The Saber Tooth bullet tip is made by using the Corbin Saber-Tooth punch in a lead tip bullet design with hollow point. The Saber-Tooth punch is a custom part, which fits the core seating die. It is always made as an internal punch to protect the edges.

To make a Saber Tooth bullet, first make sure that the core length (and bullet weight) is such that the jacket you are using will produce a lead tip when used with a hollow point punch. A lead core that is approximately as long as the jacket will normally work fine, as the hollow point punch will extrude additional lead forward beyond the jacket.

Swage a quantity of lead cores to exact weight, then seat them in the jacket using the core seating die, with a hollow point punch that fits the die bore. A conical projection on the end of this punch (external CS punch) will poke a hole in the lead core and extrude lead forward. The punch will fit the die and seal the pressure so lead cannot spurt past the punch. (An open-tip, hollow point punch fits the jacket ID and will not work in this application, since it does not allow lead to extrude past the jacket end.)

After swaging a quantity of hollow points in the core seating die, remove the die and replace the internal punch with the internal Saber Tooth punch. Then push the lead-tip, hollow point "bullet" (really just a cylinder at this stage) back into the die with the lead tip facing the die. The lead should take on the saber-tooth pattern from the end of the punch. There must be enough lead extending beyond the jacket so that the jacket is either not touched by the punch, or is just barely nicked at the edge. If there is not enough lead to keep the punch from impacting deeply into the jacket, the sharp edges of the punch will eventually be broken off.

Process all the seated cores and jackets with the Saber Tooth punch. The bullets can be shot now, as extreme Saber Tooth wadcutters (in a revolver load), or they can be further shaped with a slight ogive in a point forming die. Either a Truncated Conical (TC) or a round nose (3/4-E or 1-E ogive) point forming die can be used. Do not push the bullet so far into the die that the entire lead tip and hollow point is closed over. Just push it as far into the die as necessary to create a slight curve to allow the bullet to feed in the firearm for which it is intended. This adjustment is done with the floating punch holder, so that the ram goes all the way up (in a hand press) or to the top sensor (in a Corbin Hydro-Press), and then the position of the base or external punch for the point form die is set to push the bullet exactly the desired amount into the die, insuring consistent shape.

The Saber Tooth bullet nose shape helps insure even expansion, and presents a fearsome appearance out of proportion to its actual performance. The size of the hollow point has more effect on the expansion than the teeth (which are primarily in the lead tip) but the market enhancing power of this shape is remarkable: make some and put them on your table at the next gun show to observe how fascinated your potential clients will be!

This punch is a custom punch, either PUNCH-SC or PUNCH-HC with description of "saber tooth", or under the catalog number PUNCH-ST or PUNCH-HT. It is not available in the -R dies because of alignment issues with reloading presses. To order, simply specify "CS INTERNAL SABER" after the "PUNCH-SC" or "PUNCH-HC" catalog number, and specify the bullet diameter for your core seating die. Be sure to order or have on hand a hollow point lead tip core seating punch as well, since the saber tooth does not function well without a hollow cavity (except as a full wadcutter for "string shooting" matches, where a weight suspended by a string is dropped by cutting the string with the bullet).

Saber Tooth Point Form Die
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