My Rock Chucker is old and seems to loose precision. Now I'm playing with the idea to buy a Corbin S-Press which will allow

a) standard reloading press operations

b) to swage my own jacketed bullets

As the whole setup will cost $1.300 plus xxx, I wonder if this makes sense and how the quality of the bullets will be.

I am aware of the amount of bullets to be produced before I reach the break even point :-)

Maybe someone went this way and can report his experiences ?

Thank you.

This site has a bullet swaging forum. Scroll well down

http://www.graybeardoutdoors.com/phpbb2/index.php

For what it is worth, I went through all of this at the end of last year with the view to making 416 bullets. However due to neck problems it looked like I would become involved in the world of 17s. The neck problem has been basically fixed and I have reordered but for 375.

It sounds like you have been to Dave Corbins site. General opinion seems to be that his brother Richard is the one to go with.

Here is Richard's site

http://www.rceco.com/

You will find Richards gear quite a bit cheaper and would be about $800 to set up for one calibre with one bullet style (point shape).

Since I have not yet made bullets I can only relate to you what I have been able to find out and that is accuracy will be excellent. In fact it will probably be better than normal because you can adjust the bullet weight to any weight you want. In other words a particular 375 might shoot best with 278 grain bullets or a 30/06 might shoot best with 158 grain bullets.

Mike

Thank you for the link, Mike.

Seems the Corbins have a family history as the Dassler brothers- one went adidas, the other Puma.

Yes, Richard is cheaper:
S-Press CSP-1: $ 298, Walnut Hill Press: $230,
FJB-3-S die set: $418,50, RCE die set: $340

This is the price, but what about standard and quality, and are their dies interchangeable, I mean: can I use a RCE die in a Corbin press ?

And how convenient is the press to be used for reloading ?

I called Richard and was planning to order his Walnut Hill Press, but it won't handle long shell for reloading. I went a head and ordered the CSP-1. I plan on useing RCE Swaging dies though. I am very happy with the press.\


I am going to make 6.5 .416 and .358 bullets.

On his web page Richard says he will make his dies to fit any other press, with no additional charge.

I really like my CSP but, I think that Corbin's web page and books are a bit of a used car sale routine (high pressure). Although I really learned a lot and the books offer a great amount of information, especially for some like me who know nothing about swaging.

A four die set from RCE to make flat base soft point bullets is $465.

The same stuff from Corbin is $546.

I haven�t decided which company I will be going with, I will send some emails and talk to them on the phone before I make up my mind.

Newguy

After you do some emails and the phone calls I think you will go with Richard.

Mike

Both seem to have similar marketing tactics. I have yet to purchase a set up meself but am still interested. I think that i am first going to pursue the bullet reducing dies (.429 to .410), this should give me some idea about bullet swaging.

Mike375,

I was orginally going to go with RCE, but I wanted to use the press to reload too. Richard told me that his press wasn't the best choice for the 416 Howell I have. The stroke is to short. The stroke on the CSP-1 is adjustable.

I was orginally following your process on the swaging dies. I was hoping to be able to glean information from some more experienced than me.

Greg

Waitaminit
I got out of swaging so long ago that the two brothers were still together.
You will be able to make bullets accurate enough for any purpose except maybe top level benchrest.
It is a lot of fun to tinker with bullet design and very satisfying to shoot your own creations. The only drawback is the time involved,if you expect everything to take twice as long as you think it should and then you will be in the ballpark.
Guy

You touched an interesting point, Guy.
How much time is required for the swaging process and the operations around it ?

Sure it will be a discourageing figure when I sit down to produce ten or twenty bullets, but if I have a full day for myself and my press - what output can I expect: 6 bullets per minute, 3, 1, or less ?

waitaminit,

What calibre or calibres are you interested in making.

Mike

Mike, first it's the 6mm for the PPC which means accuracy sqared. And when you see Fowler bullets for $170/1000, you understand why I investigate before I invest the money.

Next it is cal .30, and as I am limited to 300m, I do not really need boat tail - I even expect a better performance of the flat base bullet - and the die costs less.

In addition, I may want to swage gas checks or play a bit with making jackets from .22 lr cases (the amount of work one needs for cleaning and annealing is only justified when it's a lot of fun or if there is a shortage of jacket material).

waitaminit

I have been told a few times that benchrest needs benchrest dies for peak accuracy. Richard reckons that is bullshit.

