bullet jackets from copper tubing

yodave

yodave

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It's a lengthy process at best, and it involves almost 10 different steps from start to finish, but with the rising bullet prices due to the economy and the dollar, self isolation brought on by the fairy tale pandemic, it's a great way to spend the time indoors while it pisses down rain.........200 grain .308 bullets run as a test, finished jackets measure 1.25 inches in length, was a good test because now I know i need to step down to my 1 inch jacket punches to get somewhere between 150-168 grains.......more experiments to follow as time goes on



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Decent hunting bullets, I shot allot of game with them (bonded) a little on the soft side no matter what brinnel hardness of core I used. Bitterroot was first on the scene using tubing as I recall.
 
marshman said:
Decent hunting bullets, I shot allot of game with them (bonded) a little on the soft side no matter what brinnel hardness of core I used. Bitterroot was first on the scene using tubing as I recall.
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Bitterroot and Barnes, Barnes started with these bullets way back in 1939.

fired a 4 shot group from my CZ 308/12 gauge combo gun at 100 yards, this rifle has never done anything spectacular in the accuracy department so I didn't know what to expect, loaded 4 rounds with 40 grains of H4895 and seated the bullets just somewhere back from the lands

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Then I fired 4 shots out of the 300 blackout built on a weatherby S2 bolt action rifle, random powder load of 17.5 grains of CFE BLK in Gorilla brass, didn't really know what to expect out of this rifle but would have been happy with a 2 inch group........you know those days your at the range and happy to have someone watching your target with a spotting scope......today was one of those days, 100 yard 4 shot group

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My buddy make 223 bullets from 22 brass. He just did some that work great in my hornet. 40 gr made from22 short brass. I know he anted to do some 375 from tubing. Nice way to kill time.
 
Please do elaborate on the process! Even though I don't have the time to do this myself, it's nice reading how these DIY projects come together. Makes for excellent water cooler topics! :cheers:
 
Ganderite said:
I would be concerned about excessive barrel fouling form copper jackets. Seen any issues?
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no more issues then copper cup and core bullets, the tubing is a little softer but cleaning barrels takes the same effort no matter commercial bullets, copper plated bullets or copper tubing bullets. will have to shoot a hundred or so to see if it has any real ill effects on fouling, but if you remember the old Barnes Originals, they to were made with copper tubing using this exact same process
 
Some have swaged .50 BMG from 1/2 copper pipe.You'd be hard pressed to get heavy bullets for .375 from 9mm.Most use plentiful range .223 brass to make 38-55 n the 250-255gr range..375 H+H ..........300gr etc.
 
Ganderite said:
I would be concerned about excessive barrel fouling form copper jackets. Seen any issues?
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The old Type L Hard copper tubing wasn't bad for fouling. I don't believe it's available any longer.

I finally gave up on swaging my own bullet jackets out of rigid copper pipe. There was always some sort of problem with the concentric thickness of the jackets, which lead to mediocre accuracy.

After the Juenke gauge was invented, which measured jacket thickness all the way around, it was found that accuracy was definitely effected by slightly varying thicknesses.

This brought about the J4 type jackets, which were cheap and easy to get. Not only that, you could set up your micrometer with the consistency of thickness.

The thing about J4 type jackets is that they were light and only suitable for match shooting.

I never did get jackets made from 22 rimfire cases to shoot consistently well. There were always unexplainable flyers.
 
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Ganderite said:
Jackets are made of gilding metal - intended to reduce fouling. Check the bore after 5 shots of copper bullets. Don't blow the potential accuracy on fouling.
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Yep, I like my "almost" free jackets, but after about 30 shots, my bore needs some attention with Wipe-Out cleaner. Once, there are no more blue coloured patches, I am good to go again.

As far as wall thickness goes, I think that by being careful to avoid mixing headstamps, and/or lot #s in my donor brass, I have pretty much beat that demon to my satisfaction.

I am not too worried about sub MOA groups though.
 
bearhunter said:
The old Type L Hard copper tubing wasn't bad for fouling. I don't believe it's available any longer.
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Type L copper is still an industry standard in plumbing and is available everywhere, I have all manner of it in my service van and inventory up to 2.5" & 3" diameter. Type K is an even thicker wall than type L, type M is 'standard' wall thickness and is thinner-walled than type L.
I only keep type L in stock to minimize my inventory. Then there is the crossover with refrigeration where they name tubing by its outside diameter where plumbers name it by inside diameter (when it's over 3/8" OD anyways)....
 
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