44 swage die repair project

[yankee_81]

I've been interested in swaging for many years, found a deal on a die needing repair on ebay and now I officially own my first swageing die. The previous owner tried to weld (poorly) to fix a broken top punch. Everything else was in good shape and came with two bottom punches, one for a SWC HP and one for a wadcutter with a bleed hole.



had a piece of 1/2" O-1 drill rod that was perfect for this project. Spent a long time whittling down the end that goes through the cap, did the unusual shallow threading to match the original, and then moved on to the business end, where dimensions became a little more critical.



original was.4275, I took the new one to .428 for a little tighter fit.





parted it off and then faced and polished the end



It all went back together well and now I just have to cut some 40 brass down to size and see how it works.





side note, does anyone recognize who the maker of this die might be? there are zero markings on it, but appears to be professionally made and hard chromed so I'm doubtful it was a home shop creation.

[rolltide999]

Great job. I could send you some work if you are looking for any. As to maker, I am at a loss. It is in the typical form of a reloading press die, but I have never seen one like it. It does not appear to be Herters, CH, Corbins, BTS. The other folks that make reloading press swaging dies are mostly for benchrest shooters, so I would not think any of them would have made one in 44 cal. Nice looking little die though.

As far as cutting down the forty brass, it would appear as though you have a lead bullet making die, not a jacketed bullet making die. If you try to press a jacket into that SWC shape, it will just crush the jacket. You can make half jacket bullets or 3/4 jacket bullets with the die.

What you can do is:

1. Use the WC punch to press a lead core into the cut down case/jacket. **** You must leave lead exposed above the mouth of the case/jacket or again you will just crush the case.*****

2. Now mount the WC bullet in a shell holder that fits and press it halfway into a bullet resizing die smaller than the shoulder base formed by your SWC punch (where the taper starts). Then withdraw the half resized bullet.

3. Now insert this half resized into the die base up, and form the SWC profile with the appropriate punch CAREFULLY without pushing it far enough into the die to crush the case.

That is a lot of work. but you can make jacketed SWC bullets that way CAREFULLY, in a lead bullet die.

Otherwise just use the WC punch to make your lead core of uniform weight, then the SWC punch to form the lead bullet with no jacket.

[jdfoxinc]

Im making half jacked swc. 45 bullets by cutting 40 S&W down to .444" then expanding the mouth to .451+-. Then running the case with core into my BT Sniper point forming die. One use of the die. Cutting down the brass is time consuming.

[Ajax111]

I believe that is a C and H 105 swaging die.
The one I had resembled that one. I never spent much time with it.