Swage 240-gr .44 Mag Jacketed Bullets from .40 S&W Brass Using 7x57mm Mauser Die

[ReloaderFred]

One last thing; I don't trim my .40 S&W cases. With my process, I fold the case back into the hollowpoint, the same as Speer does with their Gold Dot bullets. Due to how thin the .40 S&W brass is, compared to normal .44 jackets, they expand "with aplomb" in soft tissue or media. Due to the core bonding, the only way I can separate the cores from the jackets after recovering them, is to melt the cores out of the jackets.

My bullets are made with C-H Swaging Dies and the cores are cast from pure lead.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[ReloaderFred]

I was typing while you were. My bullets come out at 235 grains. I have an unlimited supply of military .40 S&W brass because the Coast Guard uses our range for qualifications and they aren't real good about picking up all their brass (like they're supposed to). I've found the military FC brass to be extremely consistent in weight, most often within 1 grain, but never more than 2 grains variation. I don't know how Federal does it, but that brass is almost always the same weight.

If you're asking about the Corbin CSP-1, I bought it from a friend a number of years ago who was losing his eyesight. I paid him $50.00 more than he asked for it, and it was still a good deal for both of us. The tall Hollywood Senior was purchased from a forum member also a number of years ago, who happened to be traveling down the coast and I met him down on the highway for the purchase. I also have a short Hollywood Senior press that I bought used in 1963, and still use on occasion.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[wilecoyote]

...Hope this helps.

Liberty1776, sure it helps. I can't thank you enough: the last thing I want is mess the bores of two vintage mod.29 or of my almost new 444 remlin.
Lee mold coming soon, of course ...

[wilecoyote]

...Hope this helps.Fred

I see your set-up: you're entirely in another league, but it is enlightening anyway because glass and ceramic manufacturers work here in Murano/Venice, with even small-sized industrial ovens owned by some my acquaintances
thanks for your inputs !

[slim1836]

This has been a fun read fellows (and gals perhaps, never know now-a-days), really has. I turned some .40 casings into .45 projectiles for fun a while back, and they worked.

Everything I learn on this forum makes my life so much happier, hope it does the same to most of the readership.

Keep up the good work,

Slim

[wilecoyote]

ordered the mold advised and a .40S&W + a 10auto Lee GAUGEs_ I think that shortening one of them as per your measures, I could obtain something to bypass my sawing mess. mounting the shortened stub in the Lee cutter & next in my el.drill, I hope to have something to cut fast and all uniformly the .40 or 10 brass needed to make the jackets...I'll see...

[Sasquatch-1]

ordered the mold advised and a .40S&W + a 10auto Lee GAUGEs_ I think that shortening one of them as per your measures, I could obtain something to bypass my sawing mess. mounting the shortened stub in the Lee cutter & next in my el.drill, I hope to have something to cut fast and all uniformly the .40 or 10 brass needed to make the jackets...I'll see...

The neat thing with the drill and tube cutter is you can run 10mm, 357 sig or 40 s&w and get the same size jacket without any adjustments. The only problem you may have using the 40 cal. slug is that the mouth of the case may taper in a bit. If this happens a small piece of steel rod or screw driver swiveled around in the mouth after annealing will open it back up.

[Postell]

Great read here gentlemen, thanks.

[a.squibload]

Easy/cheap way to anneal cases for swaging: line them up on an old cookie sheet,
tray, etc. mouth down. Heat each case head with propane torch 'til it just starts to get red. Helps if you don't have strong light on them so you can see when they start to glow,
don't have to be glowing bright. Plenty of heat will flow from the case head into the rest
of the case.
The next one in line gets heated by the flame flowing around the one you're heating,
so it goes pretty quick. Let them air cool and you're done.

Mannyca has several videos like that. I use his method to make 45 from 40 using 308 die
for swaging and 243 die for nose forming. Powdercoat negates the need for jackets,
thought I would never swage again but these are cool!

