Price of gas checks

blacksmithden

blacksmithden

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I live among the creatures of the night (Edmonton)
WSS is charging $30 for 1000 Hornady gas checks. Being from the manufacturing maintenance world, this seems pretty damned expensive for a pile of simple punched out cups. I know all about import and shipping costs and that doesn't account for what is probably no more than 2 or 3 dollars worth of product being retailed for 1000% more. Is there an extra duty, or special government tax that I don't know about??? I might buy myself a small punch press and start wacking these out "on mass" if there is demand.


Has anybody bought any lately??? How much did you get charged???
 
Depending on the caliber, that is inline with the US pricing as I use a pile of gas checks in .22, .25, .30,.35,.38,.45, and the price has risen steadily. I'm told it's due to the rising cost of copper, which is being bought up by China, this is the same as lead which is constantly going up in price. The punch you speak of is already being marketed but is meant for use with tin instead(avail. around the house).
 
Where would this punch be available? What sort of tin would you use? Soup cans? I would imagine aluminum pop cans wouldn't work too well.

I am under the impression that its Hornady that makes nearly all the gass checks out there regardless of the name that they are sold under...
 
Well, let's just see how far this thread goes. I might have a line on a used one that would punch out 30 cal gas checks until the cows come home, but I'd have to look into the costs first. How much is a roll of copper strip going for....etc. I haven't bought base copper before (no I won't use old soup cans ;) )
I might even be able to talk to my buddy and get him to run off a few million for us without even buying the press. I'll look into the costs involved.

THIS IS NOT A GROUP BUY OFFER (yet ;) ) I might find out that $30/1000 for .30's is a bargin. We'll see.
 
I just bought .50 cal checks for my 500and paid $77.00 for 1000 plus tax, ya I know but the led was $40.00 for 50 pices. so had to do it. and I paid after tax and shipping and if you want to add some gas money to get to the gun shop $100.00 for a box of 20 already loaded rounds so the 77 didnt seem to bad I can get my lead for free most of the time anyway
 
I measued a .30 cal gas check and I've emailed pics to my buddy. We'll see what he says when he gets back into work tomorrow. He'll probably tell me that it isn't worth getting a die made up, but who knows. Things are slowing down.

My email:
Hi Buddy. Here's your Monday morning headache LOL!!! Since I know there's a punch press around there somewhere that could use some extra work............ :)

1. Could you make these little copper cups??
2. How much would it be if we ordered say, 250,000 of them....or is it not even worth setting up??? If not, how many would we have to order to make it worth while?


Here are some pics with measurements

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb93/blacksmithden/BulletsMay112008004.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb93/blacksmithden/BulletsMay112008005.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb93/blacksmithden/BulletsMay112008006.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb93/blacksmithden/BulletsMay112008007.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb93/blacksmithden/BulletsMay112008008.jpg

The 0.0545 is the depth of the inside of the cup

The ID of the cup and the side wall thickness would have to be within .001" or so.
The could be a little deeper if need be, but not much shallower.

Take care.

Den......
Click to expand...

This weekends booty from Den's bullet factory (garage :D)

Where all those gas checks go.

BulletsMay112008002.jpg





I also cast about 1200 45's just because. I'm gonna have to sell some of these things soon. I think I've got around 2000 already sized and lubed, and now these. I just love using that particular mold because the bullets fall out as soon as you open it.

BulletsMay112008001.jpg
 
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The punch I was referring to was avail. on e-bay and was meant to be used with the tin from tin cans and possibly(not sure about this) for bullets with a plain base. To the fellow who spent $77 on the .50 cal. gas checks.......It's really none of my business but you may want to consider grinding the mold down and lose the gas check or buying a plain base mold. My experience with the .50 cal. is that you don't need a gas check bullet up to at least 1800fps. The bigger the bore, the easier it is to get away without a gas check...IMHO
 
"...Soup cans?..." They're steel, not tin.
"...Is there an extra duty..." NAFTA doesn't apply to anything firearm related. There's duty(to protect a non-existant indistry), GST and PST(obviously not in AB though) plus shipping costs are significantly higher in Canada.
 
Most disposable cans today are made of aluminum, not tin or steel. Anyway, here's the reply I got. I called him, and he doesn't have suitable machinery to do this kind of job. I guess we had better be content with 3 cents a piece. I'll keep looking into this though. If I can find a cheap way of doing it I'll let all you guys know and maybe I can run us off a lifetime supply each and we can split the cost.

Hi Den:
I apologise for taking so long to get back to you on this. I had a busy time for the last two weeks.
My Mom passed away last Friday so I have been going crazy getting things done.
Anyway, about your little disc. I would check with Burloak Tool and Die about something like this.
They have the high speed machinery required to manufacture this quantity of parts.
The problem, expensive part, will be the punch and die to make it. Burloak can make it for you etc. but,
I would take a wild ass guess and say you would have a bill of $50,000 for the tooling.
The parts would be pennies apiece but in order to absorb the cost of the tooling alone,
on a run of 200,000 pieces, the tooling cost would be $.25 each plus the cost of the labour and material.

Let me know how you make out.

Dale
Click to expand...

$50,000 sounds pretty high to me, but I'm not directly in the stamping industry, so I can't say.

If anyone knows somebody who's in the biz that could get a more accurate price, that would be great.
 
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There just has to be the seeds of a good idea here. If one can make a bullet out of a spent 22 case, it shouldn't be impossible to make a copper gas check. In fact, I wonder if the devices for making bullets out of spent 22 cases, or at least the ideas behind them, could be adapted to making gas checks and whether a brass gas check would be acceptable? fred
 
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