I thought I understood what swaging wuz?

[Greenhorn44]

Some of the pictures that the members have posted of swaging have confused me. could someone explain. I must have mist this chapter. OOps

[runfiverun]

swaging is to shape under pressure.

[Country]

Some of the pictures that the members have posted of swaging have confused me. could someone explain. I must have mist this chapter. OOps

Not knowing what pictures you looked at makes it hard to reply.
There is many forms of swaging bullets with different types of dies and press combinations.
You need to pick a type of bullet you want to make and ask how to make that bullet. Then you get specific answers.

[Buckshot]

...........Swageing is basically cold forming a piece of lead via enough pressure to coax it to assume the shape of the cavity in the die. With the correct leverage it's very easy to do. Just like FL sizing a rifle case.



On the left is a core. It may be cast (as was this one) or they may be cut to length if you buy lead wire. Normally the next step is to squeeze the core in a core swage die. This die has a smallish hole in the side so the excess lead may extrude. This step brings the cores into very close weights, and compresses any internal voids.

The next step is to form the slug into a boolit, as on the right in the photo. Since there is no way for lead to escape in the 'Form' die, the previous core swaging is obviously important as manual swaging presses can produce enough leverage to destroy themselves. The above boolit is for paper patching.

The process for swaging jacketed bullets is similar except there may be 3 dies. The core swage, core seating, and then the form die. The core seating die is where the core is placed into the jacket and then they're both run into the die. The lead core is forced into intimate contact with the jacket, and will usually expand the jacket slightly. They finally go into the form die where the shape of the slug is formed.

If you think moulds can be expensive, price some swage dies Expense is the major reason guys with lathes (or good friends with lathes) will make their own.

.............Buckshot

[Country]

This is the kind of bullets I make

[Greenhorn44]

Dang thats very impressive. Sounds like it would be easier to swag than to cast.
Would it make it easier if you used a cast bullet to swag.

[Buckshot]

Dang thats very impressive. Sounds like it would be easier to swag than to cast.
Would it make it easier if you used a cast bullet to swag.

.............You can 'Bump up' a cast and lubricated grease grooved lead slug to a larger size, and you can also alter their shape besides simply making them fatter.



These slugs had hollow bases swaged in.



These were all swaged into sharp shouldered SWC's and also had a hollow base added.



This was 'bumped'. On the right is an as cast Raphine 580/580, which is a 580gr Minie' of .580" OD. To it's left is a view of the hollow base as cast. The skirt was a bit too thin to suit me, as I bought it for a longer range (heavier charges) slug. I also wanted it a bit larger at .583", so I made a swage die to make the changes.

The standing slug on the left is the swaged result. I'd had a bit too much lube on it so it's surface appears a bit rumpled, but it was still an excellent slug. To it's right is a view of the new hollow base. This picture was taken a couple years ago with a rather poor digital camera. However you can see the skirt is almost twice as thick. Hard to make out, but there is a step in the skirt 0.100" up from the base to make the skirt even heavier. Additionally the hollowbase is no longer as deep plus it has a flat vs a pointed top.

To the left of the left hand Minie' is a view of it's nose with a hollow point. This was formed by merely placing a couple washers under the ejector base to cause the ejector pin to ride up higher into the die cavity. When pressure is applied the lead flows around the raised up ejector pin to form the hollowpoint. Pressure is applied via the base punch which has the shape of the new hollowbase on it, so naturally the lead also confirms to it too.

..............Buckshot