Re: home grown projectiles
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: bohem</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Thanks Country, that's what I needed to know.
I'd like to eventually understand jacket drawing, but I'm not jumping that far into this immediately.
Turning 22 LR and 22 WMR cases into boolits is cool as well, maybe something to think about but for now 55 FMJ's are only 80 bucks a thousand. </div></div>
The economy of swaging your own is not that great if you compare your product to the cheapest end of the bullet market.
If you strive to make top quality BR bullets or high accuracy hunting bullets then you are really in the expensive end of the bullet market . So if you compare to those expensive bullets the economy is much better after you pay for the setup costs.
A lot of people are always touting the most expensive equipment like tungsten dies etc. That's fine for someone who is going to sell their bullets but for the average person using a hand press you will tire very quickly of working your guts out while everyone else is shooting and enjoying your labour .
If you have lots of money then it don't matter buy the very best but if you are not that wealthy tool steel dies from people like Corbin and RCE etc. will make just as accurate bullets . Weather the die is made of tungsten or Graff air tool steel is irrelevant to the shape and form of the bullet that comes out . A lot of the quality and accuracy comes from jacket quality and how well you make the bullets , your technique .
You are not limited to just one style and weight of bullet even if you have only one set of dies . You can , use lots of techniques like , shorter or longer jackets , dual cores, interenal jackets , core bonding , to make hunting bullets with different terminal ballistics , however the bullets will all have the same ogive , However you can vary the meplat ( tip opening ) to some degree also.
There is two basic types of jacket drawing going on.
1/ Jacket makers. People who make jackets from scratch fron guilding metal strip. Thats a fairly big operation and expensive.
2/ Re drawing jackets . Bullet swagers who redraw a jacket to try and make it more concentric. The process is fairly simple.
You use a 7/8x14 die body that has a ring die in it. Its a bit like a bushing neck size die but the top is open so the jacket can just go all the way through the sizing ring. A punch is placed in the ram of the press and cleaned and lubricated jackets are pushed through . The idea is to reduce the jackets thickness variations and there by making it more concentric and ballanced. There is several approaches to this final end but you get the idea. Corbins make the basic gear but you end up having to make some of your own ring dies and punch's to get exactly the diameters you need.
You can also use this process to make a jacket for one caliber out of a jacket for another caliber by drawing down in steps or even expanding up and then drawing down . That proces is a bit more involved but I have done it. I just finnished making a thousand 243 jackets ( 241 diameter ) out of some short 264 cal pistol jackets that were given to me for free I have no idea what pistol they were for originaly but they are 243 's now will make a nice 90 to 100 grain bullet.
It is easier to make a thinner jacket accurate than a thick one that's why J4's are thinner than some others. However if you core bond the j4 jacket it makes a reasonable game bullet , Solder type Core bonding costs virtually nothing to do at home but does reduce the accuracy some what . This is due to disturbance of the precision swaged core during melting to bond the core . A small hole appears at the top surface of the lead core as it cools. Most of this inaccuracy is reduced down by the subsequent core seating process but something still remains slightly out of ballance . Its not a big issue and accuracy is still very good for hunting bullets . I am working on a partial solution at the moment.
Berger has just spent a lot of time and money producing a thicker jacket that is still target quality or that's what they are saying. Anyway if it works out then it would be an improvement for high velocity stuff and would be a good way to make a more reliable and accurate core bonded game bullet from a precision jacket .
