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Does this seem like a perfectly good waste of 9mm brass?


Chills1994

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For you 'youngsters' out there, this is basically how Speer started out. During WWII, brass and copper were in short supply, as were bullets. Vernon Speer started taking spent .22 cartridges, inserting a hunk of lead and swaging out bullets. 20 years from now, who knows, you may be buying bullets from this guy.

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He could have just as easily sold the 9mm brass somewhere and then used that money to buy for real commerically available .40 S and W bullets...or at least buy a .40 cal mould to start casting his own .40 pro-jo's...

What say you?

A surprising number of shooters are allergic to this line of thinking. As a group we tend to suffer from endowment bias, that is we overvalue that which we already have. This results in all manner of sloppy accounting, the best example of which is counting brass or lead that you got from a buddy at "free", rather than at what you could have sold it for.

That said, his finished product does look pretty good, and if you discount the time spent making them he may still be coming out ahead. I applaud the DIY spirit but I'll stick to buying commercial bullets.

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Ill give him 2 points for creativity but take away 3 for confusing the hell outta me and making things waaaaaaay too hard for to comprehend at the moment, lol. -1 for him all together, haha. I think ill just stick to buying whatever bullets i want to shoot and putting them in cases filled with powder :)

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RCBS = Rock Chuck Bullet Swage

It's how they got going way back when...

and it's not that bad of an idea really.. If you have the know how...

If you want to purchase your own, well, MG makes em just for you.

Since I've started casting.. well, this would definitely be something to do with all that brass berdan stuff not to mention all that Federal NT brass that everyone loves.. in addition to all that brass we toss out made by amerc. One man's trash is another man's treasure.. If they have a way to turn trash into treasure, who are we to make fun?

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Expansion from a "brass jacketed bullet".

http://s636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BT...nt=mushroom.jpg

For those that have not figured out what he is doing yet, he is taking a piece of cast lead, putting it in a 9mm case, and swagging the brass around it to form a brass jacketed bullet. Because of the rim of the swagged case it would have a horrible BC, not be worth anything for accurate shooting at any distance, but it looks like it holds together well.

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Because of the rim of the swagged case it would have a horrible BC, not be worth anything for accurate shooting at any distance,

Well.. um.. at what distance do we usually shoot at? at most 25 yards? In most cases under 15 yards? I hardly think it will matter all that much at common handgun distances. Heck we have people shooting soup cans at 50 yards (full wadcutters) and they are quite accurate at 700 fps.

Sometimes the lead is not cast but is cut from lead wire just a hair under the size of the case that you are putting it into.

Some of the other conversions people do:

.25 acp -> 380 or 9mm

32 acp -> 9mm

9mm -> 40 S&W

223 Rem -> Various rifle calibers above .35 cal

.30 carbine -> Various rifle calibers above .308

.22 lr -> .224 and .243 cal bullets

.22 magnum -> Longer .224 cal bullets (over 55 gr) and .243 cal heavier bullets

40 S&W -> 41 and 44 magnum

45 acp -> 480 ruger and 475 Linbaugh

With the same tooling you can turn copper tubing into copper jackets.. or you can buy the J4 jackets and make your own match kings to any weight you want. Likely how Berger, Sierra, and various other now popular rifle bullet makers had their start.

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Unless, in swaging them the whole 9mm case gets fatter.

Meh... :mellow:

depends on the swaging dies....also the heat/pressure generated under the press would "bond" the core, but this is a horrible waste of time...also what if he get's lots of brass that have vastly different specs. (like most do)....I sure as hell wouldn't run these through any gun I cared about....come to think of it, I wouldn't let one single person I know near them....DANGER!!! DANGER!!!

I have often wondered about swaging...by the time you add up the cost of the lead wire the jacket, the press and dies, plus all of the other little tools you need to make a bullet, well you could have bought a truck full of high quality jacketed projectiles....

the only up-side of swaging on a Corbin, is that you can make damn near any kind of bullet you could imagine....AND use some pretty exotic materials as jacket/insert....there is a guy on you tube that does .223 using .22lr cases, but then he inserts a airsoft projectile in the hollowed out tip....pretty much making an "inter-bond" "v-max"....only thing is I bet it costs double what Hornady sells it for...also the sheer amount of time it takes....1 bullet every 20 to 30 seconds....I'll pass for now...

I did, however, dig the guys hair....I bet he cleans up real purrrty'

:rolleyes:

Edited by AriM
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going back a few years, there used to be a bulletsmiths.com swaging forum. I stumbled upon it at the time. Man, how I wish I would have right clicked saved all those pics posted on that forum. :angry2:

The forums has since gone poof! Gone... not on the internet anymore.

There is one guy over on the cast boolits fourm who makes gas checks (aka "half jackets"), IIRC for his "thutty-thutty rifle", out of the Bud Lite Aluminum bottles.

I think it would be funny as heck to see a whole bullet jacket made out a Bud Lite "lable".

Oh...yeah...I have seen the set ups involving the .22LR cases, to turn those into .223 bullets.

I think one of the drawbacks to swaging is finding an economical source for the lead wire and the jacketing material.

ETA: I saved an article from the Shooting Times periodical on how to do the .22LR to .223 bullet thing. The one catch is that if you have a .22LR (or wherever you are getting your .22LR brass from) that puts a really good firing pin strike on the rim, that is where a hole will develop when the case gets drawn out into a "cup". The guy who wrote the article did the math and figured that you would have to make 5,000 bullets to break even. This was a few years back...so who knows...that number might have changed.

Edited by Chills1994
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going back a few years, there used to be a bulletsmiths.com swaging forum. I stumbled upon it at the time. Man, how I wish I would have right clicked saved all those pics posted on that forum. :angry2:

The forums has since gone poof! Gone... not on the internet anymore.

