jacketed bullet making?

[TrxR]

Hi TrxR:

I bought a 11 cavity mold from a company in Oregon. It was sized to drop cores to the right diameter I wanted and the length I needed to make the proper core weight. It can only be used for the bullet weight I wanted. In this case, a 162 grain 6.5 mm VLD. I take the raw cores and squirt them to the right diameter and weight for the bullet the same way I would for a cut core from extruded wire. Casting is more basic and the reason that I went to this method is that I can use any source of lead. Right now I use up all my scrap lead from the other bullet weights I make to make the 162's.

Steve

Do you remeber the company you got it from?

Is there any way to determine how pure of lead you are getting ?

 

[SteveB]

Here is Brian's email address. Brian Thurner <bt_sniper@hotmail.com> Good guy to deal with. Lots of dies etc on his website.

I been buying recycled battery lead drawn into extruded wire. Guaranteed 99.7% pure lead. Lot me know how much you are interested in. Expensive to ship though.

 

[Brassman66]

Use a hydraulic press or wood splitter, and extrude your own wire.
Someone posted a couple videos showing a Russian dude's set-up, that was quite an elegant solution. He used a large pot of melted lead to fill his cylinder, and his 'hole' was on a fixed plate on the deck of his press. The piston was pushed through, then allowed to stay where it was while the cylinder was refilled, and turned over, so as to push the piston back to the other end. That solves about the biggest problem I have seen guys worked up over, which is how to pull the piston out after pressing it in to the cylinder of lead.
The video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_6CoRFtpuc&feature=emb_logo

I would suggest looking at Drill Bushings from the machine tool suppliers, as possible replaceable 'holes'. Once you choose a style, and make the cylinder, you can then change the bushing to make wire of the exact size you need.

Corbin sells a complete kit to make .22 bullets from rimfire brass, in it, they have a six cavity mold to cast cores. The idea is to cast them oversize, and get the uniformity by running them through the squirt die, which has the holes to allow excess lead to squirt out.

I looked pretty hard at Swaging, and figured that I was better off if I spent the money that would have gone in to swage dies and presses, on powder primers and bullets instead.
It looked like a good way to spend a winter afternoon in front of the bench, but it also looked like a way to spend an awful pile of money and time, that both were probably just as well spent elsewhere.

Oh yeah. Drill Bushings. They can be got in carbide, and in very precise diameters. A fella could do worse than to start there, if he was wanting to make his own dies. That's where I figure I would start.

Thanks for sharing the Russian utube Video.
I just love watching somebody make something useful out of almost nothing, reminds me of the good old Days !

Cheers

 

[trevj]

Thanks for sharing the Russian utube Video.
I just love watching somebody make something useful out of almost nothing, reminds me of the good old Days !

Cheers

Welcome, but Yomomma should get the credit for posting this here in the Forum, which is how I came across it.

The simple elegance of the use of a free floating piston and an orifice on a fixed plate, was a real "a-Ha!" moment, and deserves some looking at.

For a while, I had a Corbin 'bullets from rimfire jackets' kit, and it was educational to see that there was very little in there that was actual "precision" other than those parts that needed it, the main bit being the separate inner piece of the main die, which was carefully lapped to size, and the inner portion of the bleed off core forming die, to a lesser extent.
It was looking at those parts that led me to looking very hard at the potential use of carbide and hardened steel drill bushings as the basis of a set of dies, and I am still pretty much convinced that should the making of a set of dies, reach anywhere near the top of my 'to-do list', that is the direction I will try first off. Depending on the supplier, you can avoid a lot of extra work for a couple extra dollars, with oil holes (bleed holes!)and such, specified in the order.

 

[mulenv]

Yes is the answer.
.224, .243 varmint thin jackets
.30 cal rifle. .308 100-210gr sub performers, target, hunting jackets to anti material. Gas checks for .30cal availiable
.452 for .45acp sub pure lead with Copper disc on back instead of Gas check
.512 500-700gr jacketed

all flat base or pure lead base savers.

I use Corbin and pacific dies, also friend from school makes some of my engineered tools.

What is tickling your fancy?

I case some too for black powder and modern mostly .308, 312, .500 buffalo rifle bp