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"The following material is an excerpt from the CORBIN HANDBOOK OF BULLET SWAGING, No.7, published by Corbin Manufacturing & Supply, Inc., 600 Industrial Circle, White City, Oregon 97503, and is reproduced by permission of the publisher." Any other printed copy or distribution is a violation of U.S. copyright law and is expressly prohibited.

Corbin Handbook of Bullet Swaging, No. 7
(copyright 1986 D.R. Corbin)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER TITLE PAGE
1. How Do You Swage Bullets? 
2. Making the Lead Cores
3. About Bullet Jackets
4. Swaging in the Reloading Press
5. Swaging with the Mity Mite System
6. Swaging with the Hydro-press System
7. Some Specific Bullets and How to Make Them
8. Books for Bullet Swagers
9. Kits for Your Reloading Press
10. Individual Dies for the Reloading Press
11. Draw Dies
12. Swage Dies of the Mity Mite System
13. Swage Dies of the Hydro-press System
14. Corbin Swage Presses 
15. Accessories for the Hydro-press
16. Jackets 
17. Lead
18. Tools for Bullet Makers
19. Chemicals and Supplies
20. Taking Care of Your Dies 
21. Delivery & Payment Information
22. Warranty Information 

INTRODUCTION TO BULLET SWAGING

I'm Dave Corbin, and I'd like to be your guide on a trip you won't soon forget: a safari to the ultimate levels of handloading, where the final control over your firearm's performance -- the design and construction of the bullet itself -- is totally in your hands. This is the awesome power of bullet swaging.

What is bullet swaging? It is so simple that one sentence describes the process. Yet, it is so powerful that more than seven books are in print today, crammed with experiments, techniques, new ideas that swaging makes possible. Research keeps adding to those bulging files every day. 

Technically, bullet swaging is the manufacture of bullets using high pressure to cold-flow metals at room temperature, inside a precision die and punch set. You merely put a piece of lead (or other flowable materials) into a high-pressure die, squeeze it by inserting a precisely-matched punch (driven by a press), and the lead flows like putty to take on the exact dimensions of the die cavity.

The die must be extremely strong and remarkably well-finished for this process to work. Bullet swaging is done at pressures that often exceed those of a typical rifle chamber! Yet, even under thousands of pounds of internal pressure, the die cannot change its size or shape.

The level of precision required for these hand-made, diamond-lapped dies is measured in the millionths of an inch. Only a handful of die-makers have ever existed who could produce the quality required. There are dies to make semi-wadcutter pistol bullets, boattail rifle bullets, partitioned, hollow-pointed, cup based, spitzer rifle bullets, and anything else you might imagine! All the dies operate on the same simple principle: an undersized piece of material is expanded outward in diameter by high pressure, at room temperature, until it is stopped by taking on the exact form of the die cavity.

We'll cover technical details in a minute. But there is something beyond all this that describes what swaging really means. More than just the technical power it places in your hands, swaging reaches out to capture the imagination of people in all walks of life, and becomes something far greater.

Bullet swaging, to a rapidly growing number of people, is financial security. The famous Corbin HYDRO-PRESS system, now in use around the world by nearly all custom bullet makers, makes it simple to offer highly-advanced designs of bullets that cannot be economically produced by the mass-marketing firms. Corbin has developed the tools, the techniques, even the marketing expertise, to the point where the average person interested in a second income or a new career can afford to operate a successful bullet manufacturing operation from his home.

The custom bullet maker of today has huge advantages over the founders of major bullet firms of the past. Knowing what to make and how to sell it is part of the advantage. Having standard manufacturing systems, methods, and expertise as close as a phone call or letter is a major leap over the hurdles Speer, Hornady, and Sierra had to face. 

You don't have to start from scratch and design not only the bullet but also the tools to manufacture it. It has all been done for you. There are at least seven books at this writing to tell you how to take advantage of these years of experience!

Corbin publishes the WORLD DIRECTORY of CUSTOM BULLET MAKERS. It is the source-book for writers, experimenters, procurement officers in military and police headquarters, defense contractors, and advanced handloaders in at least nine countries. Your own brand of bullet can be listed, along with your address, just for the asking. Advertising  space is available for a very reasonable cost. Reaching the world with your custom bullets is no longer a major challenge.

By keeping in close contact with our commercial customers and working with them on exotic design variations and tooling, Corbin has been able to help insure a healthy market, prevent unnecessary and wasteful duplication of efforts, and see that the real needs of shooters are met with constant new developments in the field of custom bullets. Every individual, like yourself, who decides to offer a small-scale supply of some special product is just one more guarantee against quality bullets ever being swept out of reach. 

During major wars, economic upheavals, or bouts of misguided legislative fervor, it is the small-scale, wide-spread producers who stand strongest against shortages. It is much less likely that thousands of smaller operators will be forced to cease operations than the chance that three or four major outfits can be shut down! Most of the major firms have other interests to protect and are very visible, vulnerable, and sensitive to pressures that would not affect the home operation.

You don't need to sell bullets to get a pleasant feeling of security in owning a quality set of swaging dies. Many people find that the lower cost of making your own bullets lets them enjoy far more shooting, with less drain on the family finances. And the equipment is always there, waiting, if you should want to make a little money on the side. Friends, club members, local gun shops -- all provide a convenient market for certain specialty bullets that the factories do not offer.

Because bullet swaging is so fast and easy to do, you can produce enough bullets in a weekend to help cover your own shooting costs. The "make a few, sell a few" approach serves vast numbers of shooters. You need only to obtain your Class 1 and Class 6 Federal Firearms Licenses, neither of which is expensive or difficult. Write to your regional Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for forms. Note that you ONLY need the licenses if you plan to SELL the bullets: you need NO license to buy equipment and make them for your own use.

For many people, selling bullets is not important. The real thrill of swaging to them is seeing their ideas come alive in solid metal. What hunter hasn't dreamed of some improvement, some better construction, different weight, or modified style of bullet that would fill a specific need -- and yet, it just isn't offered by any of the mass production firms?

Sitting around the campfire with the remains of a spent bullet that utterly failed to do the job brings wistful thoughts of making something better. The tools of swaging turn these thoughts into reality with lightning swiftness. Versatility is one of the major advantages of swaging, along with speed. The equipment doesn't have to cost any more than the messy, dangerous hot lead casting equipment with which you are undoubtedly familiar. Yet the same investment in swaging tools can make literally hundreds of different bullets! 

Changes in weight are entirely up to you. In five minutes, you can use the same dies to make whole bench-top covered with different bullet weights. The dies don't care how much material you put into them, within a broad limit. They faithfully reproduce the diameter to a precision impossible with any hot lead process, operating at a constant room temperature instead of changing from molten to solid lead temperature on every bullet made. The lightest weight and heaviest weight a certain die can make are normally beyond the limits of what you would want to shoot.

With a cast bullet, you buy a certain mould for a certain weight, shape, and style of bullet. You are limited to various forms of lead. If you want a different weight, or style, you have to buy a new mould. And you spend half an hour waiting for a lead pot to melt the metal, cast several times to get the mould up to temperature, sort through the bad casts and rejects, clean the whole mess up after it has time to cool down to safe levels, and THEN, when all that is done, you have to start all over again and run each of the remaining good bullets through a sizer and lubricator tool, with the mess of greasy lube and the chance of getting too much or too little application. 

The bullet you get from casting is limited in velocity because the lead will melt in contact with the bore of your gun and the hot powder gas if you try to drive it too fast. The performance is limited because if you try to use harder alloys and reduce the leading of your barrel, the bullets no longer expand or hold together as well. Using a copper gas check on the base of the bullet is a small step in the right direction, but it isn't nearly enough for full performance.

With a swaged bullet, you can use any alloy that you might use for casting (depending on the particular system and dies -- anything from pure lead to solid brass rod can be swaged on the right equipment). The dies make a wide range of weights without further expense to you, and the range can usually be extended even further with simple punch changes. 

The styles you can make are virtually unlimited. There is nothing commercially produced today or at any time in the past that you cannot make at home, and make it more accurately at the same time! It all depends on the particular kind of equipment you get. 

Bullet swaging equipment quickly demonstrates to you that it saves you money over casting, when you begin making different weights and styles. If all you want is one weight and style to be shot at a velocity of perhaps 1,200 fps or less, and that one style can be nothing more than a lubricated piece of lead, swaging may have little to offer you except speed and safety. If you are looking only at the cost per bullet, there is no difference. What you pay for lead to cast bullets is what you would pay for the lead to swage the same bullet.

If, on the other hand, you are interested in making the bullet to tolerances that can't be approached with hot lead -- repeatability of less than 0.0001 inches -- and you want a system that can give you weight tolerances so small a normal scale barely registers them, then even this one simple cast lead bullet might take a second seat to its swaged cousin. In our own experiments, we have found that group sizes of .308 caliber cast bullets could be cut in half at 100 yards simply by running the same cast bullets through the final point forming die of a .308 bullet swage outfit. 

In some calibers -- not all, mind you! -- you can make absolutely FREE bullets for the rest of your life by using materials others throw away! Do you shoot a .224 or a .243 caliber rifle or handgun? Do you shoot a .25 ACP once in a while (which you might shoot more if the ammo wasn't so costly) or a .257 rifle? In these calibers, it is possible to make bullets using fired shotgun primers, spent .22 cases, and recovered range lead. 

All the materials you need to keep yourself shooting for the rest of your life are lying on the ground by your feet, when you go to the target range. Those empty .22 long rifle cases make excellent quality .22 centerfire bullets. The empty .22 Magnums and Stingers make reasonable quality .257 and 6mm bullets. Fired shotgun primers turn into acceptable .25 ACP bullets. 

In the .224 caliber (all modern .22 centerfires use a .224" bullet), the quality of bullet you can make from a fired rimfire .22 case and scrap lead is as good or better than you can purchase for $6.50 a box! The material is actually easier on the bore than standard thicker jacketed bullets, shoots well enough that matches are won with the bullets (although it isn't a recommended benchrest bullet by any means!), and is so explosive that you seldom get a ricochet when varmint hunting.

Bullet swaging can be profitable, and it is versatile, economical, and enjoyable. It has the advantage of the highest possible precision in bullet making, on the order of ten times better than lathe turning the bullets. The pressure of more than 2,000 atmospheres in a typical swage die contrasts sharply to the pressure of slightly over one atmosphere typical of casting a bullet, compacting the lead and squeezing bubbles and voids into oblivion. The cost of the equipment always SEEMS high to a beginner, because (1) he is starting from scratch and usually needs all the basics at once and (2) he doesn't realize yet how much power he is getting for those dollars. 

In the final analysis, swaging is far lower in cost than any other method of bullet making, except in the one instance where a single weight and style of lead bullet is all you want, and a mould exists that will make it. As soon as you start experimenting, swaging begins to prove its economy. As to the cost of the bullets themselves, the range starts at zero cost -- remember the rimfire cases! -- and goes up from there depending on the material you choose. It is quite possible to make swaged bullets that cost more than a roughly similar style of factory bullet. In fact, if you only want to duplicate a factory bullet with no thought of making something better, then quite often swaging won't justify its cost unless you shoot quite a bit.

The casual shooter who goes through one or two boxes of some caliber a year has no real need for swaging equipment. It would take far too long for him to amortize its cost, and besides, he might be able to find some bullet that costs just about the same as the materials he would have to purchase to make it! In general, a swaged jacketed rifle or handgun bullet costs about half that of a similar factory bullet, but there are some exceptions. And many people make high performance bullets, using heavy copper or brass tubing jackets, or other exotic constructions, with swaging's ultra-high precision, that cost several times as much as a run-of-the-mill factory bullet in the same caliber. But they are getting something that cannot be obtained anywhere else, at any price: a premium bullet made exactly to their order.

