Swaging .50?

[Yogimus]

Would make for a hell of a coroner's report

[The Wizard]

Mike I think that the idea is that those are just bullets, not entire cartridges.

Okay, I claim ignorance - WHERE would the cartridge end and bullet begin (in that picture)? Would that actually be a "caseless" cartridge?? If so, WHY haven't we been doing so for years?

I'm just looking for education, and if such a thing is possible, why are we holding back on such production?

Here Mike this might help you visualize what's going on, the 9mm fired brass is stuffed with a lead core and swaged into a bullet then it is loaded into a .40S&W case like a normal commercial bullet would be.

[The Wizard]

Usually, they use copper tubing to make bmg jackets, or if a full base is absolutely required, caps.

Swaging, is not economical, the presses, and dies can cost truly stupid amounts of money - a Walnut hill press from RCE is what? 400 bucks these days, with a how many month wait?

Swagings big advantage is you can make bullets for anything no matter how oddball the size - 227, 318, 298, 318, 435, etc. Even bonded bullets are now easy for something where a commercial offering doesn't exist, has few, or spotty suppliers.

So is there no common brass that would work? I figured .50 GI, .50 AE, or .500 Mag/Spl would work but I don't exactly trip over piles of that anytime I'm at the range. I've heard 7mm mag works but again I don't have one so I'm not drowning in fired unreloadable brass. I say unreloadable not to (only) imply berdan primed but also to include cases with split necks or ones that otherwise wouldn't be able to reloaded into their original form again.



My thoughts are if I do get into swaging my .223/5.56 brass will get reloaded into more .223 with .22LR cased bullets, then after the necks split or they otherwise become too used to be reloaded into .223 they get cut down to .300 black and loaded that way until they wear out then they turn into jackets for a .30 caliber bullet. Reduce, reuse, recycle and all that.

.50 BMG seems to me to be another round that would be good to do that with being that everything .50 is so damn expensive.

[HTRN]

I've heard 7mm mag works but again I don't have one so I'm not drowning in fired unreloadable brass.

7 mag will work... If you remove the belt. Which you won't be able to do with a regular press. A hand swaging press, like the Corbin Megamite or RCE Walnut hill, probably. Easiest would be one of the various Hydraulic units. But then that pesky economics thing enters it's ugly head again.

.50 BMG seems to me to be another round that would be good to do that with being that everything .50 is so damn expensive.

Again, it's a money losing proposition - 450 to 9 thousand for a press. Another 700 or so for dies. Then there's the cost of lead wire(or more likely a core mold, which means casting equipment and raw lead), and the brass.

So before you make bullet 1, you're in the hole for probably 2 grand, minimum. When you can buy pulled M33 bullets for less than a buck a pop..

Also, if you're willing to do somewhat reduced loads, and you're careful, you can shoot cast out of a BMG rifle.

[PawPaw]

Would make for a hell of a coroner's report

I was thinking the same thing. Especially if the investigators weren't schooled in such things and tried to match the extractor marks on the base of the fired bullet.