I'm surprised nobody has mentioned you just can't apply a STANDARD gas check to a bullet unless it's designed to take one. That means it HAS to have the rebated base to accept the check.
Now, there's a homemade gas check maker that fits like a reloading die in your press. One is called free checks, the other I can't recall. They both make checks out of sheet copper, popcans, roof flashing, or shim stock.
In the case of pop can alum. it's thin enough to be applied over the base of a plain base bullet. The bullet is sized first, then the check is applied. It swages a small amount of lead out-of-the-way on the base.
Those alum. checks have been shown to work quite well. I haven't got one yet, may never get one, but there's that option.
Hornady gas checks are expensive. The cheapest I found on midway's site is $27.49/K, those were .223 caliber, 35 caliber are $42.49/K That makes every .357 bullet cost 4.3 cents just for the GC!!!