Swing-Lock Adjustable Bullet Sizing Die

[Harley]

Jon, I did use the Lyman Black Powder Gold; you'll see an illustration of it toward the top of this thread.

Bigmoose, I think you copied Tom Post's Email address incorrectly; it's [e-mail]

Tom, now you've got me upset; I was happy with my smooth die until I read the listed advantages of the full form version.

Harley

[Deleted]

I'm interested in the full form die also. I've been waiting for someone like Harley to report on one since I first contacted Tom Post several months ago [before the dies were available].... Once hitch...I'm not willing to cut some off my barrel for a die to be calibrated....I'm wondering if the Pac-Nor .45 barrels are close enough for a one size fits all die to be made?....It seems to me that you should be able to use a 6 land or an 8 land die interchangeably. Any comments on that idea?
Zen

[Jon]

Bigmoose. I got beat to the punch. You should now have the correct address. Tom is a great guy to talk to very informative and willing to help. My die is for a 6.5 I'm not sure how it will relate? Tom does great work. He seems to have these dies down to a science.
Jon

[Harley]

Panhandle, I hadn't thought of the possibility of the full form die as a one size fits all of a given Pac-Nor caliber and twist. That would be great; Tom, I hope you read this and respond.

Harley

[deadeye]

great question on pac .45, would # twist rate be a factor, i'm sure# lands & grooves will.

[bigmoose]

Harley,
I had it in "mail waiting to be sent" I tried again and it went thru?

I have spoken to him before, I agree, he is a very nice gent.

I do have a two inch barrel drop, but since a lapped my rifle barrel the drop is no longer the same size, unless I lap the barrel drop, I'm sure I lack the skill to do that accurately

[Harley]

Yeah, Marty, you can forget about that barrel drop.

Harley

[Al]

if the drop is smaller, I'd say that would be better to size to the lands......................??

[bigmoose]

Al,

Your asking the wrong gent, I'm a "call the guy" gent, while I can shoot a bit, thats the end of my knowledge.
I admire the folks on this site who can build, repair and design their weapons.
I have been lucky to have had, first Toby than Rick and now the wisemen to help and answer my never ending questions
This is the go site for all Savage shooters.

[dougedwards]

Oct 17, 2010 8:09:26 GMT -5 bigmoose said:

Al,

Your asking the wrong gent, I'm a "call the guy" gent, while I can shoot a bit, thats the end of my knowledge.
I admire the folks on this site who can build, repair and design their weapons.
I have been lucky to have had, first Toby than Rick and now the wisemen to help and answer my never ending questions
This is the go site for all Savage shooters.

Marty......I believe that Tom Post still has the barrel drop from my .451 Pac Nor. I think that both of our barrels came from Rick Bibby's experiment with the .451 so they may have the same rate of twist rifling. However, I am not sure that each Pac Nor barrel would be capatable within the caliber of an exact replication of the rifling within. I don't see why not but Tom Post could effectively answer that question.

Doug

[bigmoose]

dougedwards,

Tom post answered my e-mail, I had spoken to him in the past, about builting a rifle that could shot Barnes X 350gr bullets at speed.
He stated his die would work with not ptoblems, turning a .451 to .450.5.
I now have 700 TMZ's resized and knurled [290gr] ready to go, My only question is now that a banging away with my Ball .50, how many more TMZ's do I need , as I put it to Tom Post, Will I still be upright by the time I need more TMZ's {SMILE}

[Harley]

Earlier this morning I Emailed Tom Post, asking that he respond to the one size fits all question.

Harley

[swinglock]

Dave W.

The .458 full form die will certainly work to size the 300 gr Barnes original but I have not actually shot any myself. I have shot others such as the 300 gr Rem. JHP , 350 gr Hornady SP, 350 gr North Fork, 450 gr Barnes TSX and some others all with good results. I see no reason for the Barnes original not to do well.

Price for a full form die including a punch, adjustment wrench and written instructions is $175.00.

