Refinements to my Jacketed Bullets

[Boolitcaster]

I have been striving to make bullets that weigh +/- .1 grain when finished. The challenge I have been dealing with is that, since I make my jackets from drawn down 5.56 brass, I have to deal with a large variance in jacket weights even if I am careful to sort the donor brass by headstamp.

My solution has been to drop the core swage and core seat steps and instead, just place a cast core into each jacket and then add tiny slivers of lead until I reach the desired bullet weight. I then add acid flux to the bottom of the jacket and heat with a torch until the lead melts. After cooling and cleaning the unformed bullet, I then run it through the point forming and round nose tipping dies.

in the photo, you can see that there is a varying amount of lead showing in some bullets, but I just separate those out for aesthetic reasons. At 100 yards the tip variance seems to make no difference with me being able to get 3 shot groups averaging just over 1/4" when shot from my Ruger #1 in 303.

 

[BattleRife]

Does that represent an improvement? I would think that making up for inconsistent amounts of brass by having inconsistent amounts of lead would fall into the "two wrongs" category.

 

[Boolitcaster]

Does that represent an improvement? I would think that making up for inconsistent amounts of brass by having inconsistent amounts of lead would fall into the "two wrongs" category.

When the bullets group together in a little spot on target, I would consider that a success.

Also, if the bullets with too much or too little lead at the tip are culled out, the remainder left are the ones with near identical ratios of jacket to core...

 

[vagrantviking]

What about sorting the cases by weight before you start?

 

[Boolitcaster]

What about sorting the cases by weight before you start?

I did that for a while, but then realized that I still had to play with core weight to get consistent bullets.
The other option would to make lots of bullets of different weights and then sort them.
These jackets are too labour intensive to make, for me to discard any bullets due to weight.

 

[double gun]

Very nice, thank you for sharing.
Question for you, does the flux ever rear its ugly head around the tip with time? I know in knife making soldering guards has fallen out of favour because guys had corrosion showing up months or years after clean up. Many go through many different processes/techniques trying to neutralize any remaining flux residue.

 

[Boolitcaster]

Very nice, thank you for sharing.
Question for you, does the flux ever rear its ugly head around the tip with time? I know in knife making soldering guards has fallen out of favour because guys had corrosion showing up months or years after clean up. Many go through many different processes/techniques trying to neutralize any remaining flux residue.

An hour in tumbling media with citric acid and detergent does the trick. However, if I don't give the full treatment, a crusty deposit will form over time near the tip. I suspect that is from the flux.

 

[vagrantviking]

Interesting process. Sounds labour intensive but very satisfying.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[Papaclaude]

This might be silly question - do they expand?

 

[Boolitcaster]

This might be silly question - do they expand?

A cross sectioned bullet showing the large mass of brass near the base.
The mushroomed bullet was recovered after penetrating 10" of dry newsprint.
I have started closing the nose a bit more, hopefully to help limit the expansion a bit and aid with ballistics.

 

[double gun]

This is really neat, and thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I wish I was closer - I would love to be able to watch someone makes some start to finish. I’ve watched a few YouTube videos but it’s not the same.

Thanks again