.375 H&H Swage die project update #2

Last weekend I spent the better part of 2 days working on die bodies and punches for this die set. I had just threaded a few die bodies and was getting ready to finish up base punches when I broke the adjustment screw on my only 4 jaw chuck for my lathe. My other chuck is a 3 jaw scroll chuck and isn't nearly as accurate as using the 4 jaw...as soon as I get a new part or a better chuck (chuck I have came with the lathe as is indian made) I'll be back in the shop.

I did work on a few D reamers for dies and worked on bullet shapes some more for the point form dies. I'm very pleased with how easy the 0-1 steel is to heat treat. I'm just not sure if the die bodies need heat treated or not. If I do more of these I'll want to get cheaper steel for non important parts as doing a entire set out of 0-1 is not the cheapest way to do it. However I wanted the option of heat treating.

.375 H&H swage die project

What you see above is a die set turned and threaded on my South Bend lathe for making .375 jackets out of 9mm and .38 spl cases (with rims turned off on lathe). I had to make 2 punches for each of the cases as the .38 spl can go through base first but the 9mm is better off going through case mouth first. The short stub is the knock out punch. All done from 0-1 tool steel. The power zone on the Walnut hills press is from 4.25" to 3.75" of the ram closure. So you have to make the base die fairly tall. Keep tuned in for the other dies I'm making and process to make a complete die set including making reamers and such. Only thing I really learned from this die set (besides which way to throw my threading gear to get right hand threads) is to make the die .003" undersized as the annealed cases have about .001" spring back. I'll have to make another die which won't be hard this one gives me .376" jackets and they need to be undersized from the get go unless you have a lot of pressure to work with which I do on the walnut hills press but I wanna go easy with them at first. I only want to undersize them a few thou on these first sets.