You can see that economy can be a good reason for swaging, but it isn't necessarily the best or only reason, and in some cases there are over-riding needs that make cost per bullet relatively unimportant. If you want to shoot a fine double-rifle and simply cannot find any suitable weight or even caliber of bullets for it, what does it matter that your own custom-built bullets might wind up costing you fifteen or twenty cents each? On the market, they'd be easily worth a dollar or more in some of these calibers.! That, in fact, is one of the secrets of being a successful commercial bullet maker: picking a product to make that does indeed command a price higher than standard mass-produced bullets, but which is so unique and valuable to those who want it that they are glad to see you offer it at almost any price.

If, for example, you are affluent enough to afford to travel to Africa or the Far East for big game hunting, you certainly are not going to worry about the cost of a few boxes of bullets. The important thing is whether or not they will work correctly, reliably, when that big trophy is in your sights at last. It could mean life or death if you are facing a charging Cape Buffalo. Anyone who has been there and experienced a bullet failure at such a time -- and has lived through it -- isn't likely to quibble over the price of bullets. Perhaps you can begin to see why there are so many successful custom bullet makers in the world today, making bullets that sell as fast as they can be produced, for over $1 each and in some cases as much as $2.50 per bullet!

"OK", you say, "bullet swaging sounds like it's got a lot going for it. But how hard is it to learn? Is it going to take me the rest of my life to figure out?"

Have you ever dug a post hole? Filled a pipe with tobacco? Both those operations are good allegories for swaging. When you put a post into a post hole, you tamp earth back around the hole. When you fill a pipe, you tamp tobacco into the bowl. In a very crude way, this is what it takes to learn to start swaging: press the material into a hole or cavity, so it takes on the shape of the cavity. The die corresponds to the pipe bowl or the sides of the post hole. Your tamping stick or thumb corresponds to the punch in a swage die. 

There are a lot of variations on this process, and a number of different dies made to form certain shapes on the bullet, but  basically, every swaging operation is filling a hole with material by pushing an undersized piece of material into the hole with a punch. The end of the punch forms one end of the bullet. The die walls form the sides of the bullet. There is another punch, held captive in the die assembly, that blocks off the other end of the die, and is used to push the bullet back out the die mouth when you are finished.

A lead bullet takes one stroke to finish. A semi-wadcutter takes from one to two dies (one stroke per die) depending on how fancy you want to get with the weight control. A rifle bullet or a handgun bullet made with the jacket wrapped over the ogive (nose portion) requires either two or three dies (one stroke per die, again) to finish the projectile. Whether it takes two or three dies depends on whether or not you want to swage the lead slug that makes up the filling, or core, by itself first. You can insert the core into the jacket (the skin of the bullet) with or without first swaging the core. Either way makes a reasonably good bullet. Swaging the core first makes the weight variation extremely small.

We'll get into the details later. But that is really all there is to learn in order to get started. You can be making your own bullets within a few minutes after you get the dies. And you can be learning to make ever better ones fifty years later! It's a little bit like learning to shoot: you can start hitting the target the first day you get your new rifle, and then you start working on getting 10's, and never quit working on getting all X's. The bullets you can make right away will probably be equal quality to what you can buy off the shelf. 

But why stop with that? Swaging is capable of giving you so much more. You may not have any desire, at this time, to make exotic bullets. You may not want to extrude your own lead wire, or produce heavy copper or brass jackets yourself, or form partitions and liquid-filled internal cavities in your projectiles. You may not want to make a high performance 12 gauge shotgun slug, or a solid copper .14 caliber bullet, or a rebated boattail .500 caliber slug. The tools are available, if you do. Knowing what is possible can be as important as doing it. 

The same copper tubing that runs air conditioners, nuclear power plants, automobiles, and apartment buildings can be turned into excellent quality jackets. The same lead that is used for roofing, plumbing, x-ray shielding, and nuclear medicine containers is capable of supplying you with an endless quantity of cores. Until you place the lead core into the jacket and swage that bullet in the privacy of your home, nothing about your supplies is unique to bullet making. The  materials are all around you. 

The bullets you can make in times of serious economic upheaval or a great national disaster might well be worth more than their weight in gold. Survival weapons don't shoot gold coins. It's hard to make change with a couple of investment grade diamonds when you are bartering for medicine or food. And cast bullets tend to foul the gas ports of automatics and gas-operated military rifles. It isn't radical to consider, at least, the potential for barter and the value that your bullet-making ability might have in such circumstances.

"Sounds interesting. What's next?", you may be asking. The first step was obtaining this manual. It will give you a wide view of the field of swaging and show you what kinds of equipment are available today. There isn't room to describe every possible trick and technique, nor to go into the details of a commercial business, nor to really give you an intense course in the art of swaging. Those subjects are found the seven books Corbin has published over the past twenty years.

Before jumping in, you should read at least the textbook "REDISCOVER SWAGING". This should be read primarily as a course in the art of swaging and not with a great deal of attention to the specific machines or tools described, since the principles are the same but the products may change over the years. If your interest leans toward the commercial aspects, then by all means read "POWER SWAGING" as well. 

Greater detail on a wide range of specific subjects can be found in the three volumes of the Corbin Technical Bulletins. And the ancient "BULLET SWAGE MANUAL" gives a different writer's viewpoint from an age gone by. 

With the information at your fingertips, you have a tremendous advantage over the handloader of the past -- as well as the founders of the big bullet factories of today! Corbin has brought swaging out of the dark, mysterious realm of the die-maker and turned it over to you: one of the most powerful tools ever devised for advancing the art of handloading is placed in your hands.

In August, 1984, Corbin opened the world's largest bullet die-works, in a new plant built just for this purpose. Located at 600 Industrial Circle, White City, Oregon, on a 44,000 square foot site, the entire plant features electronically cleaned and filtered air, climate control for both offices and machine shop, and a six-inch thick barrier on both ceiling and walls to insulate the shop from temperature changes. Brilliant shadow-less lighting and spacious workroom give Corbin's die-makers remarkable conditions for testing and inspection of their work, even as it is being produced. 

The Corbin facility is unique: no other firm has ever poured so much time, effort, and capital into the development of bullet swaging. If some of the things you read here seem completely different from the general public's impression of swaging, there's a good reason for it! 

Most of the limitations and problems with swaging in the past were simply waiting for someone to find the solutions. Swaging itself has few limitations. It is a quantum leap over the usual "cookbook" kind of reloading. Swaging releases you from the limits of mere repetition of what others have done. Instead of forcing you to follow recipes in a reloading kitchen, swaging turns your handloading bench into a laboratory where new knowledge can be developed.

At any point, you could be holding in your hand the prototype of a design that could change the future of shooting. And yet, at the same time, you can immediately begin producing bullets "as good as factory ones", and likely, a great deal better! No matter how routine a bullet you may wish to make right now, it's hard to resist the temptation to nudge the throttle a bit on the powerful design machinery, and try something a little better. The spirit of invention is far from dead in most of us.

At the moment when you first hold the gleaming perfection in your own hand, which only seconds before was empty copper and dull lead, you may sense the presence of other eyes looking over your shoulder. Perhaps, if you turn quickly enough, you may catch a fading glimpse of the spirit of the ancient founders of the swaging art: men like Harvey Donaldson, who swaged some of the first .22 caliber jacketed bullets from fired .22 cases -- a trick you can handle much more easily with a simple kit, today. Behind him, you might see a long line of experimenters, slug-gun shooters with their Carver pound-dies in one hand -- the men who first began the process of shaping lead bullets in swage dies, to advance the art of accurate shooting beyond anything that had been done before. 

Whatever work you might do, whatever ideas you might explore, you have just as much potential as they did to advance the whole art of shooting into a new generation. When you place your hand on the powerful leverage of swaging equipment, you are stepping far beyond the experiences of even the most knowledgeable handloader who has never tried this remarkable field.

Men with forty or fifty years of handloading experience express wonder at the vast new horizon swaging lays before them. It's a feeling all of us, from the dim beginnings to this day, can appreciate. It's the feeling of pride that comes, when you realize that your own bullets -- your ideas and experiments turned into reality -- are building on the solid foundation built by the greatest experimenters shooting has ever known. If you could catch that glimpse in the fading light, I'm sure you'd notice each of them nodding their approval.

HOW DO YOU SWAGE BULLETS? 

There are five different ways to swage bullets today. You can use:
(1) A POUND DIE
(2) A RELOADING PRESS
(3) The CORBIN MITY MITE PRESS
(4) The CORBIN MEGA MITE PRESS
(5) The CORBIN HYDRO-PRESS

Each of the five methods has certain advantages. The pound die requires no press, but instead, uses a mallet. It is somewhat lower in cost because you do not need to purchase a press, but it is much slower to use and doesn't produce jacketed bullets. It is ideal for swaging large caliber lead bullets, and is often selected by replica black-powder rifle shooters who wish to use an authentic reproduction of the earliest form of swaging die (from the 1890's). 

The reloading press system is economical since most handloaders already own a suitable reloading press. It is limited to smaller rifle calibers (from .257 to .224) and medium handgun calibers (from .357 to .25 ACP) because of the inherent weakness of the slotted ram. There are certain design restrictions imposed on this system by the press, so it is not ideal for special work or custom calibers. Corbin makes standard calibers and shapes only, in this system. The cost is thus kept low for the quality. Speed is greater than the pound die but less than the other, special swaging systems.

The Corbin Mity Mite system uses a special horizontal ram press with more power than any reloading press built. It is much faster than a reloading press since it ejects the bullet automatically on the back stroke. The dies for this system, and the matching punches, do not interchange with the reloading press system. They are made to fit into the RAM of the press, instead of the press head. Calibers from .14 to .458, tubing jackets with walls of up to .030-inch thickness, and weights up to 450 grains, can all be swaged with the Mity Mite. Custom work is done in this system.

The Corbin Mega Mite system is based on a massive machined steel press that can handle both reloading and bullet swaging. It can accept ANY of the Corbin dies, including those for the Hydro-press. This ability to interchange various kinds of dies can be important to some owners. However, there are limits to any hand-powered press. The amount of force the Mega Mite produces is awesome, but still less than required for certain large caliber, heavy-jacketed production work.

The Corbin Hydro-press system is the ultimate in bullet manufacturing today. It features automatic stroke and pressure control, electronic sensors and timing, programmable stroke control, and many other advanced concepts that place it at the top of the list for custom bullet firms around the world. Any caliber from 20mm cannon to a 10 gauge shotgun slug can be swaged, in virtually unlimited weight or style. Solid brass or copper rod can be formed instantly into bullets of higher precision than lathe turning. Lead wire can be extruded like toothpaste. And the press adapts easily to standard reloading dies for the convenience of automatic sizing and seating.

Any of the various swaging systems use the principle that cold metal will flow under sufficient pressure and take on the shape of the vessel holding that pressure. The swage die is a very strong, highly finished vessel for containing the pressure. You swage the bullet in all these systems by driving a punch against the material while it is held within the confines of the die cavity. Upward expansion from the internal pressure created is the key factor in forming the bullets. 

