Hi,
I just starting out in bullet swaging, making .224 bullets from .22lr brass and cast lead cores. I am targeting a 55 grain bullet. My first few batches came out with bullet tips of various shapes and sizes. Using 45 grain lead cores, some of the bullet tips had lead coming out, some had lead just below the tip, and some had lead well below the tip. Obviously, this is the result of using derimmed .22lr brass for bullet jackets, as .22lr brass is not uniform in length, even when sorted by headstamp. Furthermore, derimmed .22lr brass is stretched to different lengths, depending on the derimming tools that were used.
To illustrate this, I derimmed some CCI .22lr brass with various combinations of presses and dies. I used a Corbin S-Press with Corbin dies, a Walnut Hill-2 press with RCE dies, a Rock Chucker reloading press with Blackmon's die, and a Rock Chucker reloading press with a die I bought off of ebay. Both the Blackmon die and the ebay die were difficult to use with the Rock Chucker, so I put them in the Walnut Hill-2 press after several jackets were made in order to see if the press affected the jacket length (it didn't). I derimmed approximately 20-some cases in each die. The results are below:
(Note: All 22lr brass used was CCI 22lr brass)
Corbin S-Press (http://www.corbins.com/csp-1.htm)
Corbin Rimfire Jacket Maker (https://www.swagedies.com/mm5/mercha..._Code=SDRAWDIE)
0.701" 1
0.704" 3
0.706" 1
0.707" 1
0.709" 2
0.710" 2
0.712" 3
0.713" 4
0.714" 3
0.715" 3
0.716" 4
0.717" 1
0.718" 1
0.721" 1
RCE Walnut Hill-2 Press (https://www.rceco.com/catalog)
RCE 22LR to 224 Jacket Maker (https://www.rceco.com/accessory-dies)
0.679" 2
0.682" 2
0.684" 3
0.685" 4
0.686" 5
0.687" 2
0.688" 1
0.689" 1
0.691" 1
RCBS Rockchucker Supreme Press (https://www.rcbs.com/presses/single-...s/16-9356.html)
Bullet Swaging Supply (Blackmon) "Die to make 22 R.F Hulls into 22 jackets" (https://www.bulletswagingsupply.com/...rice-sheet.pdf)
0.683" 1
0.689" 1
0.690" 1
0.691" 3
0.693" 1
RCE Walnut Hill-2 Press (https://www.rceco.com/catalog)
Bullet Swaging Supply (Blackmon) "Die to make 22 R.F Hulls into 22 jackets" (https://www.bulletswagingsupply.com/...rice-sheet.pdf)
0.681" 1
0.682" 2
0.683" 3
0.684" 2
0.685" 2
0.686" 5
0.687" 2
0.688" 2
0.690" 1
RCBS Rockchucker Supreme Press (https://www.rcbs.com/presses/single-...s/16-9356.html)
Ebay "22 cal bullet jackets from spent 22lr cases, complete derim swaging die 22 Cal"
0.685" 1
0.677" 1
RCE Walnut Hill-2 Press (https://www.rceco.com/catalog)
Ebay "22 cal bullet jackets from spent 22lr cases, complete derim swaging die 22 Cal"
0.679" 1
0.686" 2
0.687" 4
0.688" 4
0.689" 3
0.690" 1
0.691" 1
0.692" 1
As you can see, the jacket lengths are all over the place, which affects bullet tipping quite a bit. Here's a picture of the longest derimmed jacket next to the shortest:
According to the above results, only Dave Corbin's tools (http://www.corbins.com) can make jackets of the proper length for .224 55 grain bullets (assuming a jacket length of 0.705"). The other toolsets can only make jackets of less than 0.700" in length. That being said, this isn't a problem if you're going to make bullets lighter than 55 grains. For me, I'll be shooting these in a 1:8 barrel and want as heavy a bullet as possible.
My next steps are to draw 0.705+" jackets and trim them all to the same length. Afterwards, I will sort the equal length jackets by weight and use lead cores also sorted by weight. I hope that this will result in .224 bullets that are uniform in both appearance and weight.
If I am able to make consistent .224 55 grain bullets this way, I will move on to heavier bullets using lead tips. That's the plan, anyway. I thought I would share the results above in case anyone else was in the same boat, trying to get their "basement bullets" as uniform as possible.
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Originally Posted by Alex ZP