Harley, sure be glade to fix you up with a full form die as well. Then you can shoot anything you want!

Panhandle, Deadeye,

The bore geometry of the barrel drop used to make the full form die sizing element must match the geometry of the barrel it is sizing bullets for. In other words, it must have the same lands and grooves and it must have the same rifling twist rate. Size is a slightly different matter. If the bore " diameter " dimensions of the sizing element are slightly large then the element will still work because the die adjustment always adjusts those diameters smaller to compensate for bullet spring-back. Also, if you have a barrel drop which is actually smaller in bore diameter dimensions than the related rifles barrel, ( for example the rifles barrel was lapped " after " the barrel drop was cut ) that barrel drop is very likely STILL USABLE and CAN be lapped to a proper match with little effort. I know because I recently corrected a full form die with little effort after the barrel was lapped.

Panhandle & Harley,

On the .45 cal. Pac Nor one size fits all question. That's a good one. Maybe & maybe not. Much will depend upon the tooling used to make the barrel. Pac-Nor barrels are button rifled. The button used is what really produces most of the barrels bore geometry. The geometric dimensions of the button are a direct transfer into a barrels bore. If we knew that Pac Nor always used the same button for .45 cal. barrels of the same twist rate then it is not unlikely that a full form die made from a related drop would be capable of producing perfectly usable bullets in most if not all of the barrels made using the one specific button. If the die didn't work initially, it is a good bet that a simple lapping would bring the die into working size. So that is another question. Does Pac Nor always use the same button? What if they need to replace a button? How closely will geometry of the new button match the geometry of the old one? I'm sure buttons are made to very close limits of tolerance but a small difference could make the difference between a yes or no for die function. So, to be sure the full form die is going to do its job, it is best to have a matching barrel drop.

Well, if I missed an answer, just let me know and I'll try again.

Tom

[Dave W]

Thanks Tom.

[Harley]

Tom, thanks for the response; before I even consider cutting an inch off my barrel for a full form die reference, I'll play out what I've got. From the list of full form advantages you posted, it seems a no-brainer that the absolutely best way to go for a new shooter would be to order a barrel, specify that you want the drop included, then send that drop to you for making the full form die.

I'm way past that point, but others should take note.

Harley

[bigmoose]

Tom Post made a rifle that shoots a .416 cal 400 gr. bullet at 2900 FPS, He will test it this week

MR. POST you are my hero........from the bench, that will be a great big boomer.

I may have to fly the white flag on that one

[Deleted]

my firend Mr bill is about to resize some of Bob Parkers 325s for his Swinglock with Toms adj die. I told him today I wanted to witness the first trigger pull. lets see, a325 grn bullet @ 2900 fps......that is going to pack a punch on both ends of the spectrum

[bigmoose]

WOW.

A Weatherby 416 delivers 2700FPS with a 400gr Bullet

Toms rifle 2900 FPS

T-REX anyone.

Mr. Post is a man amoung men

[swinglock]

Bigmoose,

Yea, I started shooting the first customer ordered .416 today. But, no hero here.....I closed my eyes for the first shot....just joking. I don't take any punishment because I almost always shoot my rifles from a fixtured rest.

Good time though. I started with the 450 gr Rocky Mountain match hunting bullet with a load of 150gr of US 869 powder. Velocity was 2666 fps. Not bad. This rifle has a 26" barrel length while my test barrel is 28". So, velocity will be down a tad over the test gun. Pressure was a bit higher than wanted for a start so reduced load to 147 gr which looked quite good at 2545 fps. First two shots were nearly touching but remaining two were higher and strung to the left. I felt sure it wouldn't hold up and confirmed the aluminum sight rail had started to deform. Tomorrow I will machine and mount a good steel rail.

The large muzzle brake was very affective as well as doing a good job of keeping the bench clean. Fun experience. A reverse wind blows off paper, spent primers, bullets, computer.....no not the computer!

