Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Swaging .228 bullets

Has anyone used the Corbin swages to make .228 jacketed bullets out of 22 LR cases? I found some stuff on line about making .224 jacketed bullets, then I found Corbins, so I called them. They make the stuff to make .228 HP bullets. He said they don't get a lot of interest, and it's really pretty easy. I think the web site said they have the stuff to make from .104 to 1 inch bore. The final length of one of their rounds was .705 inch long, and 65 grains. That sounds like it would work in 1:14 twist? Anybody know anything on the subject?

I have some limited knowledge.

First off our barrels have 1-12" twist which will stabilize a .705" bullet. I trim my Hornadys to a bit longer than that and they work.

Initial outlay for all the apparatus isn't cheap. Simple .22 bullets made from spent .22 cases don't require really heavy duty presses (a good stout O-frame reloading press will suffice) but a purpose-made swaging press is a lot better from an ergonomic standpoint. Corbin equipment is expensive. The gear for making these bullets is nowhere near as expensive than that for making regular jacketed bullets but still a lot more than grabbing a set of RCBS loading dies off the shelf. The guys I've talked to about doing it all whined about the steep learning curve they went through before they started turning out good bullets- it's not as easy as Corbin makes it out to be.

.22 bullets made from RF brass aren't as accurate as store bought bullets as a rule, but exceptions exist. Said bullets are also fairly frangible- no big deal when paper punching but a detriment in the deer woods. I know of guys who make their own .224's out of RF brass for spray-and-pray AR-15 "plinking" but they will be the first to tell you they are not the ticket for shooting itty bitty bug hole groups off the bench. One of the bugaboos is the firing pin indentations and headstamps on the bases of RF brass- no matter how much they're ironed out those imperfections are still present on the bullet bases and as we all know the bullet's base is the steering end of the projectile.

By far the best approach is the traditional jacketed bullet home swaging process, using real for real gilding metal jackets, lead wire, and nasty expensive presses and dies. Those are by all accounts good bullets, even to the point where some benchrest competitors made their own because they were better than anything they could buy. But with the plethora of really precise relatively cheap store bought bullets, the shine of making your own has lost much of its luster. The main area of utility is in as I suspect where you're coming from- oddball sized jacketed bullets.

Making .22 bullets out of RF brass gained a big following during WWII when factory bullets couldn't be had for love nor money. That's when Fred Huntington introduced his gear for making them which he called the Rock Chuck Bullet Swage- and RCBS was born. As soon as bullets became available again off the shelf, the fad died off.

Tell you what, Joe. You buy the gear and I'll come over and drink beer while you make the bullets. I'll bring you a sack full of cast .228 bullets and we'll go plinking with them afterwards.

I made .224 bullets from .22 rimfire cases for years because I got the equipment cheap and it was something to do on cold winter evenings. You get out what you put in-sloppy work makes lousy bullets just as in casting. In my Rem. 700 223 they shot as well as Midway "dogtown bullets". I had many 100 yard groups between 3/4 and 1 inch, plus they do a number on groundhogs- at least to 200 yards. During the obama bullet shortage I had no problems. I shoot them in my 23D and 218 bee as well as my 223. I agree cast bullets are easier to make and use a lot in 25 through .50 caliber, but its neat to make your own jacketed bullets too. I make them with a Rockchucker press

Mike

Yeah, I researched the idea and talked to a few guys who did it and came away with the feeling that I can afford to buy all the .22 jacketed bullets I want to shoot, for now anyway...

If I fell into the gear for cheap I would probably get on board too.

I have a set of .228 swage dies made for use in a heavy arbor press, made by A.O.Niedner nigh onto a hundred years ago, gotten from Michael Petrov's estate. I never got around to messing with them though. Between my molds and the couple thousand jacketed .228 bullets I have I may never will. .224's are what I fear for if there's a serious social impingement on supply, and then mainly for feeding the AR, as I shoot mostly cast out of all my other .22's.

And I got to put in a plug for the local guy. RCBS stands for Rock Chucker Bullet Swage - which got them into business after WWII by making swaging dies.

Yep, originally for "homebrewers" to keep their .22 CF's running when factory jacketed bullets were nonexistent during the war, by using spent .22 RF brass. But, back then there was a lot of copper cased .22 ammo around and that was the "brass" that was recommended for use in making homemade bullets.* A couple years after the war jacketed bullets were available again and the fad died out, but by then RCBS was pretty well established so it didn't matter that the swaging end of the business went tits up.

In the same vein, I often wondered if jacketed bullets were nonexistent during the war, and guys were making their own, where were they getting the powder and primers with which to shoot them?. I know farmers, and other folks with a demonstrable need, were allowed to buy shotshells and .22 RF ammo when such stuff was unavailable to the general public ("there's a war on you know"). My Gramps had a farmer buddy who kept his friends supplied with a couple shells and .22's for occasional small game hunting forays, but they went scrounging for ammo for their deer rifles and sometimes simply didn't bother because it was such a hassle.

*I wonder too about barrel wear from bullets jacketed with harder cartridge brass instead of copper or gilding metal causing increased wear of rifle bores? Don't know- why I'm asking. Has anybody ever done a scientific test, complete with boresope and delicate measuring instruments and not "by guess and by golly"?

I’ve never heard or read of anyone asking if home brew swaged jacket bullets caused excessive wear but I do suspect that it could account for some of the funky things we occasionally run into that makes you ask how the hell did that happen?!

I know nothing about swaging bullets (..which will be apparent after my next sentence), ..but, wouldn't it be easier to somehow 'squash' .224" bullets out to .228", maybe with a shallow-set swaging/pointing die?

I suspect that rimfire brass is too thin to take the extra "squash" without splitting in the die. Maybe .22 Mag brass?

Well, Jeff, yes and no. It can be done, and sometimes is, but the risk lies in the tapered nature of the jacket wall thickness (assuming that you want to swage a standard jacketed bullet with jacket thicker at base than at tip). It would take a helluva lot of pressure to do it, and a regular reloading press wouldn't cut the mustard I fear. I have a big old arbor press in the shop if you want to try.

All you guys who fret about not feeding a .22HP because of no bullets on the LGS shelves just gotta do what I did. Over the course of 7-8 years I beat the bushes with WTB ads everywhere imaginable on the internet, and asking around everywhere you go. The net result is what I hope is a lifetime supply of jacketed bullets. That's not counting the simple expedient of casting your own- it ain't rocket science.

There are eight offerings on GB right now for jacketed .228 bullets. Some of the vendors have multiple boxes. Should be able to stock up without much trouble.

At one time wasn't swaging also used for making lead bullets as an alternative to casting? I'm little more than a casual researcher of home brew bullet swaging.

As Gary says the stuff is out there! just have to look, I pick up a couple of boxs every year, guns shows flea markets ect. I even passed on two boxs of Hornady this spring!

Buffalo arms usually have 45gr, 55gr and 60gr in stock, right now only 55's at a reasonable price plus they shoot very well for me. I use them out of my BRNO combo gun 5.6x52R for coyote hunting.

https://www.buffaloarms.com/228-diameter-55-grain-jacketed-bullets-box-of-100-bac22855

For the lads planning to use Buffalo's .228 bullets for deer: I sectioned some of their bullets in a milling machine to see how they're constructed and the jackets were mighty thin. They may be all right but I wonder how well they'll hold together if punched through a shoulder blade. Has anybody here whacked a deer with a Buffalo Arms .228?

I've got a life time supply. I just asked the question because it sounded kind of cool. Kind of like Burt Munro making a jug for his Indian out of a piece of cast iron sewer pipe, then casting an aluminium piston in a coffee can, running off to Bonneville and laying down a 200 MPH run. I don't need a supplier for .228 bullets. I just wondered if anyone had used that equipment? I've read where the early wildcatters made some of their own bullets. So, what did they know 100 years ago that's been forgotten today?

Everything, it would seem sometimes.

And if you don’t believe it then just spend some time on YouTube. It’s always good for a laugh when some chuckle head announces something of very common knowledge on YouTube as though he had just at that moment been the first person ever to have discovered it.

Any reason one couldn't size down .243 bullets to .228?

That's a bad idea., due mainly to the differences in modulus of elasticity between lead and gilding metal. As the bullet passes through the die it gets shrunk to size, yes, but the jacket then springs back a little bit while the lead core remains shrunken. One thing you don't want is a loose core rattling around inside its jacket. Create a die that allows for jacket spring back? Nope you would still have a loose core. Guys get away, sometimes, with shrinking bullets by a couple thousandths, but going down .015" is pretty drastic and quite likely to generate the above scenario.