Bullet making.

[DimitriS]

So I was looking around the internet and found sites talking about bullet making. Does anyone here do it with thouse copper jackets ??

I was thinking about using a 3 ton Arbor press to make myself some after mechining a plate and punch to form the jackets. My though is since I am going to be starting to reload my own ammunition in about a couple of months why not make the bullet as well I know primers, brass and powder cant be "made" effectivly at home but the bullets seem easy to make.

I say seems easy to make because I just have been reading it and it doesnt seem to complicated. But I want to know if any of you actually do it ??

Dimitri

[Rivers]

I don't make bullets, but if you go to Corbin's website, they'll have information you can use. They also sell bullet swaging machines.

[DimitriS]

Corbin's site is actually the one that I first saw these mechines

I figure with a 3 ton Arbor press I can pump out small quanties of the bullets bullets. (Read making one jacket at a time )

I just need to make a push rod to push the copper tube into the die and I would need to make a drill bit in the right size and shape using a lath to make both. With the modified drill bit I could make the die without a problem I think.

Use a 5/16inch drill bit and cut it down to shape and size of a 30cal with a stright base. Then use that to make the die. And then copy the size of the drill bit minus the wieth of the copper tube/bullet jacket allowing the copper tube to reform without pressure to make the push rod.

Vola my bullet jacket maker. Do you think this is possible ??

Dimitri

[Toney]

Gas checks on cast bullets, can get the checks for $16 a 1000. I would be cool making jackets

[snuffy]

Most people don't mess with making jackets. It takes a lot more pressure to make jackets, than to swage bullets. The jackets come pre-made as a cup. You then cut a piece of lead wire, insert it into the jacket cup, then swage the point configuration you want.

Your method you describe would result in a FMJ type of bullet. While there's nothing wrong with that, it's purely a target or plinking bullet, it couldn't be made into a hunting or hollow point bullet. Besides, just drilling a hole wouldn't work, the dies used to form jackets are precision toll&die products and have a mirror finish. Hardly what would result from running a drill into a piece of steel round stock! They also require a lot more than 3 tons to work well

Oh, the bullet jacket material is NOT pure .copper,(except for Barnes), and tubing would leave both ends open. It's not rocket science, but it's a LOT more complicated than you make it sound!

[DimitriS]

Snuff,

I know its more compicated then I wrote it originally. But I think I can do it and I can write a really long expilation of what I want to do if you like .The reason I am considering this is because I just want to make a loading with my own bullet.

I even think I can make hunting bullets as well using thin copper (or bronze) sheet metal and stamping the base first filling it up with lead then forming the top.

The thing is it seems alittle too easy from what my resreach is showing me and I know there has to be a catch and the catch or 2 is whats scaring me so I want to find out what they are before I mess up and realize what that catch is. I am pretty good mechaniclly wise so explaining what I want to do to people I know is kinda hard because I over simplify I know. I just forget to mention step 2,3,5,6,7,8,9 and only talk about step 1,4, and 10. But dont worry I know thouse 7 steps are there and I will actually do them .... well I normally do realize

So you think a 3 ton press wouldnt be able to form the copper dies ??. The thing is the ones off Corbon alot of them are simple hand presses so I assumed a 3 ton arbor press will work. And I have used a 3 ton Arbor press before and I think they can actually do it since they give out quite abit of force If I need anything strong its going to have to wait since I cant invest right now in a 20-30-50ton hydrolic press (150$ verses 2000$ plus)

Anyways if anyone has any advice it will be greatly appericated and before you ask I know how to use a drill press and a metal lathe so that isnt a problem

Dimitri

[LHB1]

Dimitri,
You obviously want to try making your own jackets, bullets, and even the dies to make them. So GO FOR IT! Ever hear how RCBS got its start and its name? Guy named Fred Huntington thought he could make better bullets than he could buy for shooting rock chucks. He tried it and thus founded Rock Chuck Bullet Swage company. Eventually wound up selling presses and dies for reloading using the initials of his first product, thus RCBS.

If you aren't happy with your own jacket/bullet making dies you can always buy Corbin dies and/or equipment to make your jacketed bullets. Who knows, you may found another dynasty like Fred Huntington did.

Good shooting and be safe.
LB

ps: USE CARE when reloading your bullets because you will have to extrapolate loading info from similar weight, shape, jacketed bullets. But the coefficient of friction for your bullet jackets and bearing surface of your bullets may be sufficiently different to require less powder than similar bullets. BE CAREFUL!!!

[DimitriS]

LHB1

Ah useful advice Thanks! I completly forgot about the friction factor!

Anyways I am going to try it pumping one jacket out at a time. If it all works I will let you know

PS I could use all the advice about bullet jackets and leadcores and balistics you guys can throw at me

Dimitri

[Minator]

out of curiosity can if u cast bullets from silver and gold or regular metal for example some old metal eating utencils will it damge the rifiling on your firearm? due to the hardness of the metal

[DimitriS]

Minator,

I guess it depends. Copper isnt as hard as the barrel so it will take alot to wear it out where as using stainless steel will give you quite abit of wear.

Gold it depends on the purity. Pure gold is really weak from what I have seen when handling it so I dont think it will give much wear but then agian that will cost alot. Sliver I am uncertian about.

Personally the best bet would be to get a peice of metal of the same type of the barrel and try it and see what leaves a streak on it and what gets the cut in it to tell.

If the metal you want to use as a bullet has a grove mark on it or it leaves a streak of it on the barrel its less hard then the barrel but if the opposite occurs then the bullet metal is too hard. .... Its been a few months since I did this in Grade 12 Geology but I think I remember correctly

I am not a expert though this is solely based on what I have read/learnt in school in topics relating to this.

Dimitri

[Minator]

thx for the response i was asking because ive got reloading supplies and a whole lot of silverware and a welder

[DimitriS]

Well we can assume how bad something will be with the Mohs scale of hardness:

Hardness Item
2.5 to 3 Gold, Silver
3 Calcite, Copper penny
7 and up Hardened steel

So pure silver and gold will be fine but if its alloyed with steel it might go up I would imagine

Dimitri

[jcims]

Dimitri,

It sounds like an excellent project. I've been drooling at the Corbin site for a few months now, using the same line of thinking you have...why not make the bullets? For some reason the thought of bullet casting isn't really enticing to me...but swaging is very much so.

As a few other posters have mentioned, the jackets are probably going to end up being a challenge, both from the forming perspective and bonding to the lead core. If you're going to go the do-it-yourself route with the equipment, i'd say build a die that you can use to make simple lead bullets with a gas check to start with. Not as sexy as jacketed, for sure, but certainly simpler. Once you get past that, then start working up a die for the jackets.

Of course, as it sounds like you've spent at least as much time on the Corbin site as i have, you know that firearms are very picky about bullet tolerances. +/-.001 may not mean much for OAL, but it certainly does with bullet diameter.

As far as the arbor press goes, i'd have to imagine a 3 ton press would do ok. The corbin hand presses certainly have a lot of leverage going on, but to get 6000 lbs of force, you would have to have a 60:1 leverage ratio and still press on the handle with 100lbs.

One other option to look at is bullet plating (sorry i'm all over the map here). If you know this much about machining, you're probably at least somewhat familiar with the concept of electroplating. Electroplating copper is a little trickier than some other metals, but it's certainly doable. I did a back-of-the-napkin design of a little rig to plate 100 hollowpoints at a time (the hollow point gives me a clean mount point for the cathode). You can speed up the process with cyanide and other nasty stuff, but there are a number of copper plating kits available that will let you do it safely and cheaply as long as you don't mind letting the process run for half a day or a day.

[DimitriS]

jcims,

Plating thats a neat idea. But maybe plate silver onto copper to make them look all one color with some nickle brass. Call them my "platium reloads"

I am going to mic all the diameters to make sure they are up to spec so thats not a problem

As for core bonding thats something thats been making me scratch the back of my head. Not sure how to do it exactly but I was thinking about atleast in any hunting type I might make (not the FMJ type for target shooting/plinking) to make use some sort of punch rod kinda like a tap you use to make threads and ever so softly make some threading to hold the lead into place using 4 points and them just turning 1/8th of a inch of the way not too much just to make a small area for which the lead can hold onto, not sure how well that will work though

As with anything I make if it takes me a hour to make 30 bullets so be it atleast I will know they are all perfect and for the electroplating a day or even a week wouldnt bother me, its not "real" work Personally I think I could make about 60 bullets in a hour though if I am having a good day

Any more ideas ??

Dimitri

[Minator]

update i have found the answer with catastrophic results regular alloy forks and etc. work but even in heavy grain doesnt have an exceptable trajectory gold works but is quite expensive (i used my old highschool ring) and last but not least if u ever run into any werewolves ur s.o.l. solid silver has almost zero trajectory and destroyed the rifiling in my freinds brand new s&w model696 :barf: but if we never tried we would never have known lol.

[DimitriS]

Minator,

Thanks for the update I will remember that

No silver got it.

Anyways tell me how that rifle you want turns out

Dimitri

[Minator]

i posted in original post but it came together fairly cheaply i overlooked a parts gun feature on guns america

[DimitriS]

Minator,

Congrats on getting what you wanted for your rifle

Dimitri

[DimitriS]

From: Gale McMillan <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: Boat tail Bullets
Date: 16 Nov 1997 14:12:37 -0500

Gregory Garland wrote:

If you consider the way a boat tail bullet is made you will understand
that it is an impossibility for the tail of the bullet to be inline with
the body. If the tail is formed in the upper punch it will always be
off by half the amount of the clearance between punch and die. If it is
made in the lower punch it will be a wider tolerance since there is more
clearance in the lower punch. With the tail of the bullet being off
center by at least 1/2 a ten thousands keeps the bullet from flying
true. That is the reason you don't see them used in competition (BR
that is) We will hear a loud cry from long range shooters and all I can
say is the ability to lay on ones belly and shoot 1/10 moa is an
impossibility so they can get away with using them since the error
factor is still smaller than the shooters ability. There was a remark
made above about a flat base shooting better in a factory barrel and I
will change that and say any barrel! My favorite saying is the records
speak for its self. Show me a national benchrest record shot with a
boat tail bullet. One thing that clouds the issue is that no high power
match bullets are made with a flat base so they can only be compared
with custom match bullets made with flat bases of which there are few.
I will say that the small amount of loss of accuracy is off set by the
ability to overcome conditions due to decreased flight time at ranges of
600 and beyond.

http://yarchive.net/gun/ammo/boattail_bullets.html



This gets me thinking about bullet design

Dimitri

[DimitriS]

I made this boattail draw up on my CAD program just to show how I am thinking about doing this

Its the picture attached. Since I know most people dont have CAD programs I printed it off and scanned it to jpg so just anyone can see it

I think I know kinda how it will work out. I dont think it will not work just not sure exactly how easy it will be to do. So what do you guys think ??

Dimitri

[jcims]

Originally Posted by Minator

but if we never tried we would never have known lol.

Minator, were you casting, swaging or plating these puppies? I bet that solid silver bullet looked sweet.

Originally Posted by DimitriS

I made this boattail draw up on my CAD program just to show how I am thinking about doing this

Dimitri, are you going to use these to form the lead, jacket or the whole enchilada? The one thing i wondered with the Corbin dies, and here as well, is what happens if you have too much lead in the 'slug'? Is there any type of expansion hole to let it push out?

You'll probably also need some form of ejector pin in the die.

I guess i'm getting old, another safety warning. You may want to put a shield up between you and the die in case the pressure causes it to fail...if the die or punch fail, who knows how fast that thing would come apart with 3+ tons of pressure bearing down on such a little area.

[jcims]

FWIW, i just found an entire forum for bullet swaging discussions...may be useful

http://graybeardoutdoors.com/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=44

[DimitriS]

jcims,

Dimitri, are you going to use these to form the lead, jacket or the whole enchilada? The one thing i wondered with the Corbin dies, and here as well, is what happens if you have too much lead in the 'slug'? Is there any type of expansion hole to let it push out?

These are to make the Jacket both the base and the "cone" top half.

The core will be a fixed "pill" of volume so I know it will fit properly inside the copper jacket and it wont be "lead" exactly its gonna be a allow of some sort to allow more weight retention. I want as close to 100% weight retention as possible without using a solid copper bullet and I want it to "tumble" as it expands to create a large wound cavity in the boiler room of deer or moose so it can be faster and cleaner kills if that makes sense Its going to take abit of testing though to come up with something just right.

You'll probably also need some form of ejector pin in the die.

I want to avoid that actually just incase it makes a mark on the Jacket. "Hopefully" the jackets will be able to pop out. Of the base forming die anyways since the top die will allow me by hand to pull out the bullet

As for the safety sheild and the like I aready thought of that. I want to live long enough to have grandchilderen bugging me for stuff

PS Thanks for the link I am going to check it out tommorrow.

Dimitri