case legnth for jackets

I expect to get my little chop saw today or tomorrow. What is a good length to cut the 40 S & W to for a jacketed semi wad cutter?

Also, I saw where someone was using 357 cases also. I tried hand cutting a couple of split cases form my last sizing and they did seem to work well. Thought, well, 38 and 9mm are almost the same size, so I tried a couple 9mm's they didnot work. The base ended up off center from the rest of the bullet.

As soon as the saw comes in and I get a few nice bullets done up I will post some pics.

I appologize, what caliber are you swaging for again?

Daywalker wrote:I appologize, what caliber are you swaging for again?

My fault. .44 mag

I believe that I cut mine to .550 but I could be mistaken. It will depend on how heavy you want your bullets.

Notice that the bullet on the left I didnt get the jacket cut down enough. the bullet in the center is about optimum. The truer you can cut that jacket the better it will work for you. I set up my case trimmer after that to square up the cut it works a whole lot better.

Beleive it or not, after 30+ years of reloading, I do not own a case trimmer. Now I do have a cannelure tool coming.

When I was swaging for my 44, using ch4d dies, depending on weight, I barely trimmed my cases and that gave me some heavy bullets. One of the things I would do, weigh your cores, you can weigh like 10 to get an overall close estimate, then cut each case smaller and smaller until the total weight of core and case come to the weight you want. 3 grains different from each bullet, being for handgun, isn't really bad from what I am told. May not even tell the difference. You could go for tighter tollerance if you want tho..

I've found that the shorter the jacket, the more lead you'll have exposed...which actually ends up weighing more than a longer jacketed bullet that has less lead on the nose exposed.(comparing the same final lengths of the length bullets). Brass or copper weighs less than lead. so, more jacket equals less lead in the bullet...unless you extend the bullet length to bring the weight back up.

Short jackets I trim to around .500" and long jackets around .700"

he has a swage it die set. I believe he can only make semi wad cutters. but if he has a die like CH4d two die set core seat and point form jacket length isnt as critical.

Reload3006 wrote:he has a swage it die set. I believe he can only make semi wad cutters. but if he has a die like CH4d two die set core seat and point form jacket length isnt as critical.

That's correct. It's the swage-it single die set. I would love to make a soft point type bullet, but the jacket material meets up exactly with the nose punch and will cause the jacket to buckle.

So, from what hawcer and daywalker say I am looking at between 500 to 550. Sounds like a place to start.

Daywalker wrote:3 grains different from each bullet, being for handgun, isn't really bad from what I am told.

I would agree. I have weighed some of my factory bullets and found differences of +1 and -1 on either side of what they were marked, meaning that there are some rounds that are 2 grains different in weight and I haven't noticed any real measurable difference in performance. (although I haven't actually separated the different weight bullets into groups to truly test this)