Decided to do some test runs with my new to me .375 dies

[DsGrouse]

40 sw brass drawn into .375 jackets. Seated with 186 grain cores and swaged into 250ish grain .375 bullets.

The issue is due to the variance in jacket weight, as it is mixed 40SW brass.

I've got other steps to incorporate. IE. Trimming all the drawn brass. Then, facing the finished bullets/ trim to length.

[jdfoxinc]

How many steps to draw them down?

[GhostHawk]

Those look nice!

[sukivel]

Which dies are you using? What weights?


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[DsGrouse]

From 40?

I did about 50, 40SW to 44 mag jackets, but it seemed pointless.

The rest were straight from 40SW to .375 jacket. It's a two-stage drawdown.

The first stage gets the brass about 60% of the way through the die. The second stage uses an extension bar to push the jacket the rest of the way through the drawdown die.

You can also use trimmed 556 brass.

I'll need to square up my jackets in a trim jig and finish the bullets' faces to the same overall length in the next batch.

That should even out most of the irregularities.

[DsGrouse]

RCE dies. Bullet weights are 250ish. I was aiming for 255, but 250ish is what they worked out to be.

[DsGrouse]

I dropped the core weight down to 170 grains. With the drawn-down 40sw jacket, it brings them to about 240 grains. I've got a new collet and 4 blade cutter on the way. I'll use it to square up the tips. I tried a case trimmer cutter, but with the center hole it didn't leave a clean cut.

[Huvius]

That's quite a squeeze!
I took 40S&W down to .416" and .410" before but no smaller.
Spent 223s just work so well I never considered anything else for making .375s
What is the conventional wisdom on the thickness of the remaining rim? When does it become a worry as far as stressing the rifling? The boolits could be boat-tailed which would remove the thickened rim but that's a lot more work.

[DsGrouse]

I used RCE's jacket makers. To be honest, it wasn't that difficult of a squeeze, not once I had the die set up correctly. I'm sitting on 20k of 40sw brass. Between .375, .40, and .430 I've plenty of calibers to make use of it for bullets. It's also quite a bit less work than 223/556 brass. I don't have to cut it and then trim it down. I've a die coming to make skives in the jacket. Right now I'm leaning to 171-grain core and 69-ish grain jacket for a 240-ish-grain bullet. Once I've done a few more, I'll try for a more consistent lead tip bullet at around 255 grains.

I also want to try this with some 10mm brass. I suspect I'll be able to swage well into the 270 grain area. As it stands, most of the 40SW brass drawn into 0.375 jackets ended up being 0.942 in length. 10mm is 0.992... I'm excited to see what it might be when drawn down. I need to find a supply of dirty 10mm to try before dropping some coin on range brass.

[reed1911]

Don't forget the whole 9mm series works as .375's too.

[DsGrouse]

You know, I don't know why I didn't think of that. Maybe because I'd assigned all of my .380,9mm, 38super to 357 swaging.... That opens up quite a bit of weight options for me with out trimming to an excessive degree.

On a side note, my Henry Big boy 30-30 is a lot of fun with a can on....

I've got 5.7 brass for its jackets.

[luke777]

Really interesting. I'm building a new rifle in 375WSM and unfortunately I didn't do my homework regarding bullets. I assumed that I could still get the Hornady 225gn Interlock that I loved so much in the past. Nope... Discontinued.. A non-bonded cup and core bullet is excellent for medium sized game in this calibre. Seems nobody makes a similar bullet any more... Started daydreaming about what it would take to make my own... Here I am back on the best forum out there. Being in Australia, options are often very limited.

[DsGrouse]

I don't know how common 40sw brass would be in Australia. But as mentioned, 40sw isn't the only brass you can use.

[luke777]

Heaps here. Our police force and several other armed government agencies run 40 cal Glocks as standard so there's usually a lot of range fodder available if you look around. But setting up with press and dies will be a big investment.

[jdfoxinc]

For making .308 bullets i.plan on using lee push through dies to draw down. .310 and .308. 2 c s5eps. Plus i.hage 7.63x25, 7.63x39, and 7.62x54r.

[DsGrouse]

That is it. Swaging, at least for me, has to fit what and how you want to shoot. Here, .375 jacketed bullets run .90 cents for seconds to 3.00 bucks for first quality each.

That's insane. I paid three cents per 40SW brass. The lead I'm using works out to about 18 to 20 cents for 170 grains of lead. That puts me 21 to 23 Per bullet.

Yeah, that's more than casting, but it's cheap enough to make doing it worth my time.

So, from that 90 cents to 23 cents, I save 67 cents.

For things like making 223, 308, or 6.5 creed more bullets, I am not sure the cost-benefit is there. But the cost of the press split across several calibers and swaging dies gets close. Well, for me, I shoot heavy subsonic bullets, for the most part, things that are close to 90 cents to 2 bucks or more.

How fast can you make bullets? 100 or so good examples in an evening would be a fair assessment. More if you do ypur die set up and jacket prep on another day.

[luke777]

Very very interesting. There happens to be a local engineering shop that makes extremely high quality swaging presses aimed at the international benchrest and F class market. They are called "Armaments By Design" and I'm a 15 minute drive from the factory in little old Cairns Queensland Australia. Only issue is that they are top-end quality and (justifiably) priced accordingly.
There'd be no savings but I'd be self sufficient and I can purchase an adapter kit that turns the press into an extremely high quality single stage press... It'd be worth more than my car though.. ��

[DsGrouse]

I did the math earlier thismorning.

The cost of my set up is 1147, which wit a 67 cent savings puts payback at 1712 bullets made.

If i go with the first quality bullet at 1.22 per bullet my savings is even more.

For what it is worth, i've made 200+ so far.

[luke777]

That's excellent.
You're doing great work there!

[rolltide999]

@dsgrouse Great work on the 375's. In time you will be able to compare cost savings to the first quality bullets because you will be able to make as good or better quality as anyone. I make big bore bullets up to 510 caliber and save a LOT compared to factory also. Most of my jackets for hunting bullets are used brass, except match quality bullets for ELR I use premium quality jackets. The most expensive jacket is 87 cents for match quality 50bmg, but at $3.20 for factory bullets, I am still saving quite a bit. I use 223 brass for my 375's (also 366, 358, 338) I use 5.7 brass for 312 on down.

@huvius, Any thickness of remaining rim will not stress rifling nearly as much as a monometal bullet. They are all good. Boat tailing used brass bullet jackets is likely be too difficult for a hand press, and likely to crack the die in a hydraulic press. Those dies are meant to BT a .015 to .035 bullet jacket full of lead, not a solid brass case head. I would not try it in my dies.

@luke777, Those Armament presses are great for swaging small caliber benchrest bullets and for reloading super accurate BR rounds, for which the presses are designed. They are essentially a very heavy duty aluminum frame, VERY precise reloading press and 375 is the upper limit for swaging dies. The larger the caliber, the more force required for swaging.