Henry Rifle Forums

Photos,

Cores, this is a 170 grain set of core, both. The narrow ones are for .375 bullets



Squish...


This is a full-length 40sw jacket, with 252 grain core.



Now swaged with the .430 SWCHP point form die. You can see that the PF die has to travel too close to the jacket and touched the edge just a bit.




I gave the .7 length jackets a try. Here is my RCBS trimmer cutting down the jackets to .7.




Left is the 0.7" long jacket weighing in at 240grns. The right weighs in at 261 grns... Still not enough lead to make a full SWCHP.


Here is the lineup of test samples and weights.
Left to right
0.7" jackets
240 grn
261 grn
268 grn
282 grn (core seat touched brass,)
291 grn.

Full-length 40sw jackets
300 grn
320 grn




Lessons learned, I'm thinking of chopping the jacket lengths another 0.15 to start. possible as much as 0.225. We'll see how those two lengths do. Ideally, I'm looking for a 240 and 260 grain bullet.

That is dedication to your art. Fascinating. Thanks for the post.

Dropped the jackets down to 0.550
Here are 3 240 grain swchp. I had to clip a bit of pure lead sprue wire into the jackets to make up for the 10 +- grains lost in case weight.

Swaging the HP cavity


SWCHP point form die efforts. The one on the right is about perfect, I backed off the depth of the PF die two rat's hairs and it helped.

Here are a few more examples of 44mag samples. First up is an attempt to keep as much lead off the shoulder as possible to keep the leading down. Why would it lead? You swage with pure lead, so it gums up the barrel quickly.
Hmm.

So, running the quasy rnfp swage die from CH tool and die, followed by a slight kiss from RCE's lead Point Form Die (PFD) yields the following. Before you look at the photos, note that I backed the die out and raised the ram. Then I lowered the die until it touched and added 2/3rds of a turn.

As you can see, no lead touching, with the right lead core weight, and length of jacket, you could get the lead pretty even steven with the tip of the jacket...

Don't do this with any kind of pressure. I barely had the weight of the handle, and that is it.|

Samples I had lying around after trying full-length jackets and CH4D's RNFP die.

First up far left., using RCE SWC/Kieth point form die

Second from left, using RCE SWC/Kieth point form die


2nd from the right RCE RN PF die


The next few bullets are RCE dies, using swaged cores evened out with a few snips of sprue lead in the case to 240grns. I'm swaging these in the LRN PFD. This gives me an RNFP. Which I think, for short distances, under 100 yds, will do a fine job.

More swaged bullet samples 240grains 0.430/aka 44mag

Cores 180 grains.
40SW jackets trimmed down to 0.550

Amazing work. I'm fascinated by it and enjoy watching your progress. Thanks for sharing this stuff with us.

Ha!

Thanks. I've enough that I can load up and test some accuracy with a revolver and a lever gun. Got news that the DW 44vh is headed back from DW. So I am looking forward to that.

The rebored Marlin 336 to 375 Win/38-55 should be here tomorrow. Last night I closed the deal on a Smith 610. So, yeah, I've got more guns to load for than I can load for at the moment.

I'm knee deep in clearing comments for book four and prepping it to release. I've only got the late evenings to reload/swage. I need like 6 of me to get all my work done.

DsGrouse wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 29, 2025 7:38 pm

Ha!

Thanks. I've enough that I can load up and test some accuracy with a revolver and a lever gun. Got news that the DW 44vh is headed back from DW. So I am looking forward to that.

The rebored Marlin 336 to 375 Win/38-55 should be here tomorrow. Last night I closed the deal on a Smith 610. So, yeah, I've got more guns to load for than I can load for at the moment.

I'm knee deep in clearing comments for book four and prepping it to release. I've only got the late evenings to reload/swage. I need like 6 of me to get all my work done.

Those last ones, all polished up look spectacular.

You need more 'mind spaces' for the work.

Ha, if that came with more hands....

Remembering back to your first swaged bullets to the beautiful work above has been a very successful journey. Lots of respect for your efforts and progress.