I just bought a lot of stuff from an estate and find I am now in the swaging business. I find wire, wire cutter, dies, etc - all and everything is Herter's. I have .22, .30 and .45 dies for sure along with the jackets, etc so I'm getting ready to try and start making some bullets. My question is this, when I cut the wire 'plugs' to stick in the jacket and swage, do I try and cut the slug so that the jacket and slug combined equal the desired bullet weight or do I adjust the die to swage the bullet down to the desired weight>?
I have never tried this before and I need all the help I can get.

cut your cores a few grs more then you need and swage the core down,then put it in the jacket.

The large source of information in this field is Dave Corbin, corbins.com, who has many books on his web site for review or download, free, ... Rediscover Swaging #?? covers this at length...

To expand on previous remarks, for jacketed bullets, yes, you make a core smaller than the jacket. [Lubricate! Lubricate! Lubricate! Or you will reget it...] You may cut and weigh or about any way that comes to you trim the lead wire, but the standard is the "core swage" die. You cut or cast the core to slightly larger/heavier than you want, THEN you shove it into the core swage die where your adjustmenting has established a certain volume and extra lead squirts out a hole in the side... and when you open the press you have a core of very exact size and thereby, weight.

Yes, this should be adjusted to "weigh" with the jacket what you want the finished bullet to weigh.

Then you drop the cleaned core into the lubricated jacket and "seat" it with much pressure expanding the jacket to the die diameter. This is the "core seating die."

And last you shove this assembly into the "point form die" of your choice to form the point you have chosen...

One brand of dies, CH [ch4d.com] has a bleed in one punch so that the lead squirts while you form the bullet. Mainly pistol bullets. luck.

This is something I was looking in to trying. I shoot anywhere from 100rds to well over 500rds monthly. Is it worth the cost and out come? I dont have to worry about finding time having a fixed income with the V.A.

Oh and I did start a thread on this. I m just very interested.