PS they feed well in the 1911, otherwise I use a cast round nose.

[Sasquatch-1]

Easy/cheap way to anneal cases for swaging: line them up on an old cookie sheet,
tray, etc. mouth down. Heat each case head with propane torch 'til it just starts to get red. Helps if you don't have strong light on them so you can see when they start to glow,
don't have to be glowing bright. Plenty of heat will flow from the case head into the rest
of the case.
The next one in line gets heated by the flame flowing around the one you're heating,
so it goes pretty quick. Let them air cool and you're done.

I tried this method years ago on the .40 cases. The flame from the torch kept knocking the cases over. I finally took an old 1/2 inch board and put about 20 framing nails through it and place the cases on the nails. Board makes it easy to dump the cases for cooling. If you use this method be careful...the nails do get hot and you can get branded when placing new cases on them.

[a.squibload]

I tried this method years ago on the .40 cases. The flame from the torch kept knocking the cases over. I finally took an old 1/2 inch board and put about 20 framing nails through it and place the cases on the nails. Board makes it easy to dump the cases for cooling. If you use this method be careful...the nails do get hot and you can get branded when placing new cases on them.

That sounds good. Yeah I let 'em sit there for a while.
One time the tray buckled from the heat and popped, most of the cases dumped over,
some went on the floor...

[Liberty1776]

I tried this method years ago on the .40 cases. The flame from the torch kept knocking the cases over. I finally took an old 1/2 inch board and put about 20 framing nails through it and place the cases on the nails. Board makes it easy to dump the cases for cooling. If you use this method be careful...the nails do get hot and you can get branded when placing new cases on them.

I'm going out to the garage and trying this right now. Excellent idea.

"I'm gettin' The Pig!"* (My air-powered framing nailer and a piece of plywood.)



* A favorite moment in the movie RED, which only old guys really enjoy...

Scene 1. https://youtu.be/RaxJMkkZEJc

Scene 2. https://youtu.be/Fh7rI3KRfw4

Scene 3. https://youtu.be/eXHdqulNiBs "Old Man my ass."

[Liberty1776]

That was easy!

Blasted 25 3-1/2" framing nails into a scrap of 1" plywood.

Set 25 .40 S&W spent dirty cases (with primers) on the nails.

Turned off the lights.

Heated to glowing red.

The nail heads got a tiny bit warm, so I elevated the board onto an aluminum pan, just to be safe. That also allowed the flame to be above the table saw I was working on, too. Nothing got hot but the brass.




Post-annealing. Brass looks great. No scale.

Cooled to touch in a couple of minutes.

Soft enough I could crush the mouths with my fingers.

Success! Thanks.

[Sasquatch-1]

Glad it worked out for you. I do dump mine in a pan of water after heating and every once in a while stick the board in water to cool off the nails.

PS Do make sure all the primers are spent. I kind of catches you by surprise when you heat one with a live primer and it ends up stuck in the ceiling.

[a.squibload]

I'm going out to the garage and trying this right now. Excellent idea.

"I'm gettin' The Pig!"* (My air-powered framing nailer and a piece of plywood.)



* A favorite moment in the movie RED, which only old guys really enjoy...

Scene 1. https://youtu.be/RaxJMkkZEJc

Scene 2. https://youtu.be/Fh7rI3KRfw4

Scene 3. https://youtu.be/eXHdqulNiBs "Old Man my ass."

Dang, I'll have to watch that one again!
I know I've seen it but can't remember what's goin on...