Reduction in diameter is called "drawing". Remember, swaging always expands the bullet or material upward in diameter. Drawing dies are used to reduce the diameter of an object, such as a bullet or a piece of copper tubing or a jacket. They differ from swaging dies, in that the drawing die has an open top and only one punch is used. The component is pressed through the die and out the top. In passing through a hardened constriction, it becomes smaller. Drawing has serious restrictions when applied to finished bullets, and can only be used for very limited amounts of reduction. But for reforming jackets and making copper tubing into jackets, it is a valuable tool.

If you try to put a piece of lead or a jacket into a die that has a smaller diameter of cavity, the material will be forced down in size and will exert a strong pressure against the sides of the die. When the pressure is relieved, by ejecting the component, the material may exert a certain amount of springiness, and become slightly larger than the die cavity. In making swage dies, the die-makers have to contend with the various amounts of spring-back in different hardnesses of jackets, different thicknesses of jacket wall, and other factors. The die itself is normally a different diameter from the actual finished bullet that comes out of it.

What this means to you as a potential bullet-maker, is that you should NEVER try to force anything into a swage die. If it won't fit easily, don't push it in. At best, it will make the wrong diameter of bullet. But generally, it will stick fast in the die and require special techniques to remove. And at worst, it can generate enough pressure to break the die!

In the following chapters, we'll discuss the various methods of making bullets in more detail, one system at a time. Bear in mind that there are hundreds of possible variations on the techniques, depending on what you want to make. It would be impossible to send this manual to you by mail if every style of bullet were to be described detail, with each step required to make it. We have to give you the basics of making two or three styles, and refer you to the more detailed technical books for advanced techniques.

It is far more important for you to understand the principle differences between lead bullet swaging, semi-wadcutter (and jacketed wadcutter) styles of swaging, and the styles that bring the jacket into the nose curve or ogive portion of the bullet. These three basic kinds of bullets form the basis for everything else. If you understand how to make them, then variations such as rebated boattails, liquid-filled internal cavities, partitions, and other advanced designs are fairly simple to pick up. They aren't different: they just expand a bit on the basic techniques.

MAKING THE LEAD CORES

The two main components that go into most bullets are the lead filling, or core, and the outer skin, or jacket. We'll talk about jackets in the next chapter. Right now, let's make some cores.

There are two main sources for lead cores. You can purchase a spool of lead wire in the proper diameter, along with a core cutter, and chop off accurately-measured lengths. Corbin has lead wire in pure 175,000 grain spools (LW-25), and the PCS-1 Precision Core Cutter to cut them. The core cutter has an adjustable stop screw that adjusts the amount of lead cut on each stroke of the tool. 

The second source is your own supply of scrap lead, the same as you might use for bullet casting. Corbin makes a 4-cavity, adjustable weight core mould that mounts to the reloading bench. You don't have to pick it up, and there are no handles required. Four pistons, precision fitted to four cylinders, slide up and down to eject the cores. The bottom position is set by a rest plate. This steel plate rests on a pair of nuts, fastened to two threaded rods at either end of the mould. 

Adjusting the nuts upward decreases the volume in the cylinders, and gives you a lighter core. Pouring molten lead into the top of the mould fills all four cavities. Moving a long sprue cutter chops off the lead at the top of the cavities, leaving even lengths of lead to be ejected straight up from the cylinders. The process is very fast, making it possible to produce at least 1000 cores per hour.

Lead wire can also be manufactured at home. Corbin makes a lead wire extruder kit for the Hydro-press, capable of making lengths of lead wire from lead billets. Lead wire can be extruded in special shapes, as well, for use in stained glass work or as hollow tubing used for fishing sinker wire. The LED-1 Lead Extruder Die set comes with a selection of popular diameters of interchangeable dies, all of which fit into a master body. Included with the kit are billet mould tubes to form the proper diameter of lead cylinders for extrusion. These special forms can be the basis of additional income for the Hydro-press owner. Hand presses do not have sufficient stroke or power for commercial lead wire extrusion. 

Small diameter lead wire for the sub-calibers (.14, .17, and .20) can be produced in the Corbin hand presses with the LED-2 extruder kit. Only relatively short lengths are made at one time, but they are very economical sources of cores for the tiny sub-caliber bullets. 

For those who wish to make commercial quantities of lead wire, Corbin manufactures the EX-10 lead wire extruder, a dedicated, single-purpose machine to produce any size or shape of lead wire in 10 pound spools. The EX-10 uses lead billets of 2-inch diameter, which can be cast using Corbin's tube moulds. Write for specific information on this product.

Lead wire for bullet cores can be used in two ways, and the diameter depends on what way you plan to use it. You can simply swage the lead into a finished bullet, with no jacket. In that case, the lead only has to slip easily into the smallest die bore in the set you are using. Dies made only for lead bullets are at final diameter of the bullet, and consequently your lead core should be just a little under bullet diameter.

If the lead is too small in diameter, it will stick out the die mouth before you have enough of it to make the weight you desire. That is a situation to avoid -- never apply any pressure to a component that isn't completely contained within the die. The punch will probably slip off to one side and be damaged by striking the mouth of the die. The exact diameter isn't important as long as the core fits into the die easily and doesn't stick out the die mouth.

But if you want to make a jacketed bullet, then the core has to fit inside the jacket (obviously!). You cannot start with a .357 caliber lead bullet and somehow "put a jacket on it" to wind up with a .357 caliber jacketed bullet. Instead, you use lead wire or a cast core that fits inside the .38 jacket, and expand it upward in the die. The lead pressure expands the jacket right along with it, resulting in a tight, uniform assembly. 

The walls of a .357 or .38 caliber jacket are usually about .017 inches thick. There is a wall on both sides of the core, and the jacket normally is made small enough so that it will work for .355 (9mm) as well as .38 caliber. Bullet jackets are almost always considerably smaller than the final bullet diameter so that they can be expanded upward from core seating pressure.

This means that you have a jacket with an outside diameter of about 0.354 inches, minus two walls of 0.017 inches, for a remaining inside diameter of about 0.320 inches. Better quality jackets have tapered walls, so that the base is even thicker. In practice, a 0.318 inch core will fit inside most .38/.357 caliber jackets properly.

But for higher precision, a die set for the Corbin presses usually includes a separate core swage die, which accepts the raw lead core and reshapes it to a more perfect cylinder, flattens the ends nicely, and expands the core diameter very slightly in the process. The die also extrudes a small amount of lead from the core to adjust the weight. 

Because of this extra die, it is necessary to use a bit smaller diameter of core. A 0.312 inch lead core fits nicely into the standard 0.315 to 0.318 inch core swage die, allowing for any bending or denting that the core might receive in handling. And that is how we arrive at the proper diameter of lead wire to use for any set of dies, in any caliber. For jacketed bullets, the core must fit into the jacket and it must also fit easily into any core swage die that is part of the set. For lead bullets, the core must at least fit into the final die and not be so long that it sticks out the die mouth.

In the CM-4 Core Mould, six diameters cover most of the bullets you might wish to make. The .224 mould makes a core of about 0.185 inch diameter, which works well in the 6mm and .25 as well as the 6.5mm caliber. The .257 caliber mould crosses over slightly into the .25 and 6.5mm caliber range, but since different jackets have different wall thickness, it is useful for thinner wall .25 jackets and thicker wall .270 and 7mm jackets. 

The standard 7mm jacket takes a 0.218 inch core, so a 7mm core mould is made in that size. The .30 calibers all take a 0.250 inch core, as do most of the .32 and .338 jackets. Heavy walled tubing jackets in large bores can use the same core size as a standard jacket might in a smaller caliber. A pair of standard sizes cover the .38 and the .44-45 calibers. These are 0.312 inch and 0.365 inch, respectively. A slightly smaller size is made for the .41 caliber and the .40 Bren 10 caliber.

Using the next smaller size normally serves quite well, without the expense of having a custom mould built. However, custom moulds CAN be made to order if desired. For large diameters of lead, Corbin builds special moulds to order at a correspondingly higher cost than the CM-4. Moulds for billets of half inch diameter can be used for shotgun slugs. Tube moulds, which have a steel base with a plug that slips into the bottom of a honed steel tube, are generally used for large diameter billets. 

Lead cores are discussed in great detail in the book, "REDISCOVER SWAGING". The advantage of using a lead core mould is the lower cost of using scrap lead. The advantage of using lead wire is the neatness, safety, speed, and ease of use. There is not much difference in potential accuracy. Lead wire has a slight edge over cast cores because of the great uniformity of the extruded product. 

You probably wonder about the hardness of the lead: can you use wheel weights, or casting alloys to swaging bullets? The answer depends on the caliber, and the system of swaging you plan to use. In most reloading press dies, you can't quite generate enough pressure to swage any lead harder than about Brinnell Hardness 8 (or about 3 percent antimony/lead alloy) before breaking either the die or the punch. But in certain circumstances, you can even swage linotype alloys of Brinnell Hardness 22. The Corbin Hydro-press can swage any alloy of lead ever made, or even solid copper if you wish. 

The reason that you can swage hard alloys in some calibers and not in others, in some shapes and not others, and in the Hydro-press but not in a reloading press has less to do with the power of the press than it does the strength of the dies and punches. If you are curious about the mathematics involved in engineering dies to withstand certain pressures, the book "POWER SWAGING" is full of revealing data, formulae, and charts that will make it all clear. 

As a rule of thumb, it's safer to use soft, pure lead for swaging in all circumstances because pure lead flows more easily at lower pressures, and thus puts less strain on the dies. But, if you have a need to swage hard lead for some reason, don't give up just because of a rule of thumb! We have a way to do it in every case, if you are willing to purchase the correct kind of tooling. Your stock of casting alloys can be used if the caliber, die, and press system is selected with proper specifications for hard lead. Tooling made for hard lead may, in some circumstances, not be as useful for soft lead because of the different size bleed holes. That is one reason why you need to talk to the die-maker before jumping in head first with a bar of hard alloy in hand! 

If you use Hydro-press dies, hard lead is perfectly acceptable in calibers up to .500 diameter, unless very deep and thin base skirts or other special designs are planned. The dies are so strong that they can handle any lead alloy. In the Mity Mite system, hard alloys can be handled if the die-maker knows in advance you plan to use them. In calibers above .358 diameter, they are a bit risky because of the die wall in the smaller Mity Mite series -- an imprudent stroke of the handle could crack a .45 caliber die used with too hard an alloy. In the reloading press, calibers of .243 and .224 work reasonably well with hard lead, but anything larger should be used with alloys of Brinnell Hardness 6 and under. Corbin supplies pure lead in billets and in lead wire form, but does not furnish alloy lead except on special order.

A potential objection to lead wire is the cost of shipping. At the time of this writing, it costs about $10 to ship a spool of lead wire completely across the country. A spool of .22 caliber wire makes over 4,000 .224 bullets. The cost of shipping, then, breaks down to a mere 0.0025 cents per bullet (that is a quarter of a penny per bullet). This amount is not prohibitive, and consequently most people choose to use lead wire for the smaller calibers. In the larger calibers, the cost per bullet increases since there is more lead consumed in each bullet, but the trade-off of convenience and safety still results in a majority of bullet-makers using lead wire.

Corbin has lead billets in 0.795-inch diameter for use in the LED-1 extruder die (in case you don't care to cast billets), and can furnish lead in just about any size of billet. Alloys can be furnished only in minimum lots that generally are 100 to 250 pound, because of the minimum billet required for a commercial extruder operation. Many of our customers can provide you with the smaller quantities of alloy leads: check the "WORLD DIRECTORY of CUSTOM BULLET MAKERS" for addresses and phone numbers.