Some interesting things about this rifle:

It is made to be light weight and has a carbon wrapped barrel. It weighs about 13 lbs including a large Night Force scope.

It has a Rucker hydraulic recoil reducer under the pad. I think it looks cool but maybe not needed with the muzzle brake. Or maybe keep the reducer an kick the brake. I will shoulder this rifle at some point.

For priming, a modified steel alloy high strength screw ( priming module ) is machined for use with a SMALL rifle primer which fires a small charge of fast burning smokeless powder. The advantage is it has very high impulse for reliably igniting a large powder volume and, it is very clean because the larger portion of the impulse is provided by the clean burning smokeless charge.

There will be more later.

Tom

[Harley]

Tom, that's all way beyond my needs, but fascinating to read. Just curious, what game does the 416 customer intend to hunt?

Harley

[bigmoose]

Sound like great fun, Hope you report some off hand shooting.

At 13 LB's the hunter has to be a man amoung men, I trust he's not planning to hunt the tundra in Alasaka with that beast.

Although in truth as a younger man, I would love to own and shoot " The KING of the BEAST" and hump the hills with it.
My very best wishes to you.

Marty

[deadeye]

he's definetly got the right scope on that bad-boy/nightforce

[rangeball]

Just playing devil's advocate, but this touches on something I've considered for some time so I thought I'd go ahead and ask here.

Regarding the full form die, couldn't a person get the same affect using their barrel, a spin-jag and a hammer, taking care to get it down the bore and out the other end?

[dougedwards]

That's a long way to go down and would take lots of time to just engrave the rifling into the bullet and it could also risk damage to the crown or scratch the bore. Also I am not sure how effective that method would be in re-sizing bullets as copper jacketed bullets tend to have some spring back and any spring back at all would make the engraved bullets impossible to load. It might be possible to use this method AFTER resizing bullets to fit easily down the bore to engrave the rifling into the bullet but I surely would rather spend the $175 to be able to do all of that in one process and quickly. We spend $400 or so for a new barrel so another $175 is not a bad price to safely produce effectively shooting bullets IMO

Doug

Doug

[bigmoose]

It will not work, I have hammer many stuck bullets that went down 9 to 12 inches and stopped, the bullet is deformed, [all cooper] bullets. bad idea, and in the case of a full sized bullet [451 or 452] you wont get it down the bore.

[bigmoose]

Tom,

Any pictures

[tar12]

tom,

"The .458 full form die will certainly work to size the 300 gr Barnes original but I have not actually shot any myself. I have shot others such as the 300 gr Rem. JHP , 350 gr Hornady SP, 350 gr North Fork, 450 gr Barnes TSX and some others all with good results. I see no reason for the Barnes original not to do well."

Are you saying that you can take .458 dia bullet and size it in one pass in the full form die to shoot sabotless in a .45 barrel? I am just giddy from the thought of this... ;D ;D

[Dave W]

Oct 19, 2010 17:35:09 GMT -5 tar12 said:

tom,

"The .458 full form die will certainly work to size the 300 gr Barnes original but I have not actually shot any myself. I have shot others such as the 300 gr Rem. JHP , 350 gr Hornady SP, 350 gr North Fork, 450 gr Barnes TSX and some others all with good results. I see no reason for the Barnes original not to do well."

Are you saying that you can take .458 dia bullet and size it in one pass in the full form die to shoot sabotless in a .45 barrel? I am just giddy from the thought of this... ;D ;D

Yes, per a conversation I had with him after Doug made the post about his full form die.

[tar12]

I sent my .45 barrel to Pac-Nor yesterday to get it cut down and recrowned and will have a barrel drop from this.BTW,Pac-Nor will cut and recrown any barrel bought from them for a outstanding fee of only $25 bucks!

[Harley]

Rick, how much will be cut from your barrel? What will the remaining length be? How long did Pac-Nor estimate for the return?

Thanks.

Harley