Making Brass Casings

AlbertaSheepdog

AlbertaSheepdog

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Does anyone know how to make their own Brass Casings?

ive scoured the internet and havnt been able to really find anything informative. Im interested to learn how Ammunition companies actually make the brass casings... what kind of machinery they use, etc. Also, Im interested to learn if there are any methods to making them on your own without the expensive machinery.
Any thoughts?
 
The process starts with a brass disk. Progressively it gets punched into a closed ended tube. The term is "drawing". The machinery is big, fast, loud and really strong. I haven't figured out how the head, rim and stamps are formed so precisely, but that is what engineers get paid for. There must be Youtube videos.
 
You can make them with a lathe. It's slow, PITA work, but can be done, just not as profitably as many other things you can do with the same time and lathe.
You can increase production by buying a turret lathe, which is a manually operated repetitive operations lathe, but then you have to find a decent affordable one, and learn to set it up for use.

Or you can invest heavily into CNC lathe and tooling to do the same, more money,even more other more profitable things that can be accomplished. Starting to see the trend? :)

The big companies use progressive deep drawing to form blanks from slugs punched out of brass sheets or roll stock. Each die squeezes the blank out as they automatically progress through the whole series, depending on the size and the case shape. There are usually steps along the process that involve heating the whole blank or just parts of it, to anneal, as well as processes to clean off accumulated dirt and built up lube.

The machines are big, expensive, and require a machine shop full of competent machinist/toolmakers to keep them supplied with dies as they do wear out at a pretty good rate. The expense of operating them is one of the main reasons that certain calibers have fallen off the map, as they required blanks that were of a size unique to them, and it was not profitable to make them when the same machines could be making cases that could be formed into many different products.

Yer internet skills must be ... never mind.

Google Images search the term "Making Brass Cartridges" and you will see some of the results.

Yer not gonna do this at home unless you have a half million or so to spend, and some talented employees working for you. The machinery is called a progressive deep drawing machine or press. There are a LOT of more profitable things to do with one of them, again.

DIY with a lathe is about your only option, unless you can convert another case to fit.

Cheers
Trev
 
^^. What he said, lol.

I might be possible to do at home with something more compact, but its either going to take you a week to make each casing, or a whole lotta $$$$$$$.......
 
Just asking out of curiosity. I'd rather jut spend the many thousand of dollars in empty brass then the machine to make it lol. And I was searching for videos... Not pictures. Didn't find anything worth following
 
it's not the best video, but its better then pictures,

[youtube]9mQ4Fuv8z1U[/youtube]

there was other videos around, like how 22lr is made, but i cant seem to find it anymore... just stuff about shortages.
 
trevj said:
You can make them with a lathe. It's slow, PITA work, but can be done, just not as profitably as many other things you can do with the same time and lathe.
You can increase production by buying a turret lathe, which is a manually operated repetitive operations lathe, but then you have to find a decent affordable one, and learn to set it up for use.
Click to expand...

Drawing the brass and annealing it between operations seems to give the cases strength that doesn't exist in lathe turned cases. I recall reading an article years ago about a small company lathe turning a few oddball rifle cases, and the case life was unusually short.
 
I don't think it would be too bad with a regular old lathe. Even a small mini lathe like one of the Sherlines would probably do the trick. Using brass round bar, Drill and ream or bore the primer pocket and flash hole, turn the rim with a "custom" groover that would take about 5 minutes to make. Part off the blank. Do the whole batch of rims/primer pockets/flashholes at once.

Then use a "specialty" fixture, like a lee lock stud held in a collet or even just dialed in in a 4 jaw chuck, to hold the blanks while you drill and bore the inside of the cases and turn the outside. Polish the outside of the case with some scotch brite with some oil on it, and they'd probably be ready of the sizing die.

Bottleneck cases would have to include an extra step, the same as forming from a different case would.

A turret lathe WOULD speed things up immensely.

A CNC lathe would REALLY speed things up a lot.

Starline does it, so it must be profitable.
 
Starline doesn't build their cases on a lathe. They are deep drawn like the rest. They have managed to build a pretty god business up, mainly by filling in the gaps that the other makers have ignored, and by not grossly overcharging for their product. I suspect that their margins are lower than would be acceptable to the Boards of Directors of the big companies, too.