ABOUT BULLET JACKETS

Bullet jackets are the skin of the bullet. They are what makes it possible to achieve velocities over 4,000 fps and still have no fouling from melted lead in your barrel. But besides elimination of lead fouling, the jacket has another important job. It helps control the terminal performance of the bullet.

Bullet jackets are available from Corbin in packages of 250 or 500 jackets, depending on the caliber and length. Popular calibers are stocked in certain lengths that are most useful. Not all calibers or lengths are available directly. Some you have to make yourself, by re-drawing a more common size. This is done with a Corbin JRD-1 draw die. 

Other calibers  can be made from copper, brass, or even steel tubing. A reloading press can only use the commercially available drawn gilding metal jackets, which range from 0.017 to 0.032 inches in thickness depending on the length and caliber. The Mity Mite press can form jackets from 0.030 inch thick copper tubing (hard drawn, straight tubing, not the soft coiled type). The Mega Mite can handle tubing in 0.030 and sometimes in 0.049, depending on caliber. The Hydro-press can handle anything, from the thinnest copper to the thickest steel walls (typically 0.050 steel or 0.065 brass is the heaviest practical jacket wall, beyond which you may as well swage solid copper rod).

From .30 caliber rifle down, it is both easier and cheaper to use commercially made jackets and either use them as is, or redraw them for smaller or longer jackets. Jackets can expand considerably during the core seating operation, to become larger in diameter. Jackets for bullet swaging in Corbin equipment are all made several thousandths of an inch smaller than the final bullet diameter, so you can expand them upward for a perfect, tight fit on the core.

This is one reason that it isn't feasible to pour hot lead into a jacket and make a jacketed bullet. The pressure of swaging is needed to expand the assembly to the right diameter inside a die. Another reason is that the hot lead would shrink away from the jacket during cooling, leaving a loose core that would not stabilize in the rifling.

In the calibers from .309 to .338, it is possible to use regular .30 caliber jackets. Special techniques to expand the jacket evenly include seating the core in two short sections, so that the base will form properly. This is done on the .338 and .333 calibers, but isn't necessary on the .311 and .314 sizes. Using this method, it is even possible to expand a drawn .22 Magnum fired case into a nice 7mm (.284) bullet! It works best with a rebated boattail die set and with three or four short cores seated on top of each other, one at a time.

The best known jacket among bullet-makers is the .22 Long Rifle case used for a .224 or a .243 caliber jacket. Corbin makes a die set called the RFJM-22 that turns these rimfire cases into straight-sided jackets of the proper diameter. Vernon Speer, Harvey Donaldson, and Fred Huntington were a few of the well-known experimenters who used this method in the late 1940's. Speer and Huntington both launched major businesses from this beginning. 

The process had flaws in those days, because rimfire cases used mercuric priming compound. This left the jackets weak and brittle, so they fouled the bores and often came apart on firing. Today, non-mercuric priming is used in rimfire cases. The jackets you can make for yourself not only are as good as any you can buy for most practical purposes, but they are free! 

The disadvantage of making rimfire jackets is that the bullets have very thin skins -- typically under 0.015 inches -- without the thick taper toward the base which commercial jackets have. This means that they are excellent for varmint shooting, because if they hit the ground they normally blow up and do not cause a ricochet. But they are not suitable for high velocity (beyond about 3500 fps they blow up in the air), nor are they suitable for serious game hunting.

You may be surprised to learn that the commercial standard 52 grain bullet has a jacket that matches the length of the drawn .22 Long Rifle case. This is because the first .224 commercial bullets were made from such cases! When bullet makers switched to drawn strip metal, they kept the traditional length. Thus, you do not need to trim your home-made jackets or make excessive weights of bullets to use them. 

The jacket material is normally either commercial bronze or gilding metal. These alloys are 10% zinc and 5% zinc, respectively, with the balance of copper. The zinc is for strength and anti-fouling characteristics. A rimfire case is about 30% zinc. It is more brittle, but also less likely to foul the bore at normal speeds. By annealing the case, you can make it just as ductile as the regular jacket.

A 6mm (.243-.244) bullet jacket can be made from the fired .22 case (a Stinger or other long case is best). The head is smoothly drawn off, leaving a diameter of about 0.219 inches at the end. The body of the fired case is about 0.225 inches in diameter. A special punch with a flare or bottleneck, like a bottleneck cartridge, is used inside the case. The jacket becomes slightly longer as it is drawn, and this lengthening forces the mouth partly over the tapered part of the punch. It is this tapered mouth that lets you seat a lead core into the undersized jacket and expand it to full .243 size during the core seating operation. The flared mouth seals the die against lead leakage and makes the jacket expand perfectly. 

The .22 WMR case takes a different die (a special type of JRD-1 die is used) to make a long 6mm jacket. By careful manipulation of core weights and seating technique, you can coax this jacket to become a .257, a 6.5mm, or even a 7mm bullet! This isn't something for the beginner to try, but once you have mastered the basics, it is fairly easy to learn. 

Bullet jackets have different wall thicknesses, not only between different calibers and makes, but also within the same jacket. Commercial jackets have a taper, to control expansion. This means that when you seat the lead core into the jacket, the core has to be small enough to fit easily into whatever jacket you are using. If you buy a set of dies that is made with punches for a certain jacket, and then change to another jacket (such as going from a commercial drawn jacket to a copper tubing jacket), you will probably need to obtain a different core seating punch. 

The core seating punch fits inside the jacket, rather than the die itself, whenever you want bullets with the lead seated down past the jacket mouth. (Bullets with large lead tips, such as semi-wadcutters and lead round nose bullets, are made using a core seating punch that fits and seals pressure against the die wall instead of inside the jacket.) If you change from a 0.020 inch wall jacket to one with walls of 0.050 inch thickness, then you need a punch that is considerably smaller in diameter to fit the new jacket. When you order dies, either let Corbin supply the right jacket to fit them, or send a sample of the jacket you want to use. If you want more than one jacket, remember that you may need more than one core seating punch.

The other part that you may need for different jackets is the core swage die. Core swage dies make the core the right size and weight, starting with an undersized piece of lead. Reloading press dies don't use a core swage for technical reasons. Special swage presses almost always use die sets that can have a core swage as the first die of the set. When you order a set of dies for jacketed bullets, the diameter of the core swage die is important to the diemakers. The core that is produced must be small enough to fit inside whatever jacket you are going to use. If you later add copper tubing, or change to a thicker wall jacket (such as drawing down a larger caliber to get a longer jacket for a heavier bullet), it may require another core swage die of smaller diameter.

The right size of lead wire or core mould for a certain caliber depends on the jacket you plan to use. Most standard jackets that are available from Corbin take standard, off-the-shelf diameters of lead wire and core moulds. If you furnish your own jackets, you may need to send samples to get a special size made to order. Core size for the jacket is not terribly critical: as long as the core fits and the weight is about right without being so long that the core sticks out the die mouth, you can use any size.

One exception is that your core shouldn't normally be a press fit into the jacket, so that it traps air in the bottom. The short, thick half jackets for .38 caliber sometimes fit a bit snugly on the standard core, but they don't cause any problem. It is the long, tapered jackets of larger caliber handguns and of rifle bullets that create a potential problem with too snug a core. 

The problem arises when the core fits so tightly that air is pushed into a highly compressed disk at the bottom of the jacket. If the bullet is finished with the jacket brought around the nose or ogive section, you don't notice any problem. Accuracy is usually good because the air is normally quite highly compressed and centered rather well. But if you make a semi-wadcutter style bullet (and by that, we in the bullet-swaging field refer to ANY style of nose, be it round or flat, hollow or pointed, so long as the nose is entirely made of lead projecting from the jacket, and the jacket is NOT curved at all to lock the core in place), then the trapped air can expand when the bullets are brought into the hot sun. Sometimes, the cores will pop out with a 
loud bang and jump harmlessly across the room! 

The answer is to use a core that slips to the bottom of the jacket without force. Or, if you want to use a core swage die that is nearly but not exactly right, you might want to have the die-maker machine a special internal punch with a cavity in the shape of a boattail or Keith nose in its end. The cavity would form a mirror image of itself in the lead core, so that a section of the core would then fit nicely into the bottom of your tapered wall jacket without trapping any air. This technique lets you use the same core swage die with several calibers and with several different styles of jacket in the same caliber.

The right core mould for heavy wall tubing jackets is much smaller in diameter than the right core mould for a standard drawn commercial jacket. In fact, the next smaller caliber of mould is normally used. For instance, a .30 caliber core mould might be used with a tubing jacket bullet in .358 caliber, whereas a .38 caliber mould would be used if you were to make commercial jacket bullets with those same dies. When you order, we supply the size of equipment needed for standard popular jackets that we stock unless you specify otherwise, or unless we know that tubing jackets are going to be used.

Bullet jackets can make a wide range of weights even with the same length. The exact weight range for any given caliber and length of jacket depends on the ogive shape and base shape, as well as the degree of hollow point or hollow base and the lead density used, and the thickness of the jacket. There is no single "right" weight for a given jacket because of all these variables. But that means you, as the bullet-maker, can manipulate the variables and produce all kinds of different weights using a limited stock of jackets.

For instance, in the .44 caliber, a 0.54-inch long drawn jacket is very popular with shooters who have 3-die sets, such as the FJFB-3 type, to make bullets with the jacket curved around the ogive. By adjusting the amount of lead used in the jacket, you can make any weight from 180 to 250 grains with this jacket. The lighter weights have open points, and the heavier weights have more and more lead exposed at the tip.

The bullet-maker who uses a semi-wadcutter die limits himself somewhat on the range of weights possible with a given jacket, since he cannot take up any jacket length by curving jacket material around the nose. He can, however, change the amount of nose by selecting different punches, or change the amount of lead used by selecting hollow point or cup base punches and adjusting how far he presses these into the die. Then, he can follow with the regular Keith or other semi-wadcutter type of punch to shape the lead that is moved forward by the hollow point punch. 

This technique lets the bullet-maker adjust weight even on semi-wadcutter style bullets with the same jacket length and still have the same amount of lead showing! A technique not widely known is the use of ordinary cornstarch as a filler in the base of the jacket. By placing cornstarch in the bottom of the jacket and seating a lead core over it, you can produce very high velocity, light weight bullets in jackets that everyone else thinks only make heavy weight slugs.

In the .25 ACP caliber, you can make jackets from fired shotgun primers using the SPJM-25 die set. This kit lets you push out the anvil and cap, and draw the top hat battery cup into a smooth-sided jacket for a 45-50 grain .25 caliber bullet. Jackets for sub-calibers, such as the .14, .17, and .20 caliber, can be made from ordinary .224 commercial jackets using three drawing dies. The jackets need to be annealed by heating to a dull red briefly, so that the bottoms won't crack out when you draw them to .14 caliber.

Dies that use larger caliber jackets, such as the sub-caliber draw dies, can be made with a pinch trim punch so that surplus material is pinched off as the jacket is drawn. In order to pinch trim a jacket, there must be a reasonable amount of reduction taking place. It is difficult to pinch trim a .38 jacket being drawn to .350, for instance, because most .38 jackets begin at .3545 diameter. That doesn't leave enough difference for a pinch trim punch to work. But drawing from a .308 to a 7mm, or from a 7mm to a 6.5mm, leaves plenty of metal for pinch trimming to any desired length.

