Home Swaged Jacketed Bullets

[454PB]

OK crew, I'm doing my part to keep new posts on this great board. I thought some of you may like to see pictures of some of the .224 caliber bullets I make using a set of Corbin dies. You may have heard of this type equipment, it utilizes spent 22 rimfire cases as jackets. The set includes a die to draw the rim portion out of the spent case, producing a jacket. The other dies are a core seater and point forming die. Corbin also sells moulds to cast your own cores. I tried the cast cores, and found it is not as accurate as cutting the cores from lead wire. They also sell a core cutter, but I made my own. I'm also posting a picture of the homemade ejector I built to push the jackets with core out of the die, which otherwise requires a hammer and tends to rattle things from the shelf above my bench.

The end result is not as pretty as the store bought ones, since they aren't polished, but they shoot as well as any store bought bullet I've used. I've fired them in my .223, .222 Remington, and 22/250 and have gotten some 5/8" groups in the 22/250.



The cores and jackets formed from fired 22 rimfire cases



Homemade core cutter, adjustable for weight



Homemade tool for ejecting the cores from the die, mounted on my old Rockchucker press.



A finished bullet sitting on the punch after ejection from the point forming die

[Toney]

I have wondered how good the bullets come out. Looks good!!!

[d-o-k]

Hey Ray speer started of doing the same thing & look where his company is now

They look really good ! Unfortunatley Swaging has never caught on over here so it's virtlily imposible to get the tooling needed

Dave

[kg42]

dok, dok, dok, ..... you get these kind of tool from the mail guy, not the store guy... don't you think it would take some lads out of your hair if they had to pick 22 brass and convert them into bullets... without involving gas, electricity, heat....
Corbin's site had detailed Howto's with pics some time ago: http://www.corbins.com/ and PB would certainly help.

kg

[454PB]

Wow!!! The entire kit for doing this is now $599. I paid a lot less.

[d-o-k]

PB you've gone & done it now ! You've sparked my intrest & I spent all last night at work thinking about about it & was going to ask for a link to the company! Thank you for that I might just have to start rolling my own .22Hornet & .223 bullets

Dave

[454PB]

I really enjoy making these homemade bullets, but I have to tell you that no one should get into this expecting to save money or shoot more. It's extremely time consuming and I figure an about 2 hours invested for each 100 to 150 bullets.

I'm retired now, so my time is my own and these projects give me something to do when it's -30 and the snow is ass deep to a tall indian. I find it satisfying to be independent of bullet suppliers and I know that this same bullet will be available to me for the rest of my life, and then my Son's life.

If you decide you want to take the plunge, I'll be glad to assist with any advise you need.

[kg42]

PB, do you have an idea about what was wrong with the core molds? I thought that the dies had a bleeding hole to adjust the core's weight...
Maybe your alloy?
These molds do look like awful contraptions though..., I can understand blaming them for everything

kg

[454PB]

No, there is no bleed hole. Any excess lead simply pushes upwards around the core seating punch as "sprue". It's a real PITA when that happens, since it has to be removed before forming the point. All settings are adjusted by changing the die/punch relationship. Once it's set, you don't have to mess with it again, until the weight (and thus core size) is changed.

There is the rub......cast cores vary enough in weight to screw up the settings. Cut cores are accurate within .1 to .2 grains. The core mould Corbin sells is Rube Goldberg at best, and really ungainly in use. Each of the four chambers in the mould has to be set with a threaded rod and locknuts. Pretty hard to do while the mould is hot. Also, one out of the four cores invariably sticks, so you are fighting it constantly and it's cooling while you do that.

With my home made core cutter, I have written down the distance between the stop and the cutting edge for each weight I use. I use a vernier caliper to adjust it as needed. I can chop 100 cores as fast as I can shove the wire through, maybe 5 minutes?

[kg42]

Thanks for the info PB. I regularly have thoughts about Corbin's stuff but the dependency on wire and/or jackets doesn't make sense for me in larger calibers...
the only problem with casting is the odd smell in shared houses...