home made 224 projectiles

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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by JohnV » 24 Jun 2022, 9:32 pm

Double posting again
Last edited by JohnV on 24 Jun 2022, 9:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by JohnV » 24 Jun 2022, 9:40 pm

JohnV wrote:
Oldbloke wrote:This is interesting thread. Keep it going.

Q. Could you use a Simplex Master O Press to do this work?

A normal O frame reloading press can make small cal bullets up to about 6mm and short jacket low ogive pistol type bullets in bigger cals .
As the ogive gets longer (bigger radius ) and the cal gets bigger diameter then the pressure needed to swage up multiplies considerable .
That's also pressure on your arm as well as the press . That's why I only make a 6 cal ogive in 308 because to make a 10 cal ogive would put too much strain on my small Corbin presses . Also a 6 cal ogive is way stronger and performs more reliably on game and can punch through scrub and bone better . Longer ogives can bend on impact before they expand and the bullet can skew off course . Also as the ogive gets longer the meplat gets smaller and the ejection pin in the die gets thinner and weaker . If you have any ejection issues you can break thin ejection pins easily or the pin just goes right through the bullet and don't eject . Commercial bullet makers use hydraulic ejection systems so they can make a fine meplat every time . Many BR shooters that just make 6mmm bullets use reloading presses .
A Simplex O frame is a strong press and just as good as an RCBS rock chucker . I use one occasionally to draw jackets down .
Just don't buy a reloading press and thinking you can make any bullet . For that you need a dedicated swaging press like a Corbin S press http://www.corbins.com/csp-1.htm that can make a .458 bullet . My small horizontal presses only have a ram travel of 1.25 inch stroke but have three times the leverage than a reloading press . With a reloading press the best leverage is at the very end of the ram travel so try and arrange die positions to work in the last part of the ram travel not the first part .
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by JohnV » 24 Jun 2022, 9:52 pm

bladeracer wrote:
Bills Shed wrote:ITime frames are horrendous ATM and the cost has been already talked about at the start of this thread.


Surely a machine shop here can make dies for you?

Not many machine shops understand bullet swaging and the critical match between the dies you would have to give them very specific diameters . Also not many would have a die lapping machine and be able to make a point forming die and have it come to correct finish and diameter . Core swager and core seater are fairly easy to make but a good point former not so easy .
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by bladeracer » 24 Jun 2022, 10:14 pm

JohnV wrote:Not many machine shops understand bullet swaging and the critical match between the dies you would have to give them very specific diameters . Also not many would have a die lapping machine and be able to make a point forming die and have it come to correct finish and diameter . Core swager and core seater are fairly easy to make but a good point former not so easy .


Yes, of course you have to give them a specification, that's what machine shops do all day long, make stuff to fine tolerances.
Compared to waiting a year or more and paying thousands of dollars for one from the US though I'd at least ask them the question. I handed a 162gn Hornady ELDM to a local CNC shop and they turned me out ten copies of it in solid brass. Take a die set in and show it to them. If they can make it then design the bullet you want from it.
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by JohnV » 24 Jun 2022, 10:46 pm

bladeracer wrote:
JohnV wrote:Not many machine shops understand bullet swaging and the critical match between the dies you would have to give them very specific diameters . Also not many would have a die lapping machine and be able to make a point forming die and have it come to correct finish and diameter . Core swager and core seater are fairly easy to make but a good point former not so easy .


Yes, of course you have to give them a specification, that's what machine shops do all day long, make stuff to fine tolerances.
Compared to waiting a year or more and paying thousands of dollars for one from the US though I'd at least ask them the question. I handed a 162gn Hornady ELDM to a local CNC shop and they turned me out ten copies of it in solid brass. Take a die set in and show it to them. If they can make it then design the bullet you want from it.

