[Unclenick]

That's a great thread. I just assumed new equipment, but there are a lot of old presses on eBay that have pretty beefy castings. Someone on another forum suggested the Lee Classic Cast single-stage was strong enough for making .22's, as well.

The dies are pretty pricey (several hundred bucks each at Corbin), but if you have a lathe you could probably make all but the pointing die.

I think Vernon Speer or one of the other old timers started with making bullet jackets from .22 LR cases during WWII, when jacket copper was scarce. I don't know how uniform they are, but obviously you can make them shoot.

I don't know that I'd use wheel weight cores. I'd be concerned about getting failure to flow into the corners of the heel of the base. Accuracy will tell whether that's a real problem or not, though.