40 caliber hollowpoints from 9mm cases

[kawalekm]

Ok, here's this weekend's project to make .40 caliber bullets with CH 101 dies. *I used the same 110 grain lead core I used for my .357 bullets. *First I heated a batch of 9mm cases in my empty Lyman lead pot set at 700 degrees F for 2 hours. *That worked nicely, without any of the scale I get on the kitchen stove. *Because the core is so short for the 9mm case (or the case is too long), core seating just resulted in damaged jackets. *It was straightforward though to just drop in a core and send it up into the swage die.
http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r55/kawalekm/9mmcaseto40caliberbullet.jpg
Look carefully at the mouths of the bullets in the middle group and the far right group. *For the far right group I left the jacket in place to form an open point that extends about 50 thousandths past the end of the core. *In the center group I folded the end of the jacket over the outer lip of the hollowpoint to make a jacketed hollowpoint that extends right to the mouth of the hollowpoint with no exposed lead. *

The nominal weights of both bullets is 172.5 grains with a final diameter of 0.3995". *The hollowpoint measures 675 thousandths long while the open point is 715 thousands. *I've shot neither of them yet, but I would guess the folded-nose hollowpoint might feed better and also stabilize faster than the longer open point.
Michael

[blackpowderbill]

I have to say I'm impressed with your reloading ingenuity !
I do quite a bit of reloading myself and have not ventured into case forming or swaging.
Nice work

Bpb

[skipm]

I am not familiar with bullet swaging, can you give a llittle more info? Also what is the equipment nedd to swage bullets? Any tips for someone just starting out?

[kawalekm]

Hi Skip
If you're a bullet caster you most likely already have most of the things you need to swage bullets. I made the cast cores with a Lyman lead furnace and a core mold. You could also make lead cores from a smaller caliber bullet. I used my empty lead furnace to anneal the brass cases also.

You can buy swaging dies from different companies, mine being from www.ch4d.com. You can also buy from www.corbins.com.

Basicly, you just drop your cast core (or cut pieces of lead wire) into the jacket (9mm case) and run it into the core seating die. After the core has filled out the jacket, you run the jacketed core into the swaging die. That die curves the jacket over the ogive, forms the soft/hollowpoint of the nose, and brings the bullet to final diameter.

The CH die set looks just like a rifle reloading die set, with punches instead of shell holders. You need a substancial loading press with a compound lever linkage like the RCBS rockchucker or Lyman's orange crush. Corbin offers two kinds of die sets. One type fits any 7/8" threaded compound link reloading press. The second are die sets that fit only his horizontal press designed especially for swaging.

The case to bullet idea is nothing new. Corbin has a picture of a bullet made with a 30 carbine case on his website. And, the big bullet makers Speer and Hornady got started in swaging back during WWII, making .224 bullets from empty .22RF cases.