You don't have to use a jacket. Many handloaders don't yet realize that bullet swage dies can be used with or without jackets, and that a swaged lead bullet can be made faster, more precisely, and with far greater control of weight and style than a cast bullet. The same dies can be used for jacketed bullets or lead bullets. (This doesn't necessarily work in reverse: if you buy a LSWC-1 lead semi-wadcutter die, designed just to make lead bullets, it won't make fully jacketed bullets because the bleed holes in the side of this die would then be covered by the jacket.) 

Lubrication on a swaged, smooth-sided bullet is accomplished by changing from Corbin Swage Lube to Corbin Dip Lube. Dip Lube is a liquid wax that is applied to the core before swaging a lead bullet. The pressure of swaging forms a hard, tough film of wax all over the bullet. The wax doesn't melt or affect the powder like bullet greases do. Since it covers the whole bullet, no lead is exposed to the air or to the bore without having some lube between the bore and the lead. 

Naturally, this "liquid jacket", as some people call it, doesn't stand up to the torque and heat of high velocity firing like a regular jacket would. It does serve well for most shooters using loads up to 1,200 fps, and cuts the cost of shooting by eliminating the jacket as well as speeding up the whole bullet-making process. Corbin Dip Lube is available in pint cans or gallons. A sample 2-oz. bottle is available as well.

Re-forming jacketed, factory or military surplus bullets in a standard swage die (the point forming die, usually) is also possible. There are some cautions and limitations. The bullet must be smaller than the final diameter desired, because you cannot expect a .308 bullet to fit easily into a .308 diameter hole and eject easily after reforming. It should be a 0.3085 to 0.3090 inch die in order to use a .3080 inch diameter bullet for reforming. Also, there are some minor problems with lead coming forward out the nose of a finished bullet when you change the ogive shape to reduce the total internal volume. 

But, on the other hand, we have made hundreds of single-die swages that turned rather inaccurate military surplus bullets into soft points of very good accuracy simply by swaging them backward, so the base became the nose and the pointed nose became a solid base! And in other cases, we have made 5.56 and 7.62 mm bullets shoot twice as well by simply bumping them up half a thousandth of an inch while making their open bases more perfect and even. These transformations are quick and easy when they can be made to work with a standard die. I would not recommend putting a lot of money into tooling specially built for it unless you have a tremendous number of surplus bullets to reform. 

Bullet jackets can be made that have partitions, variations in thickness (selective heavier base sections), completely closed bases, solid copper bases, and multiple jackets stacked inside each other. Most of the heavy duty jacket making, using copper or brass tubing and such styles as the partition or H-mantle, are done on the Corbin Hydro-press. Hand presses and dies made for them do not have the ability to produce or withstand the extreme pressures used. Within a more limited range, however, you can still make exotic jacket designs by using the telescoping jacket idea: putting smaller calibers inside of larger ones is a very effective way to control performance. 

A thorough discussion of bullet jackets can be found in the book "REDISCOVER SWAGING", and the various technical bulletins published by Corbin Manufacturing have further details on making tubing bullet jackets, rimfire cases into jackets, and even the use of fired brass cases as bullet jackets.

SWAGING IN THE RELOADING PRESS

If your reloading press accepts standard 7/8-14 TPI dies and its ram will take regular RCBS button-type shell holders, then you can use it for swaging certain calibers and kinds of bullets with Corbin reloading press swage dies. A heavy-duty press makes the work easier, but any modern press capable of resizing a .30-06 case is strong enough for bullet swaging in the styles and calibers we offer.

There are limits to the pressure you can safely apply to the soft screw-stock rams used in nearly all current reloading presses. The size of the frame or leverage of the press has nothing to do with this. A massive press like the RCBS Big Max still has a four-inch stroke, to get a magnum rifle case in and out. Small arms bullets, on the other hand, need only about two inches of stroke in order to be successfully swaged. This wastes half the leverage in a reloading press.

Single station, ram-type presses are the only kind currently supported by swaging equipment. Presses with turrets, rotating shell holder plates, aluminum frames, mechanical type shell holders that adjust to different size cartridge heads, progressive loaders, and bar-type rams used in H-frame presses all have features that make some swaging operations difficult or impossible. Standard swage dies for reloading presses do not require a massive press, but they do work best in a simple, single-station conventional round-ram press. 

A special swaging press like the Corbin Mity Mite (CSP-1) or a combination reloading and swaging press like the Corbin Mega Mite (CSP-2) has the capability to more than double the leverage in a reloading press design. It does this by cutting the stroke in half. The same effort that moves a reloading press ram four inches is now put to work moving the ram only two inches. The effort is converted into higher pressure within the die.

Such presses have many special features designed to allow higher stresses, equalize the torque on the ram, align the die and punch more precisely, and provide for automatic ejection of the bullet on the back stroke. The die can be designed to withstand higher pressure, since it doesn't have to fit into the constraint of a standard reloading press dimension. 

In these presses, any caliber from .14 to .458 rifle bullets with tubing jackets as thick as 30 thousandths of an inch are perfectly feasible. In a conventional reloading press, you are limited to the .224, .243, and .257 rifle calibers, and the .25 ACP, .30-32 Handgun and carbine (130 grains or less, no spitzer rifle shapes), 9mm and .357/.38 Handgun calibers. Within those calibers, there is considerable latitude for weight and style variation.

Regardless of the press or system, you can make lead bullets or gas-checked bullets in any die capable of jacketed bullet swaging. And, you can use longer or shorter jackets in the same set of dies. There are some dies made just for lead bullets, combining the steps of core swaging and core seating so that you can make a lead bullet in one quick stroke, and these special (model LSWC-1) dies are not generally suited for use with more than a half-jacket. These dies are not made for the reloading press, in any case, since they require bleed holes in the die wall. 

Core swage dies and other lead-forming dies that have extrusion holes through their walls to let you automatically adjust the lead core weight on each stroke (instead of just using whatever weight of core you happen to put into the die) need room around the side of the die for the lead to come out. In a reloading press, the die is put into the head of the press. Because of the length and top position of the ram in a reloading press, the die has to be located so its walls are surrounded by the threads of the press. This doesn't leave room for correctly located bleed holes. 

In order to do it right, core swaging and lead semi-wadcutter dies that adjust the core as they form the bullet are made only for the special swaging presses, and not for use in reloading presses. You can still make lead bullets of equal quality in a reloading press, but to get there, you must be more careful about how you cut or cast the cores. What you put into the die is what you get out, in regard to weight control. This is a major advantage of the special swaging press  systems, and is one of the things that makes it difficult to "convert" or adapt many of the advanced kinds of dies for use in ordinary reloading presses.

Reloading press swage dies are made with a UNIVERSAL ADAPTER BODY, which is the same for all styles and calibers of dies. This component holds the actual die "insert" and internal punch together in the proper relationship, and fits into the 7/8-14 TPI threads of your reloading press. All adjustment for different weights and styles of bullets is made by turning the whole die, universal adapter and all, up and down in the threads of the press like a big micrometer thimble. 

There are two punches in every swage die. The INTERNAL PUNCH stays inside the die. It is held there by two restraints: the punch has a head on the top that won't let it fall through the die on the "downstroke", or ejection cycle, and the universal adapter body only lets the punch head slide up a certain distance before it strikes the top of the hole machined in the adapter. The EXTERNAL PUNCH fits into the slot in the press ram, just like a shell holder. It can easily be removed and changed. Most people own several external punches for each of their die sets.

A small hole goes all the way through the top of the adapter. It is .257 inches in diameter, and takes a quarter-inch diameter KNOCK-OUT ROD (also called the ejector rod or simply K.O. rod). The Knock-Out rod is long enough so that it can push the internal punch down nearly the same distance as the die is long. That pushes the bullet out the die mouth. On one end of the Knock-Out rod is a knurled head, big enough to give you a good target to tap with a plastic mallet or a piece of wood. This drives the bullet back out of the die after swaging.

The ejector rod comes completely out of the die, so you can use it on any of your reloading press swage dies. Another way to eject bullets -- one with a little more sophistication -- is to slip a Corbin POWER EJECTOR UNIT over the top of the die and fasten the three set-screws into the ring machined around each of the universal adapter bodies, right below the knurled part.

The power ejector is an optional accessory item. It speeds up the operation by eliminating the need to pick up a mallet and tap the ejector. Instead of using the regular ejector, you install a straight piece of quarter-inch diameter steel rod, supplied with the PE-1 ejector. Following the instructions that come with this tool, adjust its ram so that all the free play is taken up when you have a bullet in the die, ready to be ejected. From this point on, your swaging operation is reduced to two levers: the press handle swages the bullet, and the power ejector handle gently but firmly pushes it out of the die. 

The internal punch in your reloading press swage die can be removed easily. Identify the die insert itself. This is the super-hard high-carbide alloy steel cylinder at the very bottom of the whole die assembly, just protruding from the adapter about a quarter inch. Most of the die insert is up inside the adapter body, which is machined to accept the 5/8-24 TPI threads on the other end of the die. To remove the die, grasp the small protruding surface with pair of pliers and unscrew it. (Don't worry about marring the die -- it is so much harder and tougher than your pliers that you can't hurt it this way. On the other hand, don't grasp the oxide-blued adapter body with pliers: it isn't very hard, and you can damage the threads. Just hold it in your hand.)

There are basically three dies available for the reloading press that are swage dies, and several kinds of draw dies. The swage dies are:

(1) The CORE SEATER
(2) The POINT FORMER 
(3) The LEAD TIP DIE

The core seater (CS-1-R designation, in the reloading press system) can perform two different jobs. It can be used by itself to make any kind of bullet that has straight, parallel sides, a small shoulder, and a lead nose from the shoulder up. The whole bullet can be lead, or any amount of it can be covered by a jacket right up to that shoulder. Think of a Keith handgun bullet with a jacket coming right up to the semi-wadcutter shoulder and then stopping. Right up to this point, the bullet is straight. The jacket can't be curved past this point in this kind of die alone. 

However, the nose can be any shape you like. The nose is formed by letting the lead core flow down into a cavity machined in the end of the external punch. You can make a round nose, a Keith nose, a wadcutter (very little cavity, if any, in the external punch tip!), a conical nose like a pencil point, or anything else including fancy multi-cavity hollow points (instead of just a cavity, there is also a probe or rod in the end of the punch to make these). The point is, while you can just change the punch to whatever the lead core flow down into a cavity machined in the end of the external punch. You can make a round nose, a Keith nose, a wadcutter (very little cavity, if any, in the external punch tip!), a conical nose like a pencil point, or anything else including fancy multi-cavity hollow points (instead of just a cavity, there is also a probe or rod in the end of the punch to make these). The point is, while you can just change the punch to whatever thickness to its edge, or it would quickly crumble away. A 0.015 to 0.025 edge thickness is standard. This small edge comes up against the jacket in our example, and presses hard on the thin jacket material. One of them has to buckle and fold. Usually it is the jacket. 

If you try to make a semi-wadcutter bullet, and the jacket comes out with radial folds, much as if someone sat on your top hat, then see if you have enough lead sticking out the jacket to completely fill up the cavity in the punch you selected. If not, that's the problem, and the solution is to use a heavier core, a shorter jacket, or a punch with less of a cavity. Another solution is to use a hollow point punch first, moving lead up and out of the jacket, and then form your nose using the extra amount of lead displaced from inside the jacket. 