[Huvius]

Here is a thread on doing quite the same as you are.
I finally went with pouring the core which is very consistent and must anneal the brass to some extent.
I do think, however, that you could probably skip the annealing step for a .429” projectile.
Early on in my experience, I always annealed but found that it was unnecessary even when sizing down to .423”
As I mention though, now I pour my cores directly into the brass.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...ht-Wad-Swaging

[Liberty1776]

Here is a thread on doing quite the same as you are.
I finally went with pouring the core which is very consistent and must anneal the brass to some extent.
I do think, however, that you could probably skip the annealing step for a .429” projectile.
Early on in my experience, I always annealed but found that it was unnecessary even when sizing down to .423”
As I mention though, now I pour my cores directly into the brass.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...ht-Wad-Swaging

My only fear is wearing out my barrel(s). Just because I can force the brass to comply doesn't mean it's as soft as a copper jacket, right?

My first go I merely heated the .40S&W brass with a torch in a cast iron skillet. I seriously don't think I got any of them to glow red.

I easily swaged that batch into +/-240gr .44 Mag projectiles, and even test shot some. They seemed to work fine.

Then I worried that the brass was too hard -- not annealed into true softness -- so I retired that batch and started over.

With this annealing process, I swaged about 36 projectiles this afternoon (that's all the .40cal SWC lead cores I had left from before). Each swage step was hardly an effort at all. Barely felt the lead compress and brass form in the Mauser die while in the Rock Chucker.

I seem to recall it taking a bit more effort to form the bullets last time with the less-annealed brass.

Also, this time they sized exactly to .429" after going through the .429" Lee Push-Through Sizer.

MannyCA said they were supposed to spring back to .430".

But the Hodgdon data calls for a JSP bullet to be .429" so I'm feeling pretty good about this.

I forgot how easy and fast it is to make these, once you have the brass trimmed, deburred, annealed and tumbled; and the 175gr .401 slug cast using pure lead.

After that, it's simply a matter of lubing the bullet and brass, jamming the bullet into the brass (which bevels the rim into a boat tail); reversing the bullet in the same setup and swaging the lead front to form a soft point.

Then a quick pass through the .429 sizer and they're done.

All this may seem like a silly exercise, but my normal bullet suppliers simply do not have any 240 JSP bullets in stock, and if they did, they would be $0.32 each plus tax and shipping.

These bullets, being seriously jacketed, can be pushed to full .44 Mag velocities.

And after investing in the tools (Harbor Freight 2" mini-saw for trimming, a 7x57 Mauser die, which I found used, and a 175gr .40 cal Lee 2-cav bullet mold), the bullets are virtually free to manufacture -- I have lead and brass.



All that said, I think the idea of pouring hot lead into the brass would be an interesting experiment also.

How do you pour hot lead into a tiny shell safely and consistently? Doesn't it overfill and go all over the place? Do you hold the shells in something as you make the pour? Doesn't the lead shrink?

[Liberty1776]

Dang, I'll have to watch that one again!
I know I've seen it but can't remember what's goin on...

I own RED and RED2 on Blu-ray. Both are fun. Bruce Willis never disappoints. To me, a really good movie is one I like to watch again and again, even when I know how it ends.

I really enjoy watching Mary-Louise Parker's character Sarah grow from a timid and bored government paper pusher to a gun moll. Very funny.

[Sasquatch-1]

All that said, I think the idea of pouring hot lead into the brass would be an interesting experiment also.

How do you pour hot lead into a tiny shell safely and consistently? Doesn't it overfill and go all over the place? Do you hold the shells in something as you make the pour? Doesn't the lead shrink?

Trim your brass before annealing Place your core in the unannealed brass. Heat with torch until brass melts. This should anneal the brass and seat the core in one step. Hopefully your core will not be too big for the brass. If so weigh and load accordingly.

I don't use this method because I get a little anal about the weight and weigh every combination of core and jacket and add or remove lead to within a tenth of a grain of my target weight.

Also, if the range you go to has steel targets look around after shooting. You will find the range stars that people will start talking about when they find them.

[Liberty1776]

One more tool to add:

I ordered a CH4D Cannelure Tool from Buffalo Arms so I could roll a cannelure into the boolits. Probably arrive next week or so.

https://www.buffaloarms.com/bullet-c...l-4d12000.html





I'll report back on how well it works....