Project - Machine Turned Solids

The issue main issue for me here is not about the pros and cons of "fragments". It is the small wound channels produced by the new copper bullets. They all do the same thing, Nosler Etip, TSX, GMX. Make a new bullet, out of copper, that gives similar expansion right down the shank as a standard Cup and Core lead bullet and you will have something.

People are finally coming around on this issue, a lot of the newbies are starting to realize that 36" of penetrating with a 1" wide wound is not preferable on deer sized game. The old momentum of the X bullet and it's characteristics are tapering off and actually staring to reverse. Look at California and their banning of lead bullets. Just watch the results when States start FORCING everybody to use these super penetrators. The attitude and complaints will be the same as the Steel Shot issue on waterfowl. No one, is offering a Copper bullet that acts like their favorite Corelock, Hornady, Sierra etc. Now is the time to offer something different.



Just my 2c as somone that has ben hunting and ACTAULY KILLING game for 20 years.
 
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update as follows:

- have talked to several PhD metallurgy types, metallurgical engineers, and heat treating shops to learn more about material options and annealing procedures/test protocol. Material, annealing processes and test protocols for next design iteration have been established.

- have set budget for and conceptually scheduled (dependant on material delivery) next iteration of machine shop time.

- have ordered material for next machine shop run. Also have some Delrin on the way to try for tip machining.

- have mostly finalized design revision for next iteration of hollow point design; conceptually we have landed on everything but now are tweeking slightly to accomodate tooling on hand, trying to avoid having to fabricate anything exotic for use in boring the hollow point.

- will also run some flat-metplate-truncated-cone-dangerous-game type bullets. These will be annealed as well and I'm very curious to do some gelatin testing - very interested to see what type of plasticity the annealed material exhibits and resulting deformation of a .250 dia flat metplate impacting at centerfire rifle velocity. The only ballistic testing of similar shaped high velocity rifle projectiles I've ever seen has been with brass projectiles(ie: not very malleable) in wet newspaper and machined copper projectiles in wet sand. Very very very curious to see what happens in properly prepared 10% ordnance gelatin.

- garage being held at 4 deg C in preparation to start making gelatin at appropriate point in schedule. Have enough gelatin on hand for several more iterations of testing.

- collecting and slowly studying a library (primary interest thus far in works by Dr. Martin Fackler, Dr. Gary Roberts & Duncan MacPhereson) to develop/enhance my own position on most desirable charracteristics. As there are many different opinions out there I'm going to keep quiet in this regard for now, hoping that folks continue presenting/defending their own positions as I also feel like the project benefits by developing an understanding of what the most common perceptions are on the topic. Also reviewing the approximately 50 detailed files/photographs I have on big game animals I've shot (primarily with .30 bullets from three manufacturers; Barnes, Nosler, & Hornady) and successfully recovered with centerfire rifles over the years.

- Expect to be shooting next iteration of gelatin tests in either late January or early February. Will report back shortly thereafter.

Cheers,

Brobee
 
The issue main issue for me here is not about the pros and cons of "fragments". It is the small wound channels produced by the new copper bullets. They all do the same thing, Nosler Etip, TSX, GMX. Make a new bullet, out of copper, that gives similar expansion right down the shank as a standard Cup and Core lead bullet and you will have something.

People are finally coming around on this issue, a lot of the newbies are starting to realize that 36" of penetrating with a 1" wide wound is not preferable on deer sized game. The old momentum of the X bullet and it's characteristics are tapering off and actually staring to reverse. Look at California and their banning of lead bullets. Just watch the results when States start FORCING everybody to use these super penetrators. The attitude and complaints will be the same as the Steel Shot issue on waterfowl. No one, is offering a Copper bullet that acts like their favorite Corelock, Hornady, Sierra etc. Now is the time to offer something different.



Just my 2c as somone that has ben hunting and ACTAULY KILLING game for 20 years.

Have you ever tried the copper bullets on game?
 
After reading some of the above comments... massive fragmentation may put the animal down this might be great for pest control but for hunting... there will be alot of wasted meat.

All you need it to is to start to expand once it hits, but fragments after the bullet passes the rib cage where the fragments can do the most damage on the lungs and other organs.

What I'd consider instead of a polymer tip, is forming the tip area a little to produce a smaller tip hole with a die. That way the bullet takes a little more time to expand and pass the rib cage of deer better before fragmenting.

Its a interesting project. I'd be interested once you do some accuracy testing. I wouldn't mind replacing my SMK's for them. Saves from using a hunting load and a target/range load. :cool:

Dimitri
 
I have a couple suggestions:

1.) Machine a milder ogive and then drill/bore/ream (whatever the process is) a cone shaped hole in the tip. This would make the petals thicker as they peel back. The hole should be about 1/4 of the bullet length. This should allow more weight retention if the petals are sheared off and provide a larger frontal surface for mushrooming.
2.) Anneal the bullets at this point and then swage them to their final ogive adding in a tip at the same time.

Now I don't know if this is feasable given your workflow and machinery, but it is just my 2c worth.

Keep up the great work.
 
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The idea of someone actually investing all this time and effort into manufacturing solid copped bullets here in Canada is just fantastic.

Not to hijack the thread, but are you familiar with the ARCANE solid copper pistol bullets? They are a simple spire point design ... straight cut angle from front of the bearing surface at the front of the case, right to the tip.

Of course pistol bullets and pistol bullet velocities are much different than rifle bullets, but apparently the arcane pistol bullet designers spent a lot of time getting the angle of the spire tip just right, to generate the maximum temporary wound channel.

The Arcane pistol bullets were labelled as COP KILLERS,
because they would penetrate both sides of a standard Kevlar vest.