Let's back up a minute in case anyone is lost at this point. We are talking about the most basic kind of swage die, the core seating die. It is called a core seating die because it can be used to seat or press the core down into a jacket, expanding the core and the jacket together until they contact the walls of the die. The internal pressure becomes uniform as soon as the jacket is pushed out against the die walls evenly, and the base of the jacket comes hard against the internal punch face. This uniform internal pressure can exceed 20,000 psi (and usually does). 

Compressed oxygen gas in a welding tank is in the 2,000 to 3,000 psi range. Compressed air in your car tires is usually 35 to 45 psi. When you fire a typical rifle, pressures momentarily peak at levels that reach 25,000 to 55,000 psi typically. The average pressure over a second of time is vastly lower. The swage die must be able to sustain anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 psi constantly, year after year, without change in its diameter, roundness, straightness. It can't develop a barrel shape inside, nor can it grow with the continued stress. 

Tolerances in a casting mould usually are held to 0.003 to 0.001 inches, plus or minus. Tolerances in the core seating die are usually held to better than 0.00005 inches, plus or minus! Your bullet doesn't need to be within that tolerance of some arbitrary standard diameter, of course, but it is nice to know that whatever diameter it comes out, it is repeatable to such high precision. The typical absolute diameter tolerance on the bullet diameter is normally 0.0005 inches plus or  minus, although this has long been proven of little importance, as long as the variance is held to high precision tolerances. 

In other words, if you have a .308 rifle, and you know for sure that your barrel has a .3000 bore, with all grooves at exactly 0.0040 inch depth, it still doesn't matter nearly as much whether you shoot a .3079 bullet or a .3090 bullet down that barrel, compared to whether your bullets vary from one to the next as you try to put them into one hole. Many competitive shooters find a bullet with nearly 0.001 inch larger than nominal diameter shoots better at long range than a  conventional "correct" diameter bullet. 

In any case, the core seating die is a straight hole die. If you take it out of the adapter body and pull out the internal punch, you will be able to see straight through it. The hole is round, straight, and highly finished. The internal punch is a very close sliding fit. The external punch can fit the die bore, for making those semi-wadcutter and wadcutter type bullets, or it can fit inside the jacket for making rifle-style bullets.

Let me make a definition of these two general kinds of bullets. It's important to understand what I'm talking about so you can make proper and cost-effective decisions later on. There are semi-wadcutter styles, and rifle styles of bullets, relative to the kind of equipment needed. When a swage die-maker talks about a semi-wadcutter (or wadcutter) style, it isn't just a specific nose shape. In regard to the kind of equipment required, it means any bullet that is made with a lead nose, ending at a small shoulder, and having the jacket at full bore diameter all the way to the base (if there is any jacket). 

This kind of bullet can be made in a single core seating die in one stroke of the press. One pass -- all done. No lubricating, no sizing. Just load it and enjoy shooting it. Lead bullets are swaged with a film of flexible, hard wax bonded to them under swaging pressure. This is accomplished by dipping the core in a liquid "Dip Lube", which some people call "liquid jacket", just prior to swaging. The film evenly covers the bullet, making it usable to speeds of 1,200 fps with no grooves, no separate lubricating steps.

Cup bases? Hollow bases? No problem -- just remove that flat ended internal punch, and install an optional internal punch with a probe shaped like the cavity you want to form. Both the nose and base are formed at the same time, by pressing against the two punches. Unlike a mould, there is no conflict between hollow bases and hollow points. They are independent of each other and can be mixed or matched any way you like. In fact, you can turn the swaged bullet over and swage it the other direction, perhaps using a little higher setting of the die to get slightly less penetration of the punch. This gives you shapes that neither of the punches has by itself, and demonstrates one of the more powerful experimental features of swaging equipment.

We mentioned seating the core inside the jacket. If you wanted to, you could select an external punch (the one that slips into the slotted ram like a shell holder) with a small enough diameter to fit right inside the jacket. Jackets usually have some taper in the wall thickness to control expansion. The punch will contact the jacket wall at some point if it is a close fit. Obviously there are some limits as to the depth of insertion of any given diameter punch, and to the range of weights of cores that you could seat with each punch.

If the punch is too small, lead will spurt out around it and you may not be able to build enough pressure inside the jacket to expand it properly. This produces undersized and tapered bullets. If the punch is too large, it may not go into the jacket at all, or it may plow up jacket material as it presses down. This isn't always bad -- it can be used to thin the front of the jacket, or to help lock the core into place. Usually, though, the jacket and punch need to be made for each other to avoid this. Fortunately, Corbin is the world's largest supplier of bullet jackets of all types, and can provide the right punches for any jacket or core weight, as well as the jackets to match.

The reason for seating a core inside the jacket is to make that second kind of bullet, the rifle-style bullet having the jacket curved around the ogive, with an open tip. Let's define open tip and hollow point for bullet swagers. An open tip bullet has the core seated below the end of the jacket. The jacket extends forward, past the core. This leaves an opening or an area devoid of lead just below the tip. A hollow point, on the other hand, is made by pressing a punch with a projection or probe machined on the end into the core. The hole or cavity thus formed in the core is further shaped when the ogive is made. The result is a bullet with a hollow area in the point, formed in the lead itself. 

A hollow point bullet can have a lead tip, or it can have the core seated down inside the jacket. Usually, it has a lead tip exposed beyond the end of the jacket. But an open tip bullet can't, by definition, have a lead tip. The reason to be clear about these terms is so that when you order tools and punches, everyone will be talking about the same thing. It makes a big difference whether you can make what you want once you get the tools. A hollow point is made with an optional punch, during the core seating stage. An open tip is made by using a punch that pushes the core down inside the jacket. It is the standard, "default" design for any regular set of dies that includes more than a core swage and core seating die. And a lead tip bullet takes a lead tip forming die in rifle styles, but seldom requires anything special in the blunt, wide-tip handgun styles.

To make that second kind of bullet, the rifle-style bullet, you still need the straight-walled core seater. The uniform pressure that this die produces is necessary to expand the jacket to correct diameter, mate the core and jacket perfectly, and produce the straight and round tolerances in the jacket. But with the core seated down inside the jacket, all you have now is a very accurately formed cylinder!

To put the ogive (that's OH-JIVE, by the way, like "Oh, don't gimme no jive, man!") on the bullet, we'll use the second kind of swage die, the point forming die (designated PF-1-R for reloading press dies). Now, the term "point" is often confused with the term "tip". Again, it's nice to talk the same language when ordering parts over the phone. A point on a bullet refers to anything past the shank or straight part. A point is the same thing as a nose. The tip, on the other hand,is just the very end of the point. It is the part that ends, technically, after the meplat, and begins at some arbitrary place on the ogive curve that is close enough to the meplat so that it can have a different curve and not affect the over-all bullet outline significantly. 

Simply put, the tip is the very end of the bullet's nose. The point is everything from the tip to the start of the straight part (shank) and the point is the same thing as the nose. To add confusion, some people even call the point the ogive, so really the terms point, ogive, and nose all refer to the same thing in general sales talk. But tip is different.

The ogive is formed by pushing the straight cylinder you made in the core seating die into the point forming die. It goes in nose first. If you want the nose to be made on the open end of the jacket, then the open end goes in first. You can make a solid nose, or full metal jacket (FMJ, as it is called, though strictly speaking, the open tip also is a full metal jacket bullet) design by pushing the seated core and jacket into the point forming die base first. Special notes on this technique can be found in Corbin technical papers and books.

The point forming die has the actual shape of your bullet frozen in tough die steel, diamond lapped to extremely fine finish and tolerance by skilled die-makers. It is a hand-made die, produced by craftsmen with years of experience. It isn't much like a punch press die or a plastic moulding die, and people who have skills in those fields usually can't produce good point forming dies without a great deal more training. 

To make this die, both reamers and laps have to be cut to precisely the right shape and diameter for your desired bullet. In reloading press equipment, the great attraction is the lower cost since you can use an existing press. If your main goal is economy, then it doesn't help that goal to increase the cost of the dies by adding extra labor, so we manufacture only standard shapes and offer no custom work in the reloading press line. By doing this, we have been able to produce swage dies superior to those costing ten times as much, that are made to special order. Corbin makes the only serious attempt at mass production of hand-crafted swage dies: by eliminating all the stages of custom fitting and tooling, we've been able to bring swaging equipment of high quality to every corner of the earth, and introduce thousands of people to swaging who could not otherwise afford to try it.

If you want custom shapes and diameter, on the other hand, then we do have another system set up to handle it at reasonable cost. In fact, this system is designed on two levels: semi-custom and fully custom work using the same basic equipment. The advantage is that we can use all standard blanks, that fit into standard presses and use the same general parts. Your cost is lower, your replacements or repairs are much simpler, and the whole system is so well proven it has become the world's defacto standard for swaging. It's called the Mity Mite system, and we'll discuss it shortly. Semi-custom outfits can be obtained by selecting from the wide variety of off-the-shelf components kept in moderate supply for immediate delivery. Fully custom outfits can be produced, subject to the usual waiting list. 

In the reloading press, the point forming die is built very much like the core seating die. It fits the same universal adapter body, so both dies look almost identical from the outside. The difference is easy to tell: push on the ejector rod. The core seating die has no internal spring. The ejector rod will slide the internal punch down and you'll see it at the mouth of the die. The point forming die has a small (0.080") spring-steel wire pin passing through the tip of the cavity. This pin is a press fit into a steel button "head". The head is machined to go into one end of a coil spring. 

The spring presses between the top of the die and the head of the ejection pin. We call the internal punch an ejection pin. The heavy rod that pushes on it is called the ejection rod, you'll recall. If you order a new ejection rod, you'll get this quarter-inch diameter rod with the knurled head. If you order a new ejection pin, we'll want to know the diameter of wire, or at least what caliber of die it fits.

The reason for having a spring in this die is to hold the pin out of the main part of the die cavity during bullet swaging. The only purpose of the ejection pin is to push the bullet out of the die by its nose. If the pin were down in the cavity, the bullet would form up around the pin, and then it would be stuck in the bullet. This is exactly what happens if you forget to use lubricant. Now it's time to mention a very important part of swaging: the correct lube. 

For lead bullets, you have seen that a wax solution called Dip Lube can be applied before swaging the core. For jacketed bullets, a different kind of lube, serving a totally different purpose, is required. Swage lube is made to stand up to extreme pressures without losing its protective film -- a barrier between the smoothly finished die wall and the moving jacket material. Ordinary case lubes are useless. Don't try them. Swage lube is a little more expensive, but it goes a long way and it works. Your dies will last virtually forever if you use the right lube and clean materials. 

Every component needs a thin film of lube applied before it goes into the die. Lead or jacket, there must be a film of lube between it protective film -- a barrier between the smoothly finished die wall and the moving jacket material. Ordinary case lubes are useless. Don't try them. Swage lube is a little more expensive, but it goes a long way and it works. Your dies will last virtually forever if you use the right lube and clean materials. 

Every component needs a thin film of lube applied before it goes into the die. Lead or jacket, there must be a film of lube between it You simply press the seated core in (using proper lube), and eject the final bullet out. The bullet goes in nose first, pressed in with an external punch that is as big as the bullet base. It comes out base first, pressed out by a tiny ejection pin that bears on the tip of the bullet. The reason you cannot form the complete bullet in one stroke in this die is that the pressure required to expand the jacket uniformly is not present in this kind of die. There are two exceptions. You can make a full metal jacket bullet in this die alone. And you can make a lead bullet. 

