MetalMouse wrote:
Daryl wrote:
I do all my bullet drawing with the Lyman Crusher, which means .375 Jacketed bullets drawn down to .367" to fit my 9.3mm Mausers.
WOW! To swage 0.008" must take a good amount of force! I suspect it was done in a single stroke...thats impressive!
MM
MM - yes - without the correct die or dies, "drawing" or reducing the diameter does take a lot of force. With the correct angles, the force is greatly reduced. I lucked out on the die I made and the force needed, is about the same as FL sizing .300 Winchester mag. brass no more.
When swaging bullets, a smaller diameter core of lead and lubed cup are placed on a post, then pushed into a die, which had an inner top surface. Against the surface, the ram pushes the undersized components and cold forms them. This is swaging. Drawing is when an oversized object, in my case a lubed .375" bullet is placed on a ram or post and pushed through a die that reduces it's diameter to .367". I used .367" as that is the largest size that will fit in the necks of my 9.3x57's cases and not impinge in the throat of the chamber when fired. The rifle has an oversized groove diameter. The 9.3x62 has a normal .366" groove diameter and the .367" bullets easily fit without increasing the pressure generated - .005" per side is nothing - as long as the chamber throat is large enough in diameter to allow the case neck to expand to release the bullet. By the time the pressure rises to it's peak, the bullet is already the correct size and some 8" down the bore, thus does not effect the pressure curve at all.
A Dillon press is a wonderful addition to the reloading room. I used to have a 450 and was able to load, at my peak- decades ago, just over 500, .45 Auto per hour, once set up properly. The 650's would be much faster when reloading short handgun cases, however, for rifle ammo, I do think you could do more than maybe 200. This is due to case rocking in it's shell plate on rotation of the plate and getting out of alignment with the die mouth. If not centered in the hole of the sizer die, the die will bend and crush the case. Even longer pistol cases like the .357 mag and .38SPL were doing this on my 450 Dillon & I had to slow down.
For loading a lot of 9mm - yes, by all means get a progressive press. A single station press will get very OLD, very quickly loading handgun ammo for any form of "action shooting".
I was thinking of using my .38 or .44 Mag.(W/.44 SPL loads) in IDPA, and for that, I will set up my Hornady progressive.