Rocky Mountain Cartridge, was, IIRC, the outfit that made mostly lathe turned brass. It was expensive, life was short, results...variable. Lots of issues with case thickness variations, heat treat and cold work issues, and generally not as good a product as the price reflected, based on what I recall reading.

But they were the only game around, for some of the older oddball stuff.

Cheers
Trev
 
Hmm i could have sworn Starline made turned cases....

Regardless, if you had some kind of real oddball round, then it would definitely be worth it to have some made. This makes me think of when they hat a Hotchkiss on top Shot, I can only imagine the work that went into making the ammo.
 
trevj said:
Starline doesn't build their cases on a lathe. They are deep drawn like the rest. They have managed to build a pretty god business up, mainly by filling in the gaps that the other makers have ignored, and by not grossly overcharging for their product. I suspect that their margins are lower than would be acceptable to the Boards of Directors of the big companies, too.

Cheers
Trev
Click to expand...

I believe Starline is related to Sierra bullets. All of their products use similar draw and swage technology. My guess is much of their product have dedicated lines, but there is likely a lot of room when making cases for adding to case families.

(ie, if you are tooled up for 10mm, it should be easier to produce .40 S&W cases using the same draw dies. Same with 9mm and .45 )
 
It may be well worth the effort to track down the Cartridge Conversions book that is out there. It covers much of the info that is relevant to building a cartridge from scratch at home, as well as how to convert one case into another.

With enough need, and enough work, you can accomplish about anything, but it really does come down to how much you need it, want it, and are willing to pay for it, whether it's in cash, or in hours of work and money spent on tools to make it.

A high tolerance for frustration and failures is a definite need, going in to the game, too.

Soooo..... If the OP is looking to quickly and cheaply make up some cases because the ammo is not n the shelf...Nope. Not gonna happen.

The reason we pay as little as we do for cases is the machines that make the stuff make lots and lots, and it keeps the unit cost down pretty low. What costs the companies money, is the labor and down times to change from one set of dies to another, plus the losses in production while they get everything set up and running correctly for the new run. So they do that as few times as they can, and pound out as much as they have room to store, each run. This leaves us waiting, when they don't bother doing a small run of, say, .455 Webly ammo or cases, because they are busy pounding out as much 9mm or .45 ACP as they can while the market is hot.

Cheers
Trev
 
I've made turned cases.
Really slow. Sometimes an option. Some specialized tooling would help.
Tools and dies to draw something like copper .32RF cases could no doubt be made. If bullets can be swaged, there is no reason that a stout reloading press wouldn't be able to handle copper rimfire cases.
Then the problem would be priming them.

Donnelly's Cartridge Conversions does have a lot of useful information in it about how to make cases when there is no parent case that can be easily reformed.
 
Spawn-Inc said:
it's not the best video, but its better then pictures,

[youtube]9mQ4Fuv8z1U[/youtube]

there was other videos around, like how 22lr is made, but i cant seem to find it anymore... just stuff about shortages.
Click to expand...



So say someone wanted to manufacture brass casings en masse to sell to the reloading community... They would need to purchase one of the machines shown in this video (the one that punches the brass discs into cartridge shapes over many steps). My question is what is this machine called, how much do they cost, and are they for sale to the public or smaller private sector?

Basically... if someone wanted to start their own ammunition company, and wanted to manufacture EVERYTHING from start to finish (like winchester or another competitor) rather then simply be a "handload only" ammunition company (like canada bdx)...
 
trevj said:
It may be well worth the effort to track down the Cartridge Conversions book that is out there.
Click to expand...

That is a great book, one I read just for ####s and giggles. It has descriptions of many different ways to transform one cartridge case into another, usually by turning existing cases down or soldering bits of tubing together. There are few recipes for making cases from "scratch" as they state the end products usually aren't worth the effort.
 
c-fbmi said:
I have a friend who made himself a 4 bore double rifle and then made 50 cases for it.........he is an exceptionally talented and patient man.
Click to expand...

making casing for something like a 4 bore/odd ball makes sense. but making something that can be had relatively easily or formed from something else dose not make sense
 
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