9mm bullets I swaged to experiment with

[Squirrelhunter2002]

A while back I bought a Green mountain barrel in 9mm and thought what the heck lets put it on an airgun, Well putting the berrel on the gun was easy, but the hard part was fining a bullet that shot out of the barrel let alone accurate. So I had to make my own bullets. I played around with hollow points as it would keep the weight down and was able to get 750FPS out of the gun with 72g swagger bullets. I work at a machine shop so I was able to make my own dies. It took a lot of time and experimenting to get it all to work out, but at the end I had a bullet that would expand really good into clay ball I could hit at 55 yards all day along and massive expansion would take place along with the loudest make I have ever heard. I bet the squirrels thought there was a missile coming at them the way the bullet sounds flying threw mid air. Anyways here are some pics and I also have a video of me hunting squirrels with the 9mm bullet I will attach, if your into hunting do not click on the video.



55 yards

[Bill G]

What press set-up are you using?  Corbin or did you make your own?

Bill

[Squirrelhunter2002]

The press is an older lee press very well built, I can't remember the name but its green. The dies I made my self at work, I am able to adjust the length of the bullet and how deep the hollow point needs to be. Lots of experimenting to get a bullet to be accurate. But I love to tinker so its all in a days work.

[Bill G]

Nice.  I built my press as well as my dies and punches.  Airguns are far more touchy about the ammo than BP's are.  Working on some right now in fact.  My dies are more of a hybrid.  They form and bleed all at the same time to deliver a finished product with 1 stroke.  I don't like my HP's and think that to get what I want, I'm gonna have to form them in the traditional way, using 2 set-ups.  that means more dies and punches of course but the end result is better I think.  I've had some trial and tribulations but get closer to a universally usable product with every iteration. 
I like to see others out here doing this stuff.  I like to build, tinker and improve too.  Its all desire to know more I suppose.  It isn't easy thats for sure.  If it were, I guess my 9 and 13 yr old would be doing it. I have as much fun doing this as I do just about anything really.  Nice work keep it up.

Bill

[Squirrelhunter2002]

Nice.  I built my press as well as my dies and punches.  Airguns are far more touchy about the ammo than BP's are.  Working on some right now in fact.  My dies are more of a hybrid.  They form and bleed all at the same time to deliver a finished product with 1 stroke.  I don't like my HP's and think that to get what I want, I'm gonna have to form them in the traditional way, using 2 set-ups.  that means more dies and punches of course but the end result is better I think.  I've had some trial and tribulations but get closer to a universally usable product with every iteration. 
I like to see others out here doing this stuff.  I like to build, tinker and improve too.  Its all desire to know more I suppose.  It isn't easy thats for sure.  If it were, I guess my 9 and 13 yr old would be doing it. I have as much fun doing this as I do just about anything really.  Nice work keep it up.

Bill

My first set of dies where 1 step process, Bleed and form one lever pull one bullet but they where not very accurate and a pain you get out of die. So my final dies was a 2 step process which was a faster process then the first dies. I had a lot of fun with the tinker side of this project.