Brass case manufacturing equipment?

zZ_denis

zZ_denis

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I've looking for hours and cant find anything.

Who sells machines and equipment to manfacture brass cartridge cases from scratch? What are the approximate costs? (i do realize that its VERY expensive)
What are these machines called?

If anybody can point me in the right direction, i'd really appreciate it!
 
A mil's not too hard to come by to start a business venture. It would be interesting to get a better idea of the machinery involved, though.
 
You need several machines... the brass comes on a 1000 lbs spool... the first machine cuts the strip into a brass circle... then it goes thru several presses until its formed into the proper shape each time trimming and and sizing etc.

I have been looking into commerical civilian production for a while now... bigest hiderance it relying on someone else for the componets. So you need to make your own, to set up a plant to make everything need for ammo less the powder look looking at several million I am thinking about 10.

Since I have been invesitgating about how to make fmj because its getting scares and expensive I have found local company to supply the lead wire and copper spools for the jackets... because if you rely on someone else like berger to send you jackets the the bullets would automatically cost more then you could buy it from them directly... 1000 j4 jackets is 149.99 and then you need to make your bullets still

I dont think however there would be goverment restrictions preventing you from setting up a shop to make jacketed bullets... or componets like brass... ammo, primers and gunpowder might be a bit different.
 
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msg. drew. It sounds like you are talking bullets but he is asking about cartridge case manufacture. Very expensive to set up to do the latter from scratch. Materials, drawing presses, annealing set ups etc. etc etc.. I'm not sure if a million would do it for commercial production. Some cases for very limited types of use could probably be lathe turned.
 
Depends on how high tech you want it. If you want a new Manhurin or Lauchessee machine, which do just about everything on one machine, they run about a million US. If you want cheaper there are machines from Europe or China that will do it in multiple steps for about 100k. Don't forget that you will need tooling and setup for each calibre.
You will also need rim turning, pickling, annealing and finishing machines to create a case suitable for sale or loading.
The generic term is a multi-stage transfer press, although these are generally specialized machines now, rather than just tooling up a generic transfer press.

http://www.manurhin-mre.com/english/
http://www.lachaussee.com/

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If anyone has a few million I would love to show you a business plan :D there is the know how here In canada to do this... and if every gun owner would buy canadian then it would work but odds are people will still buy things from usa and europe...
 
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Also the cost of a new plant vs making ammo at an old, paid for plant, is an issue. GGG spent millions on their new plant in 2001, only to find they had no customers because their break-even price was too high. Only the recent surge in demand has allowed them to sell at a modest profit.
 
CanAm said:
Also the cost of a new plant vs making ammo at an old, paid for plant, is an issue. GGG spent millions on their new plant in 2001, only to find they had no customers because their break-even price was too high. Only the recent surge in demand has allowed them to sell at a modest profit.
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Yep, your going to want to find one dump of a factory or barn to setup in so you dont have that big cost cutting into your profits. :D I have a very nice hobby shed in my back yard but neighbours might wonder why they hear machinery banging 125 times a min in there lol
 
msg.drew said:
Yep, your going to want to find one dump of a factory or barn to setup in so you dont have that big cost cutting into your profits. :D I have a very nice hobby shed in my back yard but neighbours might wonder why they hear machinery banging 125 times a min in there lol
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Remember, that in Canada, the best way to have a successful small business, is to start off with a big business...... :eek: :rolleyes:
 
SandRoad said:
Remember, that in Canada, the best way to have a successful small business, is to start off with a big business...... :eek: :rolleyes:
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I dont know if thats Sarcasm or not... my grandfather had a formula for success and it didn't involve anything shiny an new...

My dads uncle came to this country after the war with basically nothing... got into farming and real estate speculation... his now 84 and still farming... I am pretty sure even back in the days when he had big operations he didnt ever buy a new tractor... never bought much of anything that was new... I see all these new farms with big shiny brand new john deers and loans upon loans...

He is still farming today and his young neighbour farmer has a $220,000 dollar tractor and my dads uncle is still using the very first tractor he had...

I cant belive it either 30 -35 years ago he bought a farm 100 acres for about 13,000 dollars this year hunting we drove by it was forsale for 1.3 million now it has a nice new pig barn on it but thats it... even if the pig barn is worth 500,000 if he would have kept it thats still not a bad investment for 30 years:eek:
 
Its just a stamped brass part. All that you need is and old stamping press, a screw machine (for the rim) and dies. If you can design and make your own dies, you could get setup for under $10k easily with used equipment. Often these machines get written off and sold for scrap metal cost. It isn't all that hard to do, we stamp far more complex parts at work. But we design and build our own dies. If we didn't, it would be extremely costly. Especially if it took several iterations to perfect the dies.

Making the brass with a fairly labor intensive process would be easy. Making a successful business out of it would not.
 
msg.drew said:
I dont know if thats Sarcasm or not...
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Yes it is just a wee bit sarcastic. :D Nothing like the government taxing and regulating businesses out of competition.

And as for the farms, my grandparents did the same thing, and they lived very well with just 200 acres.
 
kombayotch said:
Its just a stamped brass part. All that you need is and old stamping press, a screw machine (for the rim) and dies. If you can design and make your own dies, you could get setup for under $10k easily with used equipment. Often these machines get written off and sold for scrap metal cost. It isn't all that hard to do, we stamp far more complex parts at work. But we design and build our own dies. If we didn't, it would be extremely costly. Especially if it took several iterations to perfect the dies.

Making the brass with a fairly labor intensive process would be easy. Making a successful business out of it would not.
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Yes, you can do that of the throw on the press is enough (usually is) but it will require a tooling change for each of 5+ steps of the draw, as well as hand feeding the press.
 
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