toobroke, welcome aboard one of the only two swaging boards on the net ( that I know about!). Yes, it's a great, thou slightly expensive hobby. To answer your questions first: Jackets are VERY available, either from Corbins Co, RCE, or Butch Hairfield. The first two outfits have standard length 1/2 or 3/4 jackets on the shelf ( most of the time) for rapid delivery. Mr Hairfield builds to order, and that could take 4-6 months. Cast cores tend to a little varying in weight due to voids. This can be solved by having an intermediate die to size/ make perfect weight of the cast core. CH/4-D die sets don't have this die, but they may be able to make one for you. It is somewhat important to have all cores weigh exactly the same to ensure full diameter of the bullet is achieved when swaging the jacket-core combination. For instance, if you are 1/10th grain short in the core, the bullet could be as much as .0005" short of reaching it's intended diameter. Some folks would say " well, that's close enough". That's the same thing Mr Buck would say, too: " Boy, THAT was close enought... I'm outta here!!" So, while cast cores all look alike in the same run, you are not seeing the voids in them... Weigh a few and see what I mean. I make my own lead wire now, but I used to cast cores. But, I always swaged them before dropping them into the jacket. When you make wire, the lead is swaged under quite a bit of pressure, and there is no voids. When you cut it to size, however, you'll have inaccuracies due to the fact that no cutting tool cuts the same on each cut... You get close, but not the same. So, with wire it's best to have that intermediate core sizing die, too. Casting is cheaper than wire simply because of the shipping cost... you can find almost pure lead locally @ 30 cent/lb. To buy wire not only does it run $2/lb, but Mr Postman really charges to deliver it. As long as you are set up to cast..., recommend you cast your cores. Especially for 44s and 45s and above.
