How are the brass casings made?

[choover]

Just curious if anyone has a video link, I know most rifle cases are a longer draw process I was curious if handgun cases were the same with todays technology.

I know its a odd question, I am just a "how its made" buff of sorts :o

[armoredman]

I have to confess I would like to see that too.

[Mike Irwin]

Yes, handgun cases are still made via the punch and draw method. It's fast, cheap, proven, and effective.

[SDC]

There's part of a quick Federal video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ihrEvfIEI , but it doesn't really show much detail. Nevertheless, the techniques are still the same.

[tom234]

http://accurateshooter.wordpress.com/2007/06/15/how-cartridge-brass-is-made/

[Tomas204]

I used to made tooling for copper plugs ( electrical for Cats and John Deer) ,it is a interesting process cold heading ,a lot of the tooling is carbide ,it is ,amazing on how accurate we had to get the tools ,with in .0001 these where then gold plated :eek:,for the electrical conection ,I could probably make the dies for brass ,it would be fun ,but now I went back to being a carpenter ;);)

[Mike Irwin]

One of the biggest problems they had in the early days of metallic cartridges was being able to draw brass consistently. That's why a lot of the early cartrdige cases were copper, which was more maleable.

What really helped turn it around for brass was the revolution in steel making, which made large quantities of high-quality, consistent tool steel available for drawing dies.

[mapsjanhere]

DWJ had an article on the making of the first metal cartridges, they had 58 steps from brass to final cartridges. Lots of intermediate annealing steps were needed do to the questionable and inconsistent brass quality.