My Rendition of a Swage Press

A while back I saw a link to the drawings for a cb press and thought it may be fun to make an attempt at building one. This is not per spec of the drawings but I think will do nicely. I have exactly zero dollars in this press with the exception of the electricity for lathe and welder - and of course my time. The material for the press is some that I had here. (I'm fairly effecient at being a pack rat. On one of the other posts I mentioned pouring a bronze bushing and this is the critter that it was for. I also made the die, not out of hardened steel but as an experiment to see what it would take to make one. I may try the 4140 prehardened steel later. The nose forming punch needs to be smoother but all in all seems to work well during initial tests. It also has a bushing from 7/8 - 14 to 1-1/2 -12.
The bronze casting that became the bushing
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Machined bushing from casting

Press view 1

Press view 2

Press view 3

Swaged bullet

man that is straight up bad A%^ it looks like my walnut hill on steroids. great job what was it you swaged with it?

looks beefy enough to swage 50bmg

Thanks guys..

It was a 38 / 357. The press is smaller than the plans called for - about 4 inches shorter and uses a 1 inch ram rather than the 1.5" they were calling for. I had the 3\4 inch plate handy and thought it would work ok.

Reload, I what kind of ideas would you have for making a knurling apparatus ?? One question that I do have though, does the die body need bleed holes to adjust the weight on the bullet or is that controlled by the length of the wire that is fed into it ?

Rich it may be beefy enough - don't know, but I don't have enough bricks in my pocket to try swaging 50 cal LOL! Let's see, where could a fella get some hydraulics me thinks >>>>

wow that is a great job..... way to go man....the question about the holes for the lead to squeez out is yes, it does need the holes to bleed off excess lead to uniform the bullets... even if you do the best you can to cut the wire the same length the wire may have voids in it so cut them a little long and bleed off the excess....bill did i say nice job on the press !! i think i did well two times, because it ROCKS......bill

do you have a knurling tool for your lathe? I was going to do something like that until i just said screw it and ordered one from Corbin... I would make one. 130. for the corbin. you could get a diamond knurling tool for a lathe for way less.

Thanks bill! That is what I was thinking but definately wanted some pointers from you guys that have done swaging. I am pleased, and somewhat surprised at how it turned out. The two guide rods are made from a driveshaft from a washing machine transmission and the handle is from an old floor jack. It was a witch to get everything aligned correctly..
There is still some tweaking that needs to be done to get it working like a well oiled machine but most of it should smooth out with use

I don't have any knurling tools Reload. I can't afford to drop 130 on one from corbin so if I ever have one I'll have to try making it or find one for ultra cheap..
I watched your video of knurling those that you made and think it is cool plus it is a way to get the lube to stay on the boolit.

Have you seen the CH4D cannelure tool? make something like that with a pair of knurling wheels
http://www.kbctools.com/usa/Navigation/NavPDF.cfm?PDFPage=391

That rocks brother!!!!!!

Reload3006 wrote:Have you seen the CH4D cannelure tool? make something like that with a pair of knurling wheels
http://www.kbctools.com/usa/Navigation/NavPDF.cfm?PDFPage=391

Thanks for the info Reload! I found a vid of Daywalker demo-ing a ch4d knurling took and I like that design. I also found the wheels at Little Machine Shop for less than six bucks. It definately gives me some ideas!!

http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_related.php?RelatedID=1218237226

Thanks Pathfinder.

That thing looks like a beast....Nice work....really nice

Thanks hawcer! If I had made it to scale from the drawings I would have had to get a bigger shop and reloading bench LOL!

Great job!! Looks good and should handle anything you throw at it...

'ppreciate it DW! I don't think it will fail due to stress any time soon

Ya know Eagle I've done some more thinking on your Knurling problem. I have the CH4D Cannelure Tool. The problem with it is its tough to keep your bullet standing up while you are trying to get going you really need something that will allow you to to lay the bullet down let gravity be your friend.
Lead even wheel weight is pretty soft. So i got to thinking if you made a couple rolls and used 1/4 stripper bolts for axles then borrow a knurling tool or buy one for your lathe just knurl your driving wheel out of a soft steel put a crank handle on it make something like the corbin knurler I have would probably be easiest.

Good thinking Reload. I browsed out to corbins site and took a look at their knurling tool and it does seem like would be a little easier to use. I'll see what I can come up with. Seems like that anything with knurling on it would serve the purpose for knurling lead, even an old ratchet handle or the like. I see another project on the horizon

here is just an idea. Get the knurling tool for the lathe that mounts up in the tool post. Have 2 live centers, one from the chuck and one in the tail stock. Place your swaged bullet between the 2 live center so that while your chuck is spinning, so is you swaged bullet. Move your knurling tool into the bullet and knurl it while it is spinning?

I could be wrong in my thinking, ,but it looks good in my head???

I may look into that. Little machine shop had the knurls that fit in the tool post of the mini lathes for under $50. Probably the worst part of using the lathe would be getting the boolits centered between the live centers.
Thanks for the idea. I like several floating around, that way I can take the best of all of them and combine into something that (hopefully) works well
Thanks for the input.

just make it like the corbin 2 pieces of round stock on the bottom to center the boolit and a hinged one on the top that is knurled with a handle welded to it. put boolit in close handle and turn knurled boolits . the most costly part will be the bearings for everything to ride on but it cant be more than 20 25 bucks ? buy the knurling tool and make a few and sell them for 30-40 and make a little extra cash

Travis wrote:just make it like the corbin 2 pieces of round stock on the bottom to center the boolit and a hinged one on the top that is knurled with a handle welded to it. put boolit in close handle and turn knurled boolits . the most costly part will be the bearings for everything to ride on but it cant be more than 20 25 bucks ? buy the knurling tool and make a few and sell them for 30-40 and make a little extra cash

Definately sounds like it's do-able. Seems like the horizontal setup would be easier to work with. Bearings should not be a biggie. I get to dispose of a few hard drives after they crash and they have precision bearings on both sides of the motor for the platters. They may be a bit small - will have to check that though. Yup, I know what my next project is going to be

im sure you already looked at stuff but remember you will need two pivot points on it to close it flat on a boolit. not tring to be a smart azz but i was looking in the garage today while i was thinking of this and it just hit me and i felt kinda stupid for a sec

more like one of these [ not ^ if ya got what im saing because i dont lol
what kinda lathe is that i been looking at the harbor freight 7"x10" or the 7"x12"

nice that looks good i thought about trying to build my own but i dont have the machinery to pull it off nice job!

I see what you mean.
You guessed it. The the red one in the pics is a 7x10. Blue one in the background that I did the bullet mold on is a 7x12. Nice little machines for what they are but wish I could afford a grizzly or jet.