Did anyone ever successfully swage spent .22 LR brass into good, perfectly formed .224 bullets?

I used to swage my own jacketed .224 bullets with a set of custom dies and a set of Corbin. Corbin sold me on the idea I could use .22 LR brass but I was never able to put his claim into practice and make anything fit to shoot.

Has anyone ever actually done this for some good bullets or was it just Corbin BS?

Pecos,

We have used a kit from Corbin to do this. Made quite a lot of bullets that shot as good as any bulk bought from Winchester or Remington.

Stopped doing it years ago, as we eventually managed to buy whatever bullet we needed.

We used the Corbin hydrolic press, on which we can make bullets up to 700 caliber.

well, I did after a fashion. The secret is in annealing the 22 cases before forming but after deheading. The resultant bullet pales in comparison to a factory bullet and with bulk Winchester bullets so cheap.....it's a waste of time. But, mine shot well enough for hunting and exploded like SX bullets. They beat nothing and if cheap factory bullets disappear, I'd do it again.

I've never made any myself, but I've shot a few that were given to me. They weren't very accurate in the 22 centerfires I tried them in. Seems like a lot of truoble and expense for what you wind up with.

My RCBS swage dies use to work very good,(no not for sale). Now that bullets are cheep I've no reason to use them,but if the Feds. make things hard to get I'm ready. Fuzz

Uhhhhhhh, you guys are making me scratch my head. Did I forget something? I never annealed the .22 brass OR deheaded it? That would really make it a pain in the ass to do. But admitedly it migh also make a better bullet.

All of you are correct that with bullet jackets so cheap there really is no point in this activity. It was just a diversion for me at the time. Mostly I just used commercial jacket cups.

pecos, on the rimfire jacket,,,

deheading,,is running the fired hull up in the donut die, and it straightens out the rim, so its gone,,so your hull now looks like a bullet jacket,

on the heat treat,,pure and simple,,its a beeetch,,,I did some before doing anything,,some right after drawing,,its a agrivating experience,,and this was done in an industrial digital controled drawing oven, so my heat was recordable, and repeatable,,(but it seemed the jackets didnt want to repeat in the process )

I got it down to a 10 percent failure rate at the finished bullet (where the jacket folds the nose, instead of swaging down to a nice hollow point,,they still shot though (some turned in to neat silver tracers,,, )

there is a lot of a learning curve with that set up , I had mine back in the early 80s, before bullets got sooooo cheap per say,,but, I keep the set handy just in case,,, need I say more,,

Thanks Cooter for the update. I doubt it's possible to exceed your results and as you suggest, the economics of it make this road not worth taking.

one thing I forgot to mention,,if you find good jackets on sale,,its another story,,I found some J-4 jackets -705 length,,(if memory serves right), on sale, and they worked beeeeeeuitiful,,, perfect points everytime, and shot very well,,while no they are not benchrest quality,,varmit wise they were fine, 1/2 groups-good enought for me,,,

bottom line,,if your just going for the cheapness,,buy bulk bullets,,but if you like the challenge, and the satisfaction of making your own,,and being independent,,well go give it a try,,

Here is a picture of some bullets made from 22 rim fire cases and half jackets.

The rim fire case on the left has been annealed so it is discolored. The second one is a case with the rim ironed out. On the fourth the firing pin indentation can still be seen.
Just playing around with some of these. 22 cal bullets are so cheep now I don't make these anymore but things were different when I was a poor college student.

I have often thought about making the recycled 22 brass bullets to use in a 223 TC Pistol. Load a slower velocity and have a lot of expansion and fewer ricochets for tree rats and such. Anyone have a response on this idea?

Swede44mag

Copper, you got better results with your .22 brass bullets than I did. Most of the time the cases split as I tried to form them or tore as I ran them thru the die to remove the rim.
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Swede - Yes, it can be done but I don't know about the results. And the general consensus of opinion here seems to be it isn't worth the trouble. Buying jacket cups is MIGHTY cheap compared to screwing around with empty .22 brass. IMHO.