Swaging bullets from .40 S&W brass

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Swaging bullets from .40 S&W brass

Postby Crypto_nerd » Fri Apr 27, 2018 5:30 pm

Hello all,

I've been reading from this board for a few weeks now and finally decided to take the dive. Just recently sold a rifle and took the earning to purchase a RAR in 450 BM and topped it with a Leupold 2x7x33. Haven't even taken the rifle out yet as the weather here in WA has been less than stellar. May get it out this weekend.

I recently found some topics on this and other forums discussing swaging .452 jacketed bullets with .40 S&W brass and lead bullets. Given that I only have about 10 months left of active duty, 50+ cents per bullet means a lot less trigger time while still meeting savings goals. This method seems like a great way to spend even more time at the reloading bench while punching out bullets for less than 10¢ a piece.

I have ordered the following and am awaiting arrival:
.243 RCBS full length die
.452 Lee push through sizing die
180 gr .401 dia cowboy bullets (12 BNH; Missouri Cowboy #10)

A few questions to those who have taken this endeavor:
1. After ordering the bare bullets (no lube or coating) I started digging into the brinnel scale. Hindsight is always 20/20... Is 12 BNH too hard for this? Or will I just need to crank down more on the press?
2. Rough calculations based off others who have swaged their own .452 bullets using this method tell me this process, with no trimming of the .40 cases, should result in roughly 275 gr of bullet. Does this sound right with a case and a 180 grainer?
3. Another great post here spoke of XTP vs XTP mag and why only mags should be used in the rough environment of a 450 BM chamber and especially when considering the fast twist of the RAR. With annealing the .40 brass and swaging, will the jacket hold up to velocities greater than 2200 FPS? I feel like it should, but most the posts I read on the subject were for 45 ACP bullets.

Lastly, I have a Dillon 550B plus a single stage adapter kit. Gives me great flexibility in reloading, but I have never swaged on it and I'm hoping the stress doesn't hurt the press. Given the meat this press has, I really am not concerned, but if you guys have anything to say on the topic of swaging stress to a standard press, I'm all ears.

Thanks all in advance! This forum is quite the knowledge house for the reloading/ gun nerd I have become.
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Re: Swaging bullets from .40 S&W brass

Postby Hoot » Fri Apr 27, 2018 8:34 pm

I'll take a crack at this one.
First off, if swaging annealed .40 S&W brass into bullets was remotely worth the trouble in terms of touch labor, I'd still be doing it. Like some of the other larks we here have dabbled in, it was and IMHO, should be relegated to the annals of a passing fancy. Something to try, just for the experience. I used pure, soft lead and even then it was a real strain on my press. Much harder than resizing 325gr .458 FTX down to .452. Getting the resultant weight of the bullets consistent, not to mention the length, not to mention the groups, just added to the fall from interest.

I don't do cast boolits. I understand what the Brinell hardness scale represents, but I know nothing about what a 12 represents compared to some other hardness. I do know that if my two choices for bullets were reduced to either cast lead boolits with gas checks or coated cast boolits for my AR 450b vs swaged bullets made from annealed brass, I'd go with the cast boolits either coated or with gas checks, but that's just my opinion. I'll let others who played around with the "swage rage" chime in as well.

Hoot
In Theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In Practice, there is.
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Re: Swaging bullets from .40 S&W brass

Postby Crypto_nerd » Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:51 pm

Thanks for the info. And for the correction, I did mean boolits.

From what I read, pure lead is about 5 BNH. Yet another time I've ordered supplies only to continue the research and find I may have missed something important. We'll see what the press thinks of it.

Given the low cost of investment and having a sizing die being beneficial as it is, I'm going to see what I can't do with it. Unfortunately, I am a stickler for accuracy, so I fully plan on driving myself nuts chasing consistency with a process that is not designed to be.

With any luck, I'll get the rifle zeroed in within another week and after that get some homegrown bullets down the bore. I'll start low and work up looking for signs of jacket failure. With the thickness of the case, I don't have much concern of the jacket shredding itself.
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Re: Swaging bullets from .40 S&W brass

Postby Pipefitter172 » Sat Apr 28, 2018 10:38 am

I have a Dave Corbin set for swaging .452 bullets, the Mega-Mite hand press which uses the same dies as his Hydro press. When I make bullets out of 40S&W brass I can make about 275gn+ without trimming the cases. I use pure lead for my cores, never tried anything harder with the exception of about 1-2% tin to make bonded core bullets. If you were to leave the spent primers in the fired cases and stainless tumble or ultrasonic clean them you can place the "tinned" cores in the cases with a tiny amount of flux and then anneal at about 800*F the cores will solder to the brass. Then you would expand the cores (in my case it is in the core seating die) and finally point form.

I try to buy 1000 or more 40 brass of all the same headstamp, and sort by weight to within .5gn. This allows me to keep weights of the finished bullet within 1gn. My 45LC firearms cannot tell the difference in the bullet weights at +/_1gn, I have not had my 450BM long enough to try any of my home swaged bullets in it yet.

With commercial jackets I can make bullets weighing anywhere from 200gn up to 350gn+. Both in a round nose and a TC profile, as well as hollow points and solid nose.
This setup is not cheap, I have several thousand dollars invested in it. Die sets for this press From Dave Corbin start at about $800 and go up from there depending on what style of bullet you want to make. I can also make jackets from 1/2" type L copper tubing. A 250gn TC solid point with the lead just below the edge of the copper jacket at 1000 fps +/- will punch through 1/4" steel diamond decking, and when fired into wet phone books will penetrate about 28", no expansion occurs and I could probably resize then and shoot them again.
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