a way to feed their guns for cheap.

Half jacket bullets were developed as a way to improve slightly on cast boolits. It was thought that copper touching the lands and grooves of the barrel was better than cast lead. You'll get arguments on both sides.

There were presses developed, and associated tooling for making bullets using half jackets. The most well known of these was the Swage-O-Matic press, and tools from CH4D. There were lots of bonding issues with this technology, and many people abandoned it soon after it's development. Unless you have a Swage-O-Matic press, and the tooling for it, the half jackets really won't do you (at any price) much good at all. They are too shallow to be used for full metal jacket bullets.


Half Jacket Bullets
Half Jacket Bullets

A better choice is to save your money, and invest in real bullet making tools. I have a variety of them, including a set that allows me to make .40 sized bullets ( 40 S&W, and 10 mm) from 9mm Luger brass:
My swaged bullets.

Not only does the jacket completely cover the core, it is structured very similarly to a Hornedy XTP bullet, slits at the nose, hollow point, and all. Same bullet weight as the Hornady, so same performance, point of aim, etc. And, best of all, the jackets I use are FREE, presuming that you rummage brass from your shooting place.

I have a Swage-O-Matic press, and several tool sets for making bullets. I also have a pretty good collection of half jackets. However, they never get used any more, in favor of making "new style" bullets. The old style were OK in their day, but not worth the trouble, in my humble opinion.