I found 2 boxes of Speer .44 caliber half jackets. Are they used in cast bullet manufacturing?
Butch

No. They are used to swage jacketed bullets, using equipment from Corbin or similar. Lead cores are cut and inserted into the half-jackets, then the bullets are swaged into the desired shape using special dies and nose forming tools.

Must be an antique way to do it. I will say that I have cast bullets that have the half-Jackets on them.
Butch

Lyman put out moulds for them. #357511 & #357512 come to mind right away. I'm sure they also put out moulds in 44, but can't say for sure. Basically the moulds had a long shank that fit into the jacket and had no lube grooves. I believe the cores were meant to be pure lead, but can't prove that. I have a 357511, but have never used it (yet).

Just looked it up. Lyman put out the 429510 and 429513 which also used 1/2 jackets.

Thanks for the reply. I just gave them to Thaine. I needed to give them to somebody that had a use for them. After going through some of my cast bullets, I found some with the half-jackets attached to the bottom of the bullet. They capture the base.
Butch

A looooong time ago I had a C&H Swage-o-matic that used those half jackets. I bought lead wire and a cut off tool. Drop the lead in the cup and squeeze out very nice bullets. They were very explosive at high velocity and I would never recommend them for deer.
The hollow point version was something else on woodchucks and water jugs.
I wish I still had it!

Yep, I was the lucky receipent I have a couple of Swag-o-matics and that is what they will be used for. Lets you play around a bit. If you think this is antique Butch; you should look into the zinc washer based cast bullets. The idea was to insert a washer into the mould and then pour your bulet. It locked onto the washer and allowed you to use soft alloy. The washer would clean the barrel as it went down the bore. I have a mould for these and some washers, just haven't gotten around to playing with them. Too many wanta dos overshadowed by too many honey dos and just not enough minutes in the day Thanks again for the jackets, shipping costs will follow as soon as I know.

Thaine

You must be as old as me if you remember the Harvey Prot-X-Bore bullets. I believe they came out in the early 1950s. Jim Harvey's next bullet was the Jugular Jacketed which was the original half-jacket bullet. A few years later Vernon Speer introduced his half-jacket and three quarter-jacket bullets. Hornady got into the act right after that. I remember using all of those bullets since I was a big-bore handgun nut. Because they used pure lead cores they would really expand in game animals but this same pure lead core is what caused them to lead the bore so badly. Those were the good old days, huh?

Where are you in NM? I used to live in ABQ and in Los Lunas.

Ray

It sounds as if we are all OLD FARTS!

I picked up a boatload of loading stuff from an old boy who couldnt use it anymore. Among it was a set of C&H swaging dies for my 38/357 and everything to use them. Lots of half jackets, pre-cut wire, cannelure tool, etc. Ill never need to buy pistol bullets again, they work pretty slick.