The techniques for FMJ styles are discussed in other books. Lead bullets are simply a matter of shoving the lead into the die. It has to be smaller than the die cavity, naturally. Everything about swaging assumes you know better than to push a larger component into a smaller die cavity. The match between core seating die and point forming die is very good. For many years, bullet makers thought that it was necessary and desirable to have a slight pressure ring at the bottom of the bullet. This "pressure ring", as it was called, was promoted as increasing accuracy by many die-makers of the 1950's. It may not hurt accuracy at all, and it could help in some cases.

In reality, though, the story is a little different. Most die-makers of the past worked at home or in very small shops, and didn't have the money for really expensive, high-precision instruments to measure the bore sizes of the dies as they were being produced. As a result, a match of 0.002 to 0.0008 inches between core seat and point form die cavities was about all the die-makers could manage. Even today, that is typical of the best amateur work and is seen in some of the higher priced benchrest dies as well. 

Because of this difference, the seated core and jacket always went into the point forming die considerably under final diameter. The pressure of swaging the point expanded the jacket slightly, but most of the expansion took place at the base. These bullets won a lot of matches, but they still had a bit of taper and a bulge at the base. The die-makers, not knowing how to get rid of it, and noticing that even with this defect, the bullets still out shot most factory slugs, started hinting that maybe this was really a design feature put in by plan, instead of something they hadn't yet acquired the tools to eliminate.

Today, we still run into a number of precision shooters who read the old literature and come to believe that a "pressure ring" is necessary for good shooting. I don't think that having a 0.001-inch larger base is harmful to accuracy, but I don't think it necessarily does anything valuable. On the other hand, a bullet that is up to 0.001-inch larger than standard size, and straight, is probably going to be a good shooter and it won't expand the case neck as it is seated, then leave the case somewhat loose on the forward part of the bullet. 

With much taper on the bullet, the act of feeding the round can push the bullet back into the powder, and I know that won't help accuracy. We can make bullets tapered, straight, or with a pressure ring. In the reloading press, we don't offer a choice. In general, it is one of those features that is best left to the die-maker, since specification of too many "nit-picking" details only runs up your cost for special charges on the die-maker's labor, and doesn't give you any more accurate bullet one way or the other. But, if you need something very special in this regard, it is one more thing that has been pinned down and can be offered to anyone who feels it is worth the extra expense.

The core seating die has made us some semi-wadcutters and seated some cores for rifle-style bullets (I say rifle style because they could just as well be .32 handgun bullets or .243 rifle bullets -- it is exactly the same process, same kind of die, and the only difference is the size of the hole and the size of the components going into it). 

We have used the point forming die to shape the rifle-style bullet by forming the ogive, and in two steps we have made nice open tip bullets. What about lead tips and hollow points? The hollow point is made by seating the core with a hollow point punch, then forming the ogive. 

If the hollow point is also a lead tip, then the lead is longer than the jacket. Trying to eject this bullet may cause some deformation of the tip, since the ejection pin has to push on the tip with some force. The third die we mentioned (lead tip die) is made to finish off the tip so it looks as good as or better than factory bullets.

The lead tip die (designated LT-1-R for the reloading press) is much like the core seating die, except that it has a slightly larger bore size, and the internal punch has a cavity that matches the ogive in the point form die. The deformed lead tip fits up inside this cavity. Applying gentle pressure reshapes the lead tip, shears off any surplus lead, and leaves a fine looking lead tip that can be flat, sharp, or radiused. The lead tip die is a nice addition to any set, giving you the ability to reform the tips and even to close the open tip more tightly than you can do it in the point forming die alone.

The smallest tip opening is the same diameter as the ejection pin in the point form die. This ejection pin has to be strong enough to push the bullet out of your die, or you will be constantly replacing the ejection pins and having stuck bullets. So, a diameter of about 0.080-inch is used in reloading press sets. This is a good compromise between design strength and appearance. You can close the tip even further by using the lead tip die carefully. This takes a little practice to avoid pressing a little shoulder in the ogive, but once you figure it out, it is easily repeated.

How do you know how hard to push on the handle? Just push a little bit, very lightly. See if the jacket and core remain in the core seating die, or if they come back with the punch. Normally, the correct pressure just expands the jacket enough so that it stays up in the die. In point forming, use just enough pressure to form the bullet until you start to get a parallel pipe of jacket or lead on the tip (pushing the bullet material up into the ejection pin hole). That is as far as you can expect to go. Back off slightly on the die adjustment by raising it higher a half turn or so in the press, and you can then use the full ram stroke to set your insertion depth each time.

One key to uniform swaging in the reloading press is to use the top of the stroke, so that each time you move the press handle, you are using the physical limit of the press to control how far the punch inserts into the die. This controls amount of hollow cavity, the degree to which you reshape a bullet, the amount of tip closure on your ogive, and whether or not you are going to get a good lead tip. Everything depends on uniform stroke, uniform insertion of the punch. And that is most easily set by raising the die, so that the ram goes as far up as it can. Then lower the die, to obtain the desired shape or insertion.

The right pressure should be about like sizing a case. The larger the caliber, the more pressure you will feel on the handle. In no case is it necessary to throw your weight on the handle, or break your loading bench, or use a cheater bar. Doing these things will quickly make the die-makers more wealthy, because you will soon break your die and mash your punches into pancakes, requiring that you replace them. If you feel generous toward die-makers this week, by all means jump up and down on the press handle a few times. Otherwise, a mild one-hand force is quite enough.

Another point in regard to destruction of parts: always try a punch by hand first. If it won't fit, wipe it off several times with a clean cloth, oil it lightly, and try again. If it still won't fit, make sure that you have the right punch! Punches must fit closely but with relative ease into the dies. Keith nose punches, and others with deep cavities, expand slightly and may not fit easily by hand after they have been used. But they do fit, given a little oil and a little gentle pressure. I have seen .242-inch diameter rifle punches (for the 6mm point forming die) pushed into a .2238-inch diameter hole in the .22 core seating die. "I thought it went in a little hard," the bullet-maker said. Yes, I guess it might. Comes out a little hard, too. Try it by hand first. 

The slot in the reloading press ram collects primer residue and metal shavings. Take a cotton swab or a wood pick and scrape it out before installing your bullet swage punch. The material stuck in the slot can tip the punch, causing it to ram into the die at an angle and tear a nasty gouge all down the side of the punch. Again, be gentle when you first start out. Don't use speed or force on the first stroke, but instead, gently guide things together and notice how they fit. Then go after it, once you know everything is lined up.

Making .22 caliber bullets out of rimfire cases is one of the most popular swaging activities today for a reloading press bullet-maker. It has been so for twenty years. The process takes three steps. Draw the jackets, seat the cores, and form the points. Lead tip bullets add a further step of forming the tips. Detailed instructions come with the die sets, and further information is found in the various technical bulletins and text books we publish. 

The photos in this book will give you a good idea of how the process works. The most questions are about annealing and cleaning .22 cases. First, annealing is usually done after boiling in hot soapy water and vinegar (to clean and shine the brass). Annealing is only so that the ogive will form without any folding. If you make a big lead tip, you probably can avoid annealing. There are several ways to go about it. Putting a group of clean cases in a tuna can, inside a lead pot, and letting them turn dark brown (15 minutes, usually) will do it. 

Using a toaster oven on high, or putting a pan of cases in a self-cleaning oven for the duration of the self-clean cycle is also good. Using a propane torch or electric heat gun (Corbin FHG-1) is also good, primarily for smaller lots. 

The older books suggested 600 to 650 degrees F. I have found that modern cases take 800 to 900 degrees F., and that a standard electric oven doesn't usually get hot enough. We do make excellent quality heat treatment furnaces, but for the hobbyist they are too expensive. The time and quench after heating are not critical. Quenching has no effect on the hardness. It merely helps to knock of any scale that might have formed. If you use the right temperature, you won't get any scale, and you can forget about any quench. Just let the cases air cool. Use swage lube on the punch when you draw the jackets. Just slip them over the long, 0.2-inch diameter punch and push them into the die, following instructions provided with the tool. 

Rimfire cases are good to about 3,000 or 3,200 fps before they start to come apart. Actual speed depends on rifling depth and sharpness. They force you to load a .22-250 down to .222 Mag velocity, but on the other hand, they also make you save powder, barrel, and cost nothing for material. When they hit, you'd swear they were going over 4,000 fps compared to a factory bullet performance. And there is no problem with barrel fouling or wear: if anything, the thinner jackets are easier on your gun than a standard bullet. Try it! You will be surprised at the accuracy.

SWAGING WITH THE MITY MITE SYSTEM

Swaging with the Mity Mite press and dies is a huge step up from using a reloading press. It's faster, easier to use, more than doubles the power you have, so that the effort is cut by more than half, and extends the caliber and design range to dizzying heights.

You can obtain dies to make any caliber from .14 to .458, any weight up to about 450 grains, with a maximum bullet length of about 1.3 inches. You're read about the CORE SEATING DIE, POINT FORMER, and LEAD TIP DIE in the previous chapter (or, if you skipped it, you should read it now). Let's explore other kinds of dies that can actually adjust the weight of the bullet as you swage, or form boattails on the normal flat-base jacket.

There are FIVE kinds of swage dies for the Mity Mite system:

(1) The CORE SWAGE die
(2) The CORE SEATER die
(3) The POINT FORMING die
(4) The LEAD TIP die
(5) The REBATED BOATTAIL die set

In addition to swage dies, there are draw dies, and special jacket forming dies. Copper tubing can be formed into bullet jackets for those calibers where regular drawn jackets are not available, too thin for big game hunting, or too expensive and difficult to obtain. Tubing jackets can be made in the Mity Mite in 0.030-inch wall thickness, in the calibers from .308 to .458. The quality of such jackets is outstanding, even if they are produced from ordinary copper water tube. 

The literature that comes with the kit of dies explains the process in detail. The one die that is used in this set and not discussed here is the END ROUNDING DIE, which rolls over the tubing in preparation for closing one end. In reality, it is simply a special size of point forming die, with a round nose cavity and special punches for tubing. The core swage die is made like a core seating die, except that both the internal and external punches are very close, sliding fits to the bore, and the bore is just large enough to accept a cast or cut lead core. Also, there are three orifices in the walls of the die, at 120-degree positions around the circumference. 

You can easily tell this die from the others by looking for these three bleed holes. It is easy to determine which punches go with the die: the punches are far too small to fit closely in any other die of the same caliber set. Just try them by hand. If they fit smoothly into the die cavity, they are right.

There are really two forms of core swage die. One is the ordinary core swage, used to adjust the lead core weight shape before making a bullet from it. The other is a variation called the LEAD SEMI-WADCUTTER DIE, or LSWC-1. In the Mity Mite system, we place a -M after the model number of the die set, and for the same kind of set in the Hydro-press system, we place a -H after the model. There is no LSWC-1 or, for that matter, any kind of core swage or bleed-off die for the reloading press.

The LSWC-1-M can be used to make a complete bullet in one stroke. It has a bore size that is finished bullet diameter, and the punches have ends that are shaped just like a reverse of the bullet nose and base you want to form. Because the punch forms the nose by flowing lead into its cavity, there has to be a small shoulder between the nose and shank, where the edge of the punch presses into the core. The LSWC-1-M cannot make a smoothly curved ogive without a step.

Let's make a bullet in this die. First, cut or cast a small quantity of lead core as described in the earlier chapters. But leave from two to five grains more lead than you actually want in the final bullet weight. Locate your LSWC-1-M die set. You can see that the die has no adapter body like the reloading press die. 