Turning up an external form is easy compared to making numerous reamers and creating a specific shaped internal cavity of the correct finish all coming together at the final correct diameter . Some shops may be able to do it but as I said not many will get it exactly right . Bullet swaging dies have to be super smooth inside or the don't work .
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by bladeracer » 24 Jun 2022, 11:07 pm

JohnV wrote:Turning up an external form is easy compared to making numerous reamers and creating a specific shaped internal cavity of the correct finish all coming together at the final correct diameter . Some shops may be able to do it but as I said not many will get it exactly right . Bullet swaging dies have to be super smooth inside or the don't work .


You don't need many to get it right, you just need one. Shop around and find the one.
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by JohnV » 24 Jun 2022, 11:23 pm

bladeracer wrote:
JohnV wrote:Turning up an external form is easy compared to making numerous reamers and creating a specific shaped internal cavity of the correct finish all coming together at the final correct diameter . Some shops may be able to do it but as I said not many will get it exactly right . Bullet swaging dies have to be super smooth inside or the don't work .


You don't need many to get it right, you just need one. Shop around and find the one.

Good luck .
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by JohnV » 25 Jun 2022, 12:58 pm

bladeracer wrote: I don't think most people that make this investment are making bullets as good as commercial manufacturers do. Commercial manufacturers have enough output to put in place very close-tolerance quality control with little to no human intervention. Most people using swaging dies are relying primarily on human intervention at every step, which means some variation in every bullet.

That is so wrong it shows you are talking about a subject you know little about . Because a home swagger uses the one set of dies the variations are far less than commercial bullets made in batches on many different transfer presses then all mixed together . Why do you think BR shooters that strive for precision repeatable accuracy swage their own bullets ? Commercial bullets are only better in some respects as far as potential BC and particular designs go for longer range purposes but not more precision .
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by bladeracer » 25 Jun 2022, 2:04 pm

JohnV wrote:
bladeracer wrote: I don't think most people that make this investment are making bullets as good as commercial manufacturers do. Commercial manufacturers have enough output to put in place very close-tolerance quality control with little to no human intervention. Most people using swaging dies are relying primarily on human intervention at every step, which means some variation in every bullet.


That is so wrong it shows you are talking about a subject you know little about . Because a home swagger uses the one set of dies the variations are far less than commercial bullets made in batches on many different transfer presses then all mixed together . Why do you think BR shooters that strive for precision repeatable accuracy swage their own bullets ? Commercial bullets are only better in some respects as far as potential BC and particular designs go for longer range purposes but not more precision .


The variations are not determined by the die set as much as by the technique of the swager, unless you are using an automated setup. With one die you can have a large degree of inconsistency until you have a consistent technique worked out, much like using a powder thrower or loading quality ammunition. You have just been discussing core bleed-by issues for example - consistent technique is everything.

Perhaps I need to try some of your bullets then, I haven't been overly impressed with swaged bullets so far.
Somebody turning out 1000 bullets a day can't afford to toss 25% of them due to defects, somebody turning out 100,000 bullets a week can afford to implement much tighter quality controls. You can certainly turn out very high quality bullets, I have no doubt about that, but I don't believe you can do so and compete with commercial bullet manufacturers' prices. The labour alone to individually inspect, weigh and measure each bullet manually kills it.

I have another batch of home-swaged bullets coming next week. With the dearth of commercial supply there is certainly a market just now for people like yourself to churn out bullets. If yours are good enough for benchrest competition put them on the market for $2 apiece and they'll sell. For example, there is very little in the way of 6.5mm bullets around just now.

I'm happy to try some of yours if you want another opinion of them.

I'm into the third hundred of Bruce's bullets now and have found just two bullets I would consider less than ideal, and both happened to be in the first bag I opened. I'm very happy with the quality so far, though I haven't really been able to test them for accuracy yet due to scope issues. The weather is very nice today and I was hoping to get out there for some testing but I've been waylaid today.
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by JohnV » 25 Jun 2022, 4:09 pm

You don't know anything about making bullets .
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by bladeracer » 25 Jun 2022, 5:37 pm

JohnV wrote:You don't know anything about making bullets.