There is one guy over on the cast boolits fourm who makes gas checks (aka "half jackets"), IIRC for his "thutty-thutty rifle", out of the Bud Lite Aluminum bottles.

I think it would be funny as heck to see a whole bullet jacket made out a Bud Lite "lable".

Oh...yeah...I have seen the set ups involving the .22LR cases, to turn those into .223 bullets.

I think one of the drawbacks to swaging is finding an economical source for the lead wire and the jacketing material.

you can draw your own wire out...the machine isn't that expensive....also corbin offers core mold...so you can cast a core and then work from there....it's still just too expensive....BUT, there is one cool thing...some folks (working for the DOD) are making projectiles out of ceramic powders....the hydraulic corbin press generates enough pressure to form the ceramic composite into a solid...as hard as lead...look-up "green bullet project"....I bet there is also mention of it on the Corbin website....I would love to have a press from them, but have you seen the prices??!!!! Also it would be easy to find scrap materials for jackets....I bet if you really did homework and some digging, you could produce swaged bullets for pennies, BUT there is still all the time involved...no way around that...each bullet requires minimum 2 steps, and minimum 2 dies...you "can" use some swage dies in standard presses...I bet you could modify a progressive to do the easy steps...but turning the bullet over for stage 2 or 3 would be the problem....you could generate enough force using Dillon's new 50BMG progressive...but at the end of the day....is it all worth it....I know I know....it's cool....and most of us here do things that are hardly a good return on time invested, but there is a line right??

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Oh...don't get me wrong... I think it is great too that he came up with that, but...

in some respects, it is like stepping over a dollar to get a dime...or...

penny wise and pound foolish

I have an RCBS single stage press that I am not using...I would love to figure out how to take copper flashing and lead wire or a cast lead core, and stamp out my own jackets...especially for expensive rifle bullets like something in the .308 .

But, really, probably, in the long run... it will serve just as a distraction from dry firing and practice and working out. I would like to get out of B class one of these days. And it wouldn't hurt for me to lose anywhere from 40 to 60 pounds.

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I find it...interesting...to see the comments on the guys size and hair. For one, I don't see many guys at matches that could get work selling underwear or shaving products. Second, I didn't realize y'all looked at that type of thing so closely. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Whatever lets you 'load and make ready'...I guess.

:roflol:

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I find it...interesting...to see the comments on the guys size and hair. For one, I don't see many guys at matches that could get work selling underwear or shaving products. Second, I didn't realize y'all looked at that type of thing so closely. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Whatever lets you 'load and make ready'...I guess.

:roflol:

Hey, I know that our friend in the video sure does it for me....especially when he worked up a sweat towards the end....when he found "his rhythm".... :wub:

to be serious, it's great that he is doing something unique....but it's really not safe....also the amount of money saved over jacketed projectiles is nil...it's totally cool, but futile and pointless (unless he enjoys it, then more power to him).....did you look at his other pictures? there is one that really disturbs me....he has a skinned elk or deer up and is showing the destruction of the projectile....and the caption is "hamberger" (yes that is hamburger but spelled incorrectly).....I think that bothers me a little bit....that and the use of "sniper" in the name.....but he has some pretty darn cool guns on the last photobucket page....I wish the cx4 was still legal here in cali....they have one at my range, and it is one sweet gun....wish I could own one....

either way more power to the guy....not knocking him (well maybe a bit)....

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FWIW...

- he is using ~$145 worth of dies (not Corbin) *maybe just $90 for making 40cal*

- he gets pure lead for free, or close to it, it seems

- he has a cheap brass source "All the brass I could ever need to make or reload bullets with I have obtained from trading custom bullets."

- Lee pot & 6 cavity mold (still inexpensive)

- accuracy seems to meet his needs

- he weighs the brass (and notes a variance in brass of up to 10g). I think he sorts.

For those the might want to read the actual threads:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=70121

http://www.hipointfirearmsforums.com/Forum...ic,25448.0.html

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I say it is completely safe if he at least case gauges the ammo and checks them for OAL...and he started at the very bottom of charge weights for powders.

I know some of the Berry's plated bullets that I have taken my calipers to have measured a thou or two under what they should be.

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Oh...don't get me wrong... I think it is great too that he came up with that, but...

in some respects, it is like stepping over a dollar to get a dime...or...

penny wise and pound foolish

I have an RCBS single stage press that I am not using...I would love to figure out how to take copper flashing and lead wire or a cast lead core, and stamp out my own jackets...especially for expensive rifle bullets like something in the .308 .

But, really, probably, in the long run... it will serve just as a distraction from dry firing and practice and working out. I would like to get out of B class one of these days. And it wouldn't hurt for me to lose anywhere from 40 to 60 pounds.

read my post earlier....corbin sells core molds for casting cores....then all you would need would be 2 dies....one to form the jacket and one to finish the projectile....I am just not sure the RCBS will last very long using it that way....also it might torque out a bit, and give you less than ideal results (usable I am sure).....the corbin presses are super heavy duty....and align on 3 axis.....they are really the ultimate single stage....the only thing I can think of that would be close would me a forster/buffalo co-ax

I bet you could go to the scrap yard and find some old oven hoods......or other stamped thin sheet metal....I still don't see the point though....gas checks are damn near free and I see no problem with bare hard cast lead....if anything I would prefer to shoot lead....I know my barrel wasn't cheap....and I am in no hurry to fit a new one....so no jacketed for me....

P.S. most of the "black bullets" are swaged.......I have been thinking about casting lead cores and simply using a finishing gun (detail sprayer) to coat them with a moly/lube....I am sure that's how all the other guys do it...

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