Making your own jacketed bullets

So much knowledge!

Canuck525, if you don't mind keep us posted on what direction you decide to go and how successful you are!
 
Evanguy said:
Buy a small lathe and turn solid copper bullets. Or if one had access to a cnc lathe, you could make any bullet you want, fast and cheap.
Click to expand...

LOL!

You have no idea how hard it is to make a consistently accurate part or how much it can cost in equipment to do so.

I have met Dale from Chichanga, pretty good guy, worth talking to.

For all his popularity I wouldn't think that BT Sniper was like to prove useful to you unless you wanted a set of dies to make cheap bullets out of used cases. But maybe.
A couple of the guys on the Saubier small caliber forum are involved in commercially making swaged bullets, worth touching base there.
Mostly, the process seems to me to be about minding the details very very carefully, and dealing with the monotony. And keeping detailed records of everything from what the temperature was, to how the tongue was being held and how hard it was being bit. :)
 
Ok man. Sounds good. Im guessing you are not a machinest though. But you can turn more consitent bullets then you would think. You just need to hand grind a few tools and know what you are doing. Also once you do a few hundred you would be able to bang them out quickly, you need to get the precess down and tools made up for you bullet design. We have some old guys at work on manual machines that put out work equal or better to some of the cnc machines.

Hes intrested in ivnesting time and money since you can buy made bulets for cheap, so it really is an option. Also with a DRO that would speed things up a lot. And also make guages to check all the parts of you bullets to mae sure they are the same.

You wouldnt do it to sell them, it wouldnt be worth it but to make them for your self if you have time. Yes it can be done.

At work i use a cnc lathe to spit them out, thats the simplest way i have found to do it. One can easily hit 0.01mm tollarences. Thats just a simple H6 tollarence. Super common to find in the maching world.
 
Last edited:
mmm...correct me if I'm wrong but my limited ciphering tells me that .01 mm =.004. Not even remotely close enough for bullet tolerances. If you claim a .004 thou tolerance that gives you an actual variance possibility of .008 from the medium. That wouldn't even be remotely close enough for cast boolit shooters let alone jacketed shooters, especially if you are making your own for long range precision.
 
The cores are cut then swaged, then pressed into the jacket. The press is huge compared to a reloading press. Turning solid copper works good for hunting, but for F class you would need a very long bullet, reducing powder capacity.
 
fingers284 said:
mmm...correct me if I'm wrong but my limited ciphering tells me that .01 mm =.004. Not even remotely close enough for bullet tolerances. If you claim a .004 thou tolerance that gives you an actual variance possibility of .008 from the medium. That wouldn't even be remotely close enough for cast boolit shooters let alone jacketed shooters, especially if you are making your own for long range precision.
Click to expand...

One decimal off, it is .0004". I'm pretty sure most commercial bullet makers advertise half or less of that tolerance. The best way to make monolithic bullets in any great number would be a CNC Swiss lathe. They are suited to large runs of smallest slender parts. But as noted, the metals are a bit light compared to lead.
 
green machine said:
One decimal off, it is .0004". I'm pretty sure most commercial bullet makers advertise half or less of that tolerance. The best way to make monolithic bullets in any great number would be a CNC Swiss lathe. They are suited to large runs of smallest slender parts. But as noted, the metals are a bit light compared to lead.
Click to expand...

I'll casually suggest that any guy that thinks they can run out and buy a small lathe and hold 4 tenths of a thou, over several hundred bullets, using hand ground tools, is talking purely out of their arse. To suggest that some guy that has not ever run a lathe at all, should expect to be able to do so, doubly so.

No, not a machinist. I would need papers to call myself that. But I played one at work for about 8 years. And have been involved in it as a hobby for closer to 25 years. If not a little longer. OK, a bunch longer <sigh>. Lesse...Bought my first lathe in 1984 or 1985... wow....been a while.....

Yeah, a decently set up CNC Swiss machine, in a temperature controlled room and decent process control, along with constant monitoring and quality assurance checking, and you might be there. All for somewhere into the price of a pretty nice house, so you can machine bullets.

Makes dropping a couple thousand at a time on Swaging dies and presses look like a right bloody BARGAIN!

I'll stand by my previous suggestions. Check in at the Saubier Small caliber Forum, Accurate Shooters Forum and anywhere that the guys are talking bench rest or long range, and seek out suggestions for sources for swaging dies and jackets. Having the tools in hand isn't the same as being able to make them sing and dance to your tune, either. But it's a start.

The general gist of what I have read suggest that if all goes well and you can avoid any crap going in to them, a set of steel dies should be good for 100K bullets, and a set of carbide dies pretty much won't wear out in one lifetime.
 
trevj said:
I'll casually suggest that any guy that thinks they can run out and buy a small lathe and hold 4 tenths of a thou, over several hundred bullets, using hand ground tools, is talking purely out of their arse. To suggest that some guy that has not ever run a lathe at all, should expect to be able to do so, doubly so.

No, not a machinist. I would need papers to call myself that. But I played one at work for about 8 years. And have been involved in it as a hobby for closer to 25 years. If not a little longer. OK, a bunch longer <sigh>. Lesse...Bought my first lathe in 1984 or 1985... wow....been a while.....

Yeah, a decently set up CNC Swiss machine, in a temperature controlled room and decent process control, along with constant monitoring and quality assurance checking, and you might be there. All for somewhere into the price of a pretty nice house, so you can machine bullets.

Makes dropping a couple thousand at a time on Swaging dies and presses look like a right bloody BARGAIN!

I'll stand by my previous suggestions. Check in at the Saubier Small caliber Forum, Accurate Shooters Forum and anywhere that the guys are talking bench rest or long range, and seek out suggestions for sources for swaging dies and jackets. Having the tools in hand isn't the same as being able to make them sing and dance to your tune, either. But it's a start.

The general gist of what I have read suggest that if all goes well and you can avoid any crap going in to them, a set of steel dies should be good for 100K bullets, and a set of carbide dies pretty much won't wear out in one lifetime.
Click to expand...
Yes that was my point. Not hardly worth turning bullets if you don't have the proper setup and know how. (Licensed tool and die maker BTW, so I am quite used to those tolerances). Stick to others advice, about what works on a hobby scale.
 
green machine said:
One decimal off, it is .0004". I'm pretty sure most commercial bullet makers advertise half or less of that tolerance. The best way to make monolithic bullets in any great number would be a CNC Swiss lathe. They are suited to large runs of smallest slender parts. But as noted, the metals are a bit light compared to lead.
Click to expand...

I stand corrected....so much for the accuracy of the Google'd Metric conversion calc. that I trusted.
 
LeroyvdH said:
Just a thought.. Plishroy was doing some swaging.. I believe it was half jackets.. Maybe give him a PM can't hurt..
Leroy
Click to expand...

yes, i do a bit of swaging. i had a few threads here showing the process with pictures but Photobucket went down and i think its all lost.
i do 458 at varying sizes and weights and 6 mm with a s6 ogive and s10 ogive
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom