••making bullets from brass cases••?

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Gonna throw this out there(and then duck for cover :D).
I have access to some 40 s&w cases, which after they have been fired measure around .452 in diameter. Pretty good for 45 colt.
What if i filled the case with melted lead, let harden, then used these inverted(so the base with fired primer is now the front of the bullet) for a wadcutter? I could crimp right under the case head.
 
My SWAG.... IF I did it, I would prolly have to get another gun.

just my $0.02
Dan
 
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It's possible. There's a subforum on castboolit's.com dedicated to the practice. You need a heavy duty press and the dies to form the bullets are pretty expensive.

I believe the most common application involves using the base of the spent case as the base of the bullet, filling the bullet with lead and then using a swagging die to form the nose of the bullet. I've never heard of using the bottom of the spent case as the front of the bullet in a wadcutter fashion but it might be possible. One of the problems you run into is that the insides of cases are tapered and the lead will fall out if it is not bonded correctly.

The dies to form the brass into workable bullets aren't cheap. $200 to $300 per die and many applications require multiple dies.

The Swagging forum over there has TONS of info. Even if you have no interest in the practice it is amazing to see the tools some people have devised.

You can form 9mm into 40 S&W, 40 into 44 Mag bullets, 40 into 45 bullets, and a common one is to swag 22lr cases into .223 jackets.

I've never tried any of it. Honestly, casting bullets and powder coating them gets you pretty darn close to limit of any handgun rounds and even most rifle rounds.
 
I've never tried any of it. Honestly, casting bullets and powder coating them gets you pretty darn close to limit of any handgun rounds and even most rifle rounds.

This. I would add that even has checked lead bullets with adequate lube will get you pretty darned far into magnum/high powered rifle territory.
 
For the record: fired .22 Rimfire cases have also been used to make .22 cal. centerfire bullets. Fred Huntington, founder of RC BS, began his business by making dies for swaging bullets and sold lots of dies for making .22 bullets from .22 RF cases, especially during wartime when bullets were hard to get. RCBS, in fact stands for "Rock Chuck Bullet Swage." Needing a stronger, more powerful press for making bullets, Huntington designed and made his own press, which is how he got into the reloading bussiness and became successful. Attached are photos of early RCBS bullet swaging dies and one of his first ever presses, with bullet making die in place. RC3.JPG RC4.JPG rc2.JPG
 
And also how Vernon Speer got his start.

Blue68f100,

I have two Hollywood Seniors, the short one, and the tall one in the pictures. The handle on this tall one is 20" long, and I've added a cue ball to the end to get more leverage.

I use .32 acp and .380 acp brass to make .357" caliber bullets, 9x19 brass to make .400" and .410" caliber bullets, and .40 S&W brass to make .429" caliber bullets. It's not hard to do, but you need a way to fully anneal the brass to make it soft enough to swage it into bullet form and bump up the bases. I use a ceramics kiln for this purpose:

SwagingandMisc020.jpg

I insert the cores into the brass prior to annealing, and the result is the cores are firmly bonded to the jackets. After bringing them up to 1,125 Degrees F, I let them heat soak overnight inside the kiln, and they will still be over 250 Degrees F 12 hours later. This is what they look like after the annealing:

SwagingandMisc022.jpg

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
the Black Spot,

They aren't the right diameter as they come out of the kiln. They also have to be cleaned in citric acid to remove the debris the annealing leaves on the brass, and even though the cores are now bonded, they haven't been seated to make them uniform.

Once the cores are seated uniformly, then they're run into the swaging die and bumped up to the proper diameter and the noses formed. I also run them through a notching die to give them the "XTP look" when they're finished. The bullets in the pictures are .40 S&W brass that are going to end up as .44 Magnum bullets, so they're going to get swaged in my .429" point forming die that is in the Hollywood press in the first pictures.

What you're proposing was actually done by the Viet Cong. The story I read said they would take fired .32 acp brass, fill it with molten lead and then load them base forward in 9x19 brass. These were fired single shot in captured Browning HP handguns, and other 9x19 caliber handguns they may have had. The story didn't say how well they worked, only that they fired.

One thing about shooting bullets made from fired brass casings is, you end up with a bullet that is longer for it's weight than a bullet made from a regular jacket. This is due to the base of the case, which is solid brass. Brass being lighter than lead results in the longer bullet. This in turn results in reduced volume in the case, which will increase pressure if the powder charge isn't reduced for the weight of the bullet. For data, I normally use starting load data for the next heavier bullet as a starting point and then work up my load from there.

For instance, my .357" diameter bullets come out at 140 grains, so I start with loading data for 158 gr. bullets. Once I've found the load that doesn't result in too much pressure, and is accurate, then I've found my data for that bullet.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
I recently bought swaging dies from "BTSNIPER", I now am capable of making 40 S&W bullets from 9mm cases and .224 from spent 22lr cases. I'm saving for additional die sets. The process isn't fast but different weight bullets are easily made. The dies are not cheap but I now can make 224 bullets for less than 1 cent each.
 
Fascinating, Fred. Sounds like a lot of work, though. Is there a reason you do this over casting lead? I mean, other than the whole hoobyist thing of "because I can/wanted to" that tends to grip all of us here...
 
Fascinating, Fred. Sounds like a lot of work, though. Is there a reason you do this over casting lead? I mean, other than the whole hoobyist thing of "because I can/wanted to" that tends to grip all of us here...

I do cast bullets, lots of them. I have a Master Caster and a commercial casting machine (Magma Bullet Master Mark 6), plus 8 Star Sizers and a Magma Lube Master machine. The bullet swaging is just something that's fun to do. At the SHOT Show a couple of years ago, I handed a couple of my cartridge case bullets to two of the Sierra Bullets reps and said, "I betcha never made a bullet like that". We had a good discussion about the process and they even admitted they liked them. They were also surprised that I was able to bond the cores without the use of flux, which is hard on swaging dies due to the acid. It's just something that's fun to do, but I have added a used Corbin CSP-1 swaging press to my inventory. It's really no faster than my old Hollywood press, but it's built for the purpose. Both develop about the same amount of pressure, but I like to use the proper tool for the job.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
Nothing wrong with carrying out a hobby to its fullest extent. I suppose the logical end might be mining lead. I haven't gotten that far in (yet). The swaged jacketed bullets are really neat.

Have you shot them at game and/or gelatin to see how well the cores stay attached to the jackets?
 
Can't answer for Fred, but heavy jacketed large diameter rifle bullets are expensive.

One of my friends was working with a .45 double rifle that really
did not like (or regulate) lead bullets at any velocity.

So the first mold he built used an annealed .45 auto case that he had swaged to .458 in a die he made
from a standard small caliber RCBS die.
Annealed and lubricated cases are pushed through base first.
The heated case (taken from a glowing hot plate) is placed into the mold and then poured.
That is the bullet - 570 grs. - on the right. 458 bullets 1.jpg

For the bullet on the left - 550 grs., he made another mold with an adjustable stop for the .45 auto case at the bottom of the mold
so that he could vary the weight of the bullet and change the nose design to put the weight further to the rear.

He only works with one brand of brass and weighs them beforehand (and after casting) to obtain
' bear stopping' - his words - accuracy at 100 yds.

I have no doubt that Fred's set up will produce a more consistent bullet, but this is
just showing there is more than one way to skin the cat.

.P.S. My friend busted his kinetic bullet puller trying to get one of the lead to move from the case.

JT
 
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I'd dearly love to get into swaging, but the startup costs are just too much. But I asked on the Castboolits forum for some samples and some guys were kind enough to send me several, Fred may have been one of them. But they are quite cool and very impressive! If it wasn't so costly to start up I'd be all over it.
 
brewer12345 wrote:
I suppose the logical end might be mining lead.

Easier than mining lead would be to purchase tailings from refinery or recycling operations and then extract the lead from it. The problem (as if there aren't actually many problems) is that the tailings are considered hazardous waste so you have to deal with the certifications, recordkeeping and regulatory compliance.
 
I'd dearly love to get into swaging, but the startup costs are just too much. ... But they are quite cool and very impressive! If it wasn't so costly to start up I'd be all over it.

Yea, I'd love to try out swaging bullets. While the cost is not as much a stumbling block for me these days as in the past. The availability of recyclable components is a stumbling block, though.

I do not have a source of cheap (aka free) fired cases for the jackets and I do not shoot much 22 RF so I'd be using good reloading components for alternate purposes.

But, the upside is I get to shoot at home out back.:)

Maybe someday I'll bite the bullet and add it to my reloading set up. It is cool what ReloaderFred can make.
 
Jeeze I'm to lazy to even cast my own. I'm just finally getting enough guns that I could load cast for to make it appealing.
 
Yea, I'd love to try out swaging bullets. While the cost is not as much a stumbling block for me these days as in the past. The availability of recyclable components is a stumbling block, though.

I do not have a source of cheap (aka free) fired cases for the jackets and I do not shoot much 22 RF so I'd be using good reloading components for alternate purposes.

But, the upside is I get to shoot at home out back.:)

Maybe someday I'll bite the bullet and add it to my reloading set up. It is cool what ReloaderFred can make.

I'm a member of an awesome gun club, and I can usually pick up brass until I can't stand it anymore. Always come home with scads of it. Have a solid 15 gallons of 9mm brass, and nearly 15 gallons of .223 also. Plus lots of .40, .45acp, .380, 10mm, .30-06, .270, .243, .300WinMag, 7mmRemMag, .308, .300BO, and on and on. Some I use, some I sell, some I just give away.

There's so much .22lr out there I don't bother. But if a guy was setup to use them for .223 bullets, I could gather thousands very quickly with a small shopvac (my truck has an AC converter).
 
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