I am mainly interested in making bullets I can't buy, such as blow up style bullets in 375. I also think I can sell quite a few in Australia. I feel a "blow up" 375 bullet made at the more normal 375 weight like 270 and 300 grains will be more attractive than using bullets like the 220 grain Hornady Flat nose 375 Winchester Lever Action bullet.

From the point of view of selling bullets I think teh big bores are the way to go because it does not cist much more to makea 375 or 416 than 270 but the prices are "set" much higher.

If I factor in what I save for my own bullets plus selling a few to others I think the gear can pay for itself very quickly.

I don't know about the USA but in Australia if I registered a bullet making business I could then claim tax deductions for all of my other gun related expenses. In fact in Australia many of gun writers make their main money because beinga gun writers entitles them to claim tax deductions on other shooting related costs.

At least being in the US you will not be up for $150US or so shipping costs.

Mike

Waitaminit
As I said it has been a long time since I swaged anything so my memory may be a little faulty.
As for the actual swaging it is about as fast as loading lubricated bottlenecked rifle cases as slowly and carefully as you can, checking powder weights, inspecting cases, cycling through the press carefully feeling all of the operation.

The unexpected time comes from making the cores and having to clean off the lube and let the cores dry.
Worst case scenario, you have to cast pure lead cores,you have to find and buy pure lead, melt it and cast it into Corbin core molds. The castings have to cool be lubed, swaged once or twice(depending on the precision you desire) then remove the lube and let them dry.
If you are after benchrest accuracy some people then weigh and segregate cores.
I even talked to one benchrest competitor who weighed and segregated his jackets.

As you can see this step can be VERY time consuming.

6mm and 30cal jackets are available but if you wander off into making jackets for other diameters the time is ridiculous.

Experimenting is fascinating so the idea that you get a test batch to shoot for every 2 or 3 hours should be no surprise.

I just had a look and I still have a virgin 7mm die set and over 15000 44 jackets(Sierra no less)
any suggestions for selling them?

I used to make both .224 and 6 m/m bullets with Corbin die sets I bought in the 1970's. Found them accurate enough for varminting out to maybe 400 yards, but definitely not good enough for benchrest competition at either 100 or 200 yards.

More recently I have been using a single die of unknown make (borrowed from another shooter over the internet) to "remake" CIL FN 170 gr. 30-30 bullets into spitzers for plinking use in my hunting rifles. I had to make my own "ram" for the die, and my own ejection pin, but it was well worth the small effort.

The problem with the unaltered CIL bullets is they are the correct diameter for the original 30-30s, back around 1900....306+". As a result they didn't shoot well in any modern .30's I tried them in, but they WERE cheap. I bought 16,000 for $4 Canadian per thou back in the early 70's. Just recently got around to "re-making" them.

After running them into the borrowed die and "bumping" up their diameter, they come out as soft-pointed spitzers, with a base diameter of .3083". I tested them in my .30 PPC BR rifle, and they agg in the high 0.2's, low 0.3's from it. Makes them real good, cheap, plinkers, but certainly not benchrest material where you usually have to agg no worse than the high 0.1's to win.

Can also run them in the die backward and get a FMJ RN with a short boat-tail, but they don't shoot nearly as well...more like 1" to 1/14" groups at 100. Look "trick" though....

I can reform about 350 per hour to either configuration, using the borrowed no-name screw-in die in my RCBS A-3 press.

If you can find an old A-2 (cast iron) or A-3 (cast steel) they are a beefy, strong, well-leveraged press, adequate for bullet swaging, and long enough to load the .470 Nitro on...I know the latter for sure, having done it many times.

Anyway, If I was going to go with a Corbin product these days, it would be with Richard Corbin's stuff. I'm sure Dave's products are good enough for field use bullets, too, but I just feel more at home with Richard's outfit. For benchrest bullets, I'd go with the real thing, B&A, Neimi (SP?), Rorschach (SP?) carbide dies, that sort of thing. Three to five times the money, but you get a product you can win with. Why put $5 large into a winning rifle, scope, precision loading, and bench set-up, to shoot bullets you very likely CAN'T win with?

[ 06-04-2003, 06:03: Message edited by: Alberta Canuck ]