The Mity Mite dies don't use an adapter body, because they are made to screw directly into the RAM of the Mity Mite press! The die is a very tough knurled cylinder of costly, special steel, heat treated in electronic furnaces with a special kind of atmosphere. The Corbin process of die-making has been developed over the past twenty years to a level far beyond that used by most of the mass-production arms and ammo companies. The dies you receive are superior in construction and in design to the usual production die, and the bullets you can make in them should be superior to those you can purchase, if you do your part!

The die has an internal punch, which normally is left in the die (no need to remove it). It goes into the die from the threaded end of the die. The threaded end of the die screws directly into the press ram. This is just the opposite of reloading press dies, which screw into the press head. In the Mity Mite, the press head holds a FLOATING PUNCH HOLDER. This black oxide finished, 7/8-14 TPI threaded cylinder looks like a reloading press die. But it holds the external punch.

The ram of the Mity Mite press is machined so it performs all the functions of the universal adapter body. There is a shoulder that stops the internal punch from coming out of the top of the die when you move the ram forward to swage. There is also a hardened tool steel pin with a knurled head, passing through a slot in the side of the ram. 

This is the STOP PIN. It's job is to stop the backward movement of the internal punch when you pull the ram back, so that the internal punch is forced to slide forward and eject the bullet. You don't need a mallet, ejector rod, or the power ejector unit with the Mity Mite.

When you consider the wide range of calibers, styles, and jobs that Mity Mite dies must do, then think of the years of development that went into the complete system of interchangeable, simple dies and punches to fit the Mity Mity press, you may realize why it is better to purchase the ready-made system rather than trying to modify reloading presses, come up with custom parts or tools, or try to modify dies to work in arbor presses, hydraulic jacks, or vises. The universal interchange of calibers, jobs, and styles in the Mity Mite system is a major benefit, and the ease which which future changes or special work can be done in this system makes it far more cost-effective than trying to come up with one-of-a-kind tools for specific jobs.

The FLOATING PUNCH HOLDER, (Model FPH-1), is included with each Mity Mite press. Instead of moving the die to adjust for depth of punch insertion, you screw the die all the way into the ram until it comes to rest on a shoulder. This shoulder, not the threads, takes all the force. Adjustment is all done with the micrometer-like movement of the threaded punch holder. Screw it toward the ram to make lighter bullets, or to push a punch further into the core. Screw it away from the ram to fit a heavier core, or to push a punch a little less far into the die. 

To install the LSWC-1-M die and punches in the Mity Mite, first make sure that the internal punch is correctly placed in the die. The internal punch has a 1/2-inch diameter head at one end, and a short "tail" protruding from the other side of this head. The tail is about 5/16-inch diameter, and its length varies from a quarter inch to five eighths of an inch, depending on the nominal weight (length) for which the punch was designed. This tail, working with the over-all punch length and the dimensions of the ram itself, determines the lightest and heaviest weight of bullet that you can get into the die. Lighter bullets require less of a tail, and heavier ones take a longer tail.

You don't need to know the technical details -- just let us know what general weight range you want, and we'll see that the punch provided will do it. If one punch won't handle the whole range, we may suggest a second punch. Usually, the range is so great that you can reasonably expect to make handgun weights with one punch and rifle weights with another. The punch tail determines how much volume is left in the die cavity, which You don't need to know the technical details -- just let us know what general weight range you want, and we'll see that the punch provided will do it. If one punch won't handle the whole range, we may suggest a second punch. Usually, the range is so great that you can  reasonably expect to make handgun weights with one punch and rifle weights with another. The punch tail determines how much volume is left in the die cavity, which nger pressure. It isn't necessary to use a pair of pliers. Now identify the external punch. 

The external punch fits the die cavity, but it has no "tail" section on its half-inch diameter head. Whereas the internal punch has to be as long as the entire die, so it can push the bullet out the mouth, the external punch needs only to fit half-way or less into the die bore. It is shorter. The part that is matched to the die cavity diameter is less than half the entire punch length. There is a section of the punch just after the head that is turned to about three eighths of an inch in diameter. 

This section slips into a hardened bushing that you will find inside the floating punch holder. There are three parts in the punch holder besides the body itself. First, there is a hexagon-shaped bushing or retainer that threads into the mouth of the punch holder. Remove this bushing. It should unscrew easily by hand. Inside the punch holder are two hardened tool steel parts. One is a half-inch diameter bushing or ring. One side is flat, the other curved. 

This part is called the ROCKER BUSHING. It slips over the external punch, so that the flat side rests against the head of the punch, and the curved side faces toward the small end of the punch (toward the die). On punches that must be made larger than 0.375-inch diameter, the hex bushing and the rocker bushing are permanently assembled to the punch. 

These punches must have the end opposite the head larger than the standard hole size in the two bushings. We make them fit the standard system by building them with a removable, cap-screw secured head. We assemble them here, so you don't have to take them apart and reassemble them every time you want to install a bushing. 

If your caliber takes a punch smaller than 0.375-inch tip diameter, the rocker bushing and hex bushing supplied with the press, in the punch holder, will easily slip over the punch. Assemble them now. Put the hex bushing over the punch so it will hold the punch into the punch holder. Look inside the punch holder. If you use your little finger, or a toothpick, you can probably pick out the last part, called the ROCKER BUTTON. This part looks just like the rocker bushing, but is solid.

The rocker button fits into a V-shaped surface in the bottom of the punch holder cavity. It allows the head of the punch to transfer all the tons of swaging force to the punch holder in a safe manner, yet still allows the punch to rotate slightly so it can line up with the die bore perfectly. If the punch were held rigid, it could not self-align or float to keep the punch perfectly aligned under stress. This is another advantage of the Mity Mite system over other swaging methods.

Notice that the rocker button has a curve on one side, and is flat on the other. Make sure that you put this button into the punch holder so that the curved side goes in first. You want the punch head to rest against the flat side of the button. And the flat side of the rocker bushing presses against the other side of the punch head. The curved side of the rocker bushing matches a curve machined in the inside edge of the hex bushing. When you screw it all into the punch holder, the punch is held so that the exact center of its head is in the center of a 1-1/4 inch ball, most of which is not physically present, but the working parts of which are formed by the curves and their mating surfaces.

You don't need to take any special precautions with this assembly. It doesn't need oiling or maintenance. Just make sure you assemble it correctly. Look at the pictures in this manual before you try it. If any of the three parts are missing, your punch will not be properly supported and could be damaged under swaging pressure. Many people purchase spare punch holders so that they can assemble the punch and leave it, locking the lock ring on the punch holder to repeat their  favorite adjustment quickly. This is nearly as fast as having several presses, since it is the only adjustment that ever needs to be made.

With the die assembled into the ram, and the external punch in the punch holder, back off the punch holder several turns away from the ram. Pick up a core, moisten it with a little Corbin Swage Lube (or Corbin Dip Lube, if you want to make a lead bullet with a wax film for up to 1200 fps velocity), and place it into the die mouth. 

The core must fit into the die easily. If it won't fit, it is too large and you should not attempt to swage it. Never swage anything too large to fit into the die by hand. If it is far too small, you will tend to get folds and wrinkles in the shank, and it will be hard to get enough weight without having the core stick out the die mouth. The maximum length of core still must fit into the die before any pressure is noticed on the handle. Never try to swage something that is just barely inside the die, or sticks out of the die mouth. 

Carefully move the ram forward so that you can align the external punch and die. Don't pinch your fingers! Just help the punch go into the die this first time, and then, when you have it inside, gently snug up the hex bushing so that the punch doesn't move freely (it will still move under swaging forces). 

The Mity Mite press is so powerful it can pinch your finger off just by dropping the handle with your finger between the die and punch. Always keep your hand firmly on the handle when you are adjusting a punch, and don't trust gravity or friction to keep the handle from falling! I never place my finger between the die and punch. Any time I make a manual adjustment or help the punch line up the first time, I always keep my fingers on the sides of the punch, away from the tip. If I should drop the handle on the press, the die would move my hand out of the way. I might pinch myself against the end of the punch holder, but that wouldn't be too bad. 

If the punch won't reach into the die at this point, move the punch holder forward. The ram should be moved to its foremost position, so it reaches as close to the press head as it can go. This happens at the point of maximum leverage, with the pivots in the handle lined up in a straight line with the ram centerline. This press is  unique in having allits linkage and ram concentric and in a straight line with maximum forward travel. Most presses have a side-torque caused by offsetting the handle, and several can't reach full leverage because they physically run out of travel before then.

If the die can't be moved forward because the lead core comes up against the external punch, back off the external punch by turning the punch holder. When you have the ram all the way forward, hold it there and screw the punch holder toward the die until you can't turn it any more. The punch will have come up against the lead core. 

Back off the ram slightly, and move the floating punch holder half a turn forward. Stroke the press forward again. Then pull the handle back and almost, but not quite, eject the bullet. You can see the bullet at the die mouth, ready to be ejected. Notice whether or not the nose is completely filled out. If not, adjust the punch holder forward another half turn and swage the bullet again. Within a few strokes you will have the press set up so that the nose is forming completely. 

A small quantity of lead should begin to move out the bleed holes. I like to make my cores so that about one eighth of an inch of lead extrusion comes out the bleed holes on every stroke. Also, I like to swage the cores so that they are double-swaged: every stroke goes over and past the "top dead center" position, and then passes "over the top" again on the back stroke. You will notice that the Mity Mite retracts the ram slightly as you continue through the end of the stroke. This slight retraction gives you a double-swaging action on each stroke, if you use it.

If you eject the bullet and weigh it, you can see whether or not to adjust the punch holder and in what direction. If the bullet is too light, then you may need to adjust the punch holder away from the ram (to make more room in the die at the end of the stroke, and extrude less lead). If it is too heavy, then you need to adjust the punch holder toward the ram (to reduce the volume in the die at the end of the stroke, and force more lead out the bleed holes).

Obviously, if your lead cores start out too light, there is no way to make them all weigh the same by swaging and still come up with a heavier bullet. The only way to get consistent core weight by this method is to start out with plenty of lead, and remove all the surplus along with the variation. The hardness of the lead has a good deal to do with consistency of weight. Harder lead will flow more slowly. You may get variations in weight with harder lead, because you don't allow enough time for the lead to quit flowing. I recommend only pure, soft lead for the Mity Mite. You can get by with alloys of up to 3% antimony, in the smaller calibers. 

If you don't notice any lead coming out the bleed holes, stop swaging and figure out whether the core is so short that it lets the external punch move past the bleed hole location. If this happens to be the case, then you need an internal punch with a shorter tail section. Most people assume the external punch is too short. But making it any other size tends to cause other problems. The right way to adjust for extreme weight ranges is with the design of the internal punch tail. 

After you have swaged some bullets, the internal punch may be more difficult to move. This is because the three extrusion holes in the die become filled with the last lead wire extrusion made. The ends of the lead wire press against the punch sides. This is normal. You should still be able to remove and re-insert the external punch, though there is no reason to do so unless you want to change to another style (such as going from flat base to cup base).

Read this part over again and make sure you understand the principle involved. This is the same operation you use with all the various core swages and lead semi-wadcutter dies. It works the same way whether you use the automatic proximity detectors and pressure transducers of the Hydro-press or whether you do it by hand on the Mega Mite or Mity Mite press. It doesn't matter whether you are making benchrest .224 rifle cores, handgun .44 Magnum cores, or .40 Sharps rifle bullets for paper-patching. Airgun pellets or precision lead weights for phonograph cartridges all are made exactly this way.

Two notes a