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Martin Potts,
I know that Fred Huntington made bullet swages before he made presses, and his catalog shows them used on a Pacific press, which he also offered. The A and later the Rockchucker presses were to handle the pressures of swaging.
Did Fred buy the patents from Ted Smith for the RCBS swage dies or the compound press?
The swage dies worked well enough in the hands of competent mechanics, but the open market drew less capable folks who needed a lot of nursing time, eating up the profit margin on the tools. You, no doubt, know about that problem for manufacturers. (It would make an interesting book.)
Cheers from Darkest California,
Ross

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Ross this is a R E A L L Y longggg story..

It start's out about 1938 or 1940 can't remmber it's been
it's been forever..
Ted Smith Had been as a small kid always into shooting
and reloading and he like to tinker around with tooling
( lathe's/milling mech/'s etc) so one day in around 1940
or earlyer he decided to try making a tool that would
inable him to make his own bullet's .
Now remmber that there were big company;s out there that already made alot of bullet's but thay used super big press's and had alot of money .Sooo sitting there next to his reloading press he thought ..Why not make it so i can just screw the die's in like i do with my reloading die's then i don't have to make a new press or some other type of contraption to use the die's in.
So he pulled the seating die out of the press ( unscrewed it ) and went to work making up a single stage die that would let him make bullet's in one step cut the lead out and weight it and then place it into a die ( swage and alone with a copper jacket squizze it into a bullet in one stroke.

He called it Cold Swaging becouse no heat was used to make the bullet's.

My first reloading press was a light blue Pacific press
and i broke it swaging bullet's on it to flimsy .
And so did alot of people brake there press's trying to swage on them So in 1955 Ted Started working on a press that you or anyone could use to Swage with or reload with
it had to be built like a brick $h!t house Really strong and it would have to had a bigger ram and it could not be the normal old C type press it also had to be made from much harder steel and heat treated better the strock would need to be shorter and the last little bit of strock had to be able to ably much more pressure to alow it to be used as a bullet swage.as well as a reloading die press
and since the new rifle company ( Weartherby ) had come out with longer shell case's and bigger ones it had to be able to handle them as well... ..
By this time ted had already come up with the dribble for powder and the IMR can despencer and the primer tube holder
( for more primer's to be held for reloading )
alone with many many other little thing';s now used and sold for reloading.
By the year 1964 he had sold most of his patten's to RCBS
and at the time thay were being marketed as there own.

but Ted would make up swage die becouse he shop was really set up for it and he would ship out order's to alot of diffrent companys like i have said before thay went to Herter's RCBS and aot more companys Ted Just wacked the stamp provide to him in the die's so thay read RCBS or
HERTER'S ..See it really did not matter as long as who ever got the die's got them well made and ready to use..


It really was Richard Corbin who came out with the better way to swage bullet's and a inovative way to reuse the S die's and incorporate them in to a better Swage Press
like his wallnut hill's ( that type press came later )

Dave Corbin and Richard Corbin No longer work together

Its a very.!! inside story and i won't go into it here on the board to be broadcast...

But the man that made CORBIN run the man that made the tooling/die's for CORBIN the man that was the true tool and die made was Richard Corbin there shop was set up in
Empire/North Bend/Coos Bay ..

Dave in the front of the shop taking order's and writting book's and pamplet's and Richard Doing all the work making die's and designing tooling ..

Thay Richard And David bought out SAS Tooling from Ted Smith in about late 1973 or 74 can't remmber

I would still go to ted;s house to get stuff i needed he was a 10 min drive from my house and it took 25 mins to get over to Richard's and dave's shop

Now For cost ...Well it did take time to make up a set of dies first you need to make sure that the design was right so you would go back and forth with the person who was ordering to make quadruple sure it was right that way you knew you were only going to screw up three time's making the die's before you got it right and got half your money for twice the work


Pottsy

Ted was coppied by alot of folk's and it went on for along time most had no idea that the design had a patten on it .
so about once ever three months or so ted would be in a bad mood telling me .Why can't thay come up with there own design for a swage die and stop screwing me over...

he wrote alot of nasty letter to alot of good folk's becouse thay had no idea that the swage die's design was a pattened one by TED SMITH...
in the mid 40's not even Buss nor fred knew this
thay did try and come out with there own redisigned type of swage die but it fell flat you can still buy a really good copy of Ted smiths swage die's there sold by CH Tool and die .those type use a reloading press and are single or duo stage die's


Pottsy

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Pottsi ,I picked up a set of C-H swaging dies at a yard sale..357 caliber, a lil' surface rust but bright&shiny on the inside.It has a soft point plunger but the instructions offer a hollow pointer.
I gotta get me a core cutter and some wire.
What do you suggest for a 1st timer?

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Is your die set a single die set or a duo set

you might want to contact Dave corbin for some jacket's
Or you can just reuse old jacket's

Well first thing's first do you want to shoot a jacketed bullet or do you want to shoot a gas checked bullet.

My bullet's were always on the big side 200 grainer's

You can use a base guard

Or gas check thay both work the same Corbin sell's base guard's cheap in bag's of 1000 for somewere around 22.00
thats alot of shooting

If your going to use base guard's or gas checks just weight the lead and the base gurad/gas check together on the scale's till you get to your desired weight..A core moulder help's cut time down it makes the core's pre weighted out all you do is set it ..Anyway you cut a core and weight it with the gas check together then you swage just the lead core in the die once thats done and the core has been formed place the gas check on the back side of the bullet place it back into the die and swage it together.
and your done..

Jacket's are a diffrent story
you weight the jacket and lead together like before
and for this you need a moulder and needle nose plyers
or if your tricky enough you dont need the moulder
you will need a burner propain or somthing like that
or an out door crab cooker burner /some way to heat the core and the jacket together and your going to need flux

cut your core and weight it together with the jacket
take the jacket and place fulx in and around the insdie of the jacket i use an ear swab place the lead core inside the jacket and hold the lead filled jacket over the open flame ( blue flame works 10 times better ) untill the lead fall's and melt's you will see a redish gunk rise up and around the top ( flux ) remove the bullet from the flame and let it cool be carefull PLEASE.!!at this point the lead will eat right through your hand or clothing if you mess up and dump it on your self..when it cool's there's going to be a small hole that will form in the lead in the middle or close to it that tell's you it's bonded> lead to jacket
once your lead filled jacket's cooled run it through the swage die ...

Now you don't have to bond them if you don't want to
thats fine to just melt the core in the jacket Or
use a core thats close to the jacket size and run it through with the jacket around it in the swage

So once again

cut the lead and weight it with a gas check or base guard
and run it though the swage die.. pingo a bullet

As for a core cutter ...Go with a moulder for your diam of die..


That way you can melt the lead into the moulder and get core's out just the right size all you need is a little melting pot and a spoon.

Now as for lead wire Richard Corbin sell's it and so does dave corbin you might try your local hardware store and see if thay can get it for you ...Wheel weight's are kinda a no no ..this isn't casting. i am going to leave a PM for you


Pottsy

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and of course Smith is not mentioned at all.