Well, maybe a few of the things I used are not so common. Here's what I used:
1. 20-ton hydraulic press
2. Doming block set from Harbor Freight (p/n 93539, about $40)
3. Scrap piece of 1018 steel, about 2"x4", 5/8" thick.
4. Punch from a Lee 0.452 sizing die. If I had used a thinner piece of scrap this wouldn't have been needed.
5. 29/64" chucking reamer from http://www.jtsmach.com
6. 7/16" HSS drill bit. Can buy this anywhere.
7. Rubber mallet. The swaged bullet will not want to pop out easily.
Procedure:
1. Drill a 7/16" hole in the 1018 scrap.
2. Ream it to 29/64".
3. Trim a 40 S&W brass casing, as-is, to anywhere from 0.5" (what I used) to perhaps 0.7"
4. Get a cast lead 38cal bullet. I used a 180gr and put it in the brass
5. Put the doming block on the press shelf and locate the 11.5mm hole under the ram
6. Place the reamed hole over the doming block hole.
7. Put the cast lead bullet and trimmed brass in the reamed hole, with the lead facing down. It's actually easier to do this holding the scrap.
8. Line up the Lee sizer punch over what will be the 40S&W case head.
9. Bring the ram down, slowly. Make sure nothing starts to bind!!!
10. Once you see the ram no longer moving, the pressure/forces will be going up exponentially. Take it slow. You can always go back and hit it harder if need be.
11. Withdraw the ram about a quarter inch. Just enough to clear the parts away.
12. Use a rubber mallet and the Lee punch to drive the newly formed projectile out.
The reamed hole of 29/64 is 0.453" in decimal. The bullet I just made came out at 0.452", because the metal has some amount of spring back. When I had used my CH4D 44cal #101 die set to make 44cal from 40S&W, they always came out kind of egg shaped. There's only so much a reloading press can do, even the RCBS Ammomaster. With a 20-ton press, the amount of force is overkill AND it can be delivered full-stroke. The reloading press gets its full mechanical advantage as it's about to cam over.
In the future, I plan on making a die that will allow the press to compress 4 or 6 or 8 at a time. Instead of the use of the doming block, I will use a 1/2" ball end mill that descends into the metal so that a partial hemispherical hole of 0.451" is made. There's lots of different directions this can go in...
The particular doming hole I used is the one in the back, right.