I looked into it in depth to see if it was viable a few years ago, so I do have a very clear idea of how it works.

I have spent my life making all sorts of stuff and I certainly understand that the human operator has a huge input into the quality of the finished product, any product that is created by us. Merely having the equipment doesn't automatically mean you get quality output when so much of that output is determined by your skillset.
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by Oldbloke » 25 Jun 2022, 6:39 pm

JohnV wrote:
JohnV wrote:
Oldbloke wrote:This is interesting thread. Keep it going.

Q. Could you use a Simplex Master O Press to do this work?

A normal O frame reloading press can make small cal bullets up to about 6mm and short jacket low ogive pistol type bullets in bigger cals .
As the ogive gets longer (bigger radius ) and the cal gets bigger diameter then the pressure needed to swage up multiplies considerable .
That's also pressure on your arm as well as the press . That's why I only make a 6 cal ogive in 308 because to make a 10 cal ogive would put too much strain on my small Corbin presses . Also a 6 cal ogive is way stronger and performs more reliably on game and can punch through scrub and bone better . Longer ogives can bend on impact before they expand and the bullet can skew off course . Also as the ogive gets longer the meplat gets smaller and the ejection pin in the die gets thinner and weaker . If you have any ejection issues you can break thin ejection pins easily or the pin just goes right through the bullet and don't eject . Commercial bullet makers use hydraulic ejection systems so they can make a fine meplat every time . Many BR shooters that just make 6mmm bullets use reloading presses .
A Simplex O frame is a strong press and just as good as an RCBS rock chucker . I use one occasionally to draw jackets down .
Just don't buy a reloading press and thinking you can make any bullet . For that you need a dedicated swaging press like a Corbin S press http://www.corbins.com/csp-1.htm that can make a .458 bullet . My small horizontal presses only have a ram travel of 1.25 inch stroke but have three times the leverage than a reloading press . With a reloading press the best leverage is at the very end of the ram travel so try and arrange die positions to work in the last part of the ram travel not the first part .


I don't shoot enough to bother. Perhaps if i was 20 years younger and keen. BUT, if you can use a decent reloading press to make up to 6mm bullets then I reckon there would be a market in AU for smaller dies. There must be engineering shops capable. I get what you are sayng, not simple, tho
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by JohnV » 26 Jun 2022, 4:11 am

If I was going to start doing it know I would be the same and not bother . There is a market for swaging dies but it's a specialist type venture that's why people like Dave Corbin , his brother and Blackmon , and Niemi dies ( I think Bill Niemi is dead now ) etc. are all backed up for years . You can make short jacket pistol type bullets upto about 45 cal in a good steel O frame reloading press using CH dies that can be used quite well in say a 45 -70 etc . Most machine shops now don't want to stand at a lapping machine for hours to make a few dies they want one operator to run several CNC machines to punch out thousands of parts daily . When the Corbin brothers started they had a high failure rate on point forming dies and nearly gave up the business . Eventually they worked out how to get it right more often . Reaming the die to the exact right dimensions first so as you lap and polish it up it comes to the correct shape and diameter . If it's undersize you can lap a bit more but if it's already at bullet size and the finish is still not perfect the die is ruined . However the longer it takes to lap it the slower production will be .
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by JohnV » 26 Jun 2022, 4:13 am

bladeracer wrote:
JohnV wrote:You don't know anything about making bullets.


I looked into it in depth to see if it was viable a few years ago, so I do have a very clear idea of how it works.

I have spent my life making all sorts of stuff and I certainly understand that the human operator has a huge input into the quality of the finished product, any product that is created by us. Merely having the equipment doesn't automatically mean you get quality output when so much of that output is determined by your skillset.

That's not reflected in your comments .
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by Wyliecoyote » 26 Jun 2022, 9:04 am

Until you shoot a hand swaged bullet from a well known bullet maker in a competition BR rifle, you are unlikely to truly understand the accuracy potential, or lack of it, from any commercial bullet maker. There is a reason why all short range benchrest shooters only use custom bullets, or swage their own. The only exception is maybe Berger. But anyone who shoots a lot of their bullets knows very well that it is very batch specific. Sierra a few years back changed their operation to have match bullets come off the one set of machines, just as a custom bullet maker does. As a consequence they have greatly improved their in batch consistency where you no longer found a half dozen bullet lengths, ogive lengths, bearing surface lengths and meplat diameters within that said batch. Their recent 107 grain 6mm match bullet, those that are pointed, are some of the best bullets i have seen, custom or commercial.

Now here is the problem. A custom bullet in a factory gun, or even one fitted with a quality barrel, is often the equivalent of feeding strawberries to pigs where a group of say 0.3xxx" at a 100 yards may be something to brag about, it is a go slash your wrists group to a BR shooter unless it was shot at 200 yards where even then it is about average for a relay. Then we move on to aggregates, where matches are won. Commercial bullets shoot the occasional good group but the aggregates suffer when spread over the course of the entire weekend. There is Fclass where it's about score at long range, not group, where we do use high BC commercial bullets mostly because they are cheaper more available and do the job. But having shot Fclass, short range BR and long range BR for many years, head to head the finest accuracy is achieved through the use of custom swaged bullets in precision rifles.
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by JohnV » 26 Jun 2022, 9:09 am

Wyliecoyote wrote:Until you shoot a hand swaged bullet from a well known bullet maker in a competition BR rifle, you are unlikely to truly understand the accuracy potential, or lack of it, from any commercial bullet maker. There is a reason why all short range benchrest shooters only use custom bullets, or swage their own. The only exception is maybe Berger. But anyone who shoots a lot of their bullets knows very well that it is very batch specific. Sierra a few years back changed their operation to have match bullets come off the one set of machines, just as a custom bullet maker does. As a consequence they have greatly improved their in batch consistency where you no longer found a half dozen bullet lengths, ogive lengths, bearing surface lengths and meplat diameters within that said batch. Their recent 107 grain 6mm match bullet, those that are pointed, are some of the best bullets i have seen, custom or commercial.

Now here is the problem. A custom bullet in a factory gun, or even one fitted with a quality barrel, is often the equivalent of feeding strawberries to pigs where a group of say 0.3xxx" at a 100 yards may be something to brag about, it is a go slash your wrists group to a BR shooter unless it was shot at 200 yards where even then it is about average for a relay. Then we move on to aggregates, where matches are won. Commercial bullets shoot the occasional good group but the aggregates suffer when spread over the course of the entire weekend. There is Fclass where it's about score at long range, not group, where we do use high BC commercial bullets mostly because they are cheaper more available and do the job. But having shot Fclass, short range BR and long range BR for many years, head to head the finest accuracy is achieved through the use of custom swaged bullets in precision rifles.

Thank you for that excellent post and right on the money .
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Re: home made 224 projectiles

Post by bladeracer » 26 Jun 2022, 10:53 am

Wyliecoyote wrote:Until you shoot a hand swaged bullet from a well known bullet maker in a competition BR rifle, you are unlikely to truly understand the accuracy potential, or lack of it, from any commercial bullet maker. There is a reason why all short range benchrest shooters only use custom bullets, or swage their own. The only exception is maybe Berger. But anyone who shoots a lot of their bullets knows very well that it is very batch specific. Sierra a few years back changed their operation to have match bullets come off the one set of machines, just as a custom bullet maker does. As a consequence they have greatly improved their in batch consistency where you no longer found a half dozen bullet lengths, ogive lengths, bearing surface lengths and meplat diameters within that said batch. Their recent 107 grain 6mm match bullet, those that are pointed, are some of the best bullets i have seen, custom or commercial.

Now here is the problem. A custom bullet in a factory gun, or even one fitted with a quality barrel, is often the equivalent of feeding strawberries to pigs