Corbin-style .223 bullet swaging

[azredhawk44]

How much does it cost to get set up to swage your own jacketed bullets, using spent .22 rimfire cases and lead wire?

Can you do it with a press other than Corbin's? I have a rockchucker supreme that is awful sturdy, on a heck of a workbench. I can't imagine it takes that much force to form a piece of spent rimfire brass.

Can you create your own OTM-style bullets, or will the Corbin system only make FMJ's? I'd like to have an inexpensive source of 69gr OTM bullets for my AR.

[demigod]

Some guy did a write up on this over on ARFcom a few years back. It was interesting. And I guess if you like the challenge of do it your self...

But the bottom line was that the equipment was VERY expensive, and the bullets were very pathetic in the accruacy department.

Buying bulk Hornady or Montana Gold is a much wiser use of funds.

[Unclenick]

Richard Lee says even his aluminum presses can swage. The heavy duty Corbin presses are about making it take less effort and maximizing consistency for fellows making match bullets. During WWII, when copper was in short supply, I think maybe it was Vernon Speer who made .22 casings into jackets? That, or he sold a kit for doing it. In any event, it was never a medium of choice, but a strategy born of necessity as being better than having nothing to shoot at all.

Swaging dies are expensive. Copper cups for match bullet jackets have almost unbelievably consistent wall thickness. 10 times better than the best Lapua and Norma cartridge brass. I think that's what hurts you making jackets from .22 casings. The wall thickness variation is too great for good enough mass symmetry. If a bullet's mass is not symmetrical about its axis, then the faster it spins, the more it wobbles in flight.

I see no reason the bottom of the .22 case wouldn't serve as the base of a jacket. I expect it to be a good deal easier to form the base accurately from the case head and to swage lead into it, then form the ogive and nose than it would be to form an accurate FMJ nose from it. Indeed, that fact is true for commercial makers and is how Sierra's 168 grain bullet became such a success. It's easier to make accurate bullets that way.

The two or three times I've looked into it, I have concluded that setting up to swage bullets is really for people who want to get into the match bullet making business, and not so much for hobbyists unless they have money to burn.

[McClintock]

I recall reading an article in a magazine a few months ago about this very thing, now, of course, I can't remember which magazine it was, but I'll look through my archives.

Demigod's right, though, the initial equipment setup was very expensive. I don't recall what they said about accuracy results of the finished product, however.

I'll see what I can find in my magazine stack, and post what I find (if, in fact, I can find it).

Cheers!
McClintock

[Scorch]

When you have questions, go to the source.
http://www.corbins.com/

A friend of mine bough a Corbin swager back in the 1970s, and made .224" bullets with it for about 1/4 the cost of buying bullets. Very accurate bullets, too. Cost was minimal, and the main expense was the lead wire for the cores. Best bullets are in the 52-60 gr weight, but you can make bullets from 50-80 gr.

The Corbin Pro-Swage screws into a standard reloading press.

[azredhawk44]

$803 for their kit. Ouch.

That'll buy me a LOT of bullets.

[Unclenick]

True, but not as many as it used to. I was stunned by bullet prices at Camp Perry this year. $229 for 500 .308 210 grain MatchKings. Even the .224 77's I use a fair number of were $99 per 500. The cost of the metals has run amok.

I'm guessing that good accuracy from home swaged bullets depended on buying jacket cups. Would be great to be proved wrong, but don't see how a .22 case can be that uniform? Corbin claims good accuracy, so it might be worth a call to him to see why he thinks some of the reviewers had trouble making accurate bullets this way? I have no doubt there is an acquired feel and skill involved.

[flashhole]

I've been thinking about it for a long time too. Just can't convince myself to spend the money but my rationale was not so much improving accuracy as it was - if things really go to the dickens I would like to be self sufficient in the bullet department.