jacketed bullet making?
- Thread starter TrxR
- Start date
- Location
- Western Manitoba
RCBS - Rock Chuck Bullet Swage - that company founder started by making bullets to shoot rock chucks - using casings from fired .22 bullets as the jackets. I have never tried to do it. Will be interested to hear how that can be done - maybe with tooling and supplies from Corbin these days??
I have been making jacketed bullets for many years. For .224" bullets, I use Ted Smith dies, .22RF cases and pure lead cast cores. The results are not target quality but more than suitable for g'hogs. I make .429" bullets for my .44 mag revolver and rifles. For these, I use C-H dies, annealed .40S&W brass. For cores, I use a Lee 6 cav. .401 mould that drops a 175 Gr bullet. I can make a JSP or JHP by changing the nose punch. For my .357 Mag guns, I use C-H dies, shortened .30M-1 brass and a 120-130 Gr core for a bullet weighing170 Grs or so.
These are .358" bullets.
These are .429 bullets.
Photos of .224" bullets.
These are .358" bullets.
These are .429 bullets.
Photos of .224" bullets.
Im looking more at benchrest 30cal bullets. Where does a person source the lead wire for cores? as far as dies i know it requires a squirt die to make the core, a core seating die to seat cores into the jackets and a pointing die.
I also understand the lead needs to be low percentage of antimony ?
Thanks
I also understand the lead needs to be low percentage of antimony ?
Thanks
Boolitcaster
CGN Regular
- Location
- Vancouver Island
Antimony is used to harden lead, and is not desirable for bullet cores which need to be softer to reduce wear and tear on swage dies and the arm pulling the lever.
I can't see why properly cast cores will not equal extruded wire for quality. That said, casting cores is just one more step in the process that some may not want to do.
I can't see why properly cast cores will not equal extruded wire for quality. That said, casting cores is just one more step in the process that some may not want to do.
I make my own match bullets for F-Class in a variety of calibers. You can use extruded lead or cast cores in a mold. I do both. The cast cores are equal to the extruded wire from commercial sources but I used to make my own extruded wire and questioned the quality so switched to casting them and I feel they are better.
I can caution you that although making your own bullets is mechanically easy, the cost to setup up is huge and makes the expense not worth it unless you just want to.
The carbide match dies are extremely expensive and very hard to get. The lead time is measured in years. Match grade carbide dies range about $7000 per set with a lead time of 2-3 years. Then you need special presses to use them.
Match quality jackets are considered the same as bullets and subject to export controls from the US. You need special permits to import. They are also very hard to source because J4 (Berger) no longer sells them and Sierra only makes a couple sizes available on a regular basis.
Having said all of above I love making them and using them to shoot tiny holes at long range.
I can caution you that although making your own bullets is mechanically easy, the cost to setup up is huge and makes the expense not worth it unless you just want to.
The carbide match dies are extremely expensive and very hard to get. The lead time is measured in years. Match grade carbide dies range about $7000 per set with a lead time of 2-3 years. Then you need special presses to use them.
Match quality jackets are considered the same as bullets and subject to export controls from the US. You need special permits to import. They are also very hard to source because J4 (Berger) no longer sells them and Sierra only makes a couple sizes available on a regular basis.
Having said all of above I love making them and using them to shoot tiny holes at long range.
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.
I don't anymore, but have made 100s of thousands if not a million. Dies I used were Neimi, Detsch, Ulrich, and of course both Corbins. Your best to extrude your own wire.
I used both Sierra and J4 jackets, Sierra being the more consistent of the 2. Also got some jackets from Butch Harfeild.
The truth is your at the mercy of receiving a very good lot of jackets where accuracy is concerned.
My shoulder will never be the same.
I used both Sierra and J4 jackets, Sierra being the more consistent of the 2. Also got some jackets from Butch Harfeild.
The truth is your at the mercy of receiving a very good lot of jackets where accuracy is concerned.
My shoulder will never be the same.
Any recommendations on where to read up on extruding wire? Also whose dies did you like? I've seen Ulrich come up a few times as well as Neimi, are the both still making dies?
Best bet is David Detsch, I've been out of it for awhile now, Neimi's retired, George Ulrich? he was hit and miss 6 yrs ago so I couldn't say. Lots on YouTube on extruding lead wire, good place to get an idea. It's quite easy, important thing is being
able to draw the ram back out of the die.
able to draw the ram back out of the die.
Did you check out the video I posted above?
I had a forehead slap moment, when I saw the absolute elegance of that system in use.
I did. but wish I understood what he said. Im going to watch some more vids on it today.
You can turn on auto translate for the subtitles, but I find it's pretty crappy translation, with odd syntax and structure. But you can get pretty much what you need from following the fella along.
He does show his measurements, but I really think about the best idea worth stealing is that cylinder and piston combo one, as that totally does away with the need to either pull the piston out under hydraulic force, or heating the whole assembly hot enough that it can be pulled out (melting the lead in it).
This allows a guy to get away with experimenting with extruding his own lead wire, using far more available sources of pressure, as I see it.
By the time you build the extruding setup using a hydraulic pump, hydraulic cylinder, hardened die and frame you are into real money. For the volume bullets you are likely to make, you will be cheaper to buy from a lead supplier. Remember you cannot make bullets cheaper than buying from Berger. Trust me on that.
Steve
Steve
True, but if you are looking for a particular size, making your own is an option.
And I fully agree, that buying them is going to work out a lot cheaper in the end. If you can get them. Or if there is someone out there that makes what you want.
If a person is willing to put in the time and the learning curve, and has a decently equipped shop, a lot of the stuff that you need will already be on hand.
A simple welder, some scrap C or I beam steel, and a bottle jack, does not amount to a lot of investment, when you have other reasons to own the equipment needed to make the stuff.
I am in for under $200 for my 20 ton hydraulic press. It paid for itself on the first job I used it for, straightening up some hay equipment parts that had been in a wreck, instead of buying new.
Even if you pay pretty good money for a metal lathe and put the time in to using it, you can come out ahead of buying your swaging equipment.
Water and oil hardening steel is cheap. Diamond paste for lapping the main body of the die is also readily available and not all that dear. And, if one shops around, as I mentioned above, carbide drill bushings made to a pretty darn high standard of size and internal finish, are pretty cheap.
I have used a home built (like, seriously, a 45 minute effort to build) EDM tap burner that would work just fine for stuff like bleed holes on a core squirt die.
The learning curve, while daunting at times, is something that has to be dealt with in any field where experience counts for anything.
There was a couple videos that I saw quite a while back that were put up by an Aussie Bullet making company, showing their process for manufacturing their bullets from scratch, which was quite a process. They showed the process from punching out flat circles of jacket material and drawing the cases, most on machinery they had built themselves.
It amounts to the same as every other thing one might get involved in, it's going to cost you in Time, Cash, or Effort, pretty much as a given. Sometimes only two out of three, but rarely do you get to pick only one!
SteveB : when you cast cores do you cast them to the length you want or cast them long the cut and squirt? What do you use for s mold?
Could you cast say a 20 or 40 inch long lead wire then cut and squirt your cores from that?
Im thinking casting might be more basic than extruding wire. Is the lead to use for casting easier to find than lead wire?
Could you cast say a 20 or 40 inch long lead wire then cut and squirt your cores from that?
Im thinking casting might be more basic than extruding wire. Is the lead to use for casting easier to find than lead wire?
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
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