If you wanted to expand your solid copper projectile experiments into pistol bullets,
finding some specs on the Arcane bullets might be informative.

good luck,
LAZ 1
 
I think that your annealing method is not ideal. If you're heating the bullets to red hot and cooling them in still room air you're essentially heat-treating them to make them hard (similar to an air-quench steel). Something to try would be putting them in an oven or forge that holds the heat in. Heat them to red-hot and when that's accomplished turn off the forge and close the door. Allow the bullets to cool at an extremely slow rate over a long period. This is how knifemakers "normalize" metal prior to forging.

You can build a simple forge out of firebricks and a propane torch. They'll do the trick to hold the heat in for the long gradual cooling period.

This project has me very excited. If there's any assistance I can be don't hesitate to ask! I could get you access to a forge in rural SK if you want to try my long annealing method.
 
Dimitri & Ohno - very interesting ideas, however I am definately not tooled up for any swaging type operations. Admitedly it would be relatively easy to make some of those tools for experimentation purposes, but I'm seriously hoping to avoid them as the mass-production logistics become more and more complex (as well as the economics). As it is the mass production economics are already intimidating and questionably as to whether folks would be willing to buck up in that magnitude.

As an aside on the topic of economics - When I understand the economics more I'll be posting some details on the subject. I'm also going to experiment with fairly deep transparancy with respect to my evolving business model. Until all the prototyping is done though the economics discussion is premature.

Laz - interesting read no doubt, but no plans for machine turned pistol bullets at this time. I am getting tooled up for pressing powdered metals into copper jackets though, so likely I'll be making some lead free pistol bullets for target practice this way for my own personal use. Depending on perceived demand I might make an effort to study mass production tooling, but I'm concentrating on the machine turned rifle bullets for now. One design that has not been pictured yet is a wedge shaped bullet with a massive front metplate....it's being programmed as I write this and will be part of the next testing session. I'm pretty excited about it....

BigUglyMan - yeah, for sure the annealing process I used for the quick and dirty test was crude and likely way-less-than-ideal, but it did quickly indicate that the annealing suggestions by trevj et al (and others) were worthy of further investigation. Since the last round of testing I've been talking to lots of materials and heat treating experts and have a portion of the next prototyping run committed to a serious and carefuly considered annealing process by people who do nothing but heat treat for a living and have pretty fancy equipment built specifically for this purpose. Here we'll soak for some time at a very specific temperature, then step down very slowly/gently, all in an engineered and controlled atmosphere.

Terminal Ballistics - Have also added Forensic Pathologist Dr. Vincent DiMaio to the reading list, although I have some suspicion this is not the best source as all his observations are based on dead folks...he does not see much of those who live to tell the tale.
 
I think that your annealing method is not ideal. If you're heating the bullets to red hot and cooling them in still room air you're essentially heat-treating them to make them hard (similar to an air-quench steel).

Not necessarily, the heat treatment cycle required for different metals will be very different. To anneal brass, you heat it near red, then drop it in water to quench it. To know what copper needs, it needs to be researched on its own.

Mark
 
How the hell did I miss this thread?

Wow, I am impressed!
Quite the undertaking!

I found something here that might interest you...It appears as if the metal composition is critical to the annealing process. The article below talks about atmospherics issues (hydrogen) interfering with the process.
http://www.keytometals.com/Article25.htm

You may want to outsource your heat treating until you get it figured out?
Someplace like this? Once you get something that works you can go back and figure out your HT issues.
http://www.owegoheattreat.com/id8.html

I would buy your bullets!

Good luck mate!
 
Maybe hardness test should be done on a marketed copper bullet and the projectile you're testing and see how the to metal compare. The marketed projectiles maybe an alloy and not pure copper like they suggest.
 
Incredibly cool! Very educational.

Brobee, I sent you a PM but I might as well post it here as well - make sure you claim this kind of investigation under the SR&ED tax credit! You are most certainly doing innovative R&D. Might be worthwhile contacting someone at IRAP as well. Also, might be worth contacting NRCan CANMET Materials lab to see if anyone there has alloy suggestions.
 
308Bar and x-fan: Rest assured that the heat treating of the next batch of prototypes will be outsourced to shops specifically set up to do this properly utilizing specific equipment built for this purpose. In preparation for the annealing procedure and in consultation with multiple 3rd party metalurgical specialists we've researched the cr*p out of potential annealing procedures specific to this material and feel we've landed on what the best procedure should be and how it is we should measure the effects of the annealing process.

And as a general comment - the initial material selection was focused on being lead free and easily machineable. The very nature of the "machinability" property implies the material has to have some relative brittleness (to allow good chipping) by comparision to regular copper. The crappy part is that the very charracteristics that make it good machining material are mutually exclusive with the ductility charracteristics required for an expanding non-fragmenting bullet. Trying to change the material charracteristics by annealing after machining may be a way to strike something of a balance - early tests were encouraging in this department and it's something I've not given up on yet.

Why machine them instead of use something much softer and just swage them like every one else (Nosler, Barnes, Hornady, et al) does? The biggest reason (for me anyway) is that getting set up with respect to tooling to swage bullets in any kind of reasonable volume requires a significantly larger investment than just contracting out a relatively simple machining process, particularly if we're talking about commercial quantities. Lots of folks have some pretty sophisticated CNC small part turning centers, very few places are set up for the type of drawing and swaging operations used to make bullets.

Indifferent: Great advice regarding looking for government funding/tax relief. I have not pursued this yet however will definately be looking into it. Also a good suggestion on chasing CANMET for materials advice - I work in the oilpatch in somewhat of an R&D capacity and already have access to lots of smart people in this regard, but broadening the field can never hurt.

1899: will read when time allows. Thanks!

Cheers,

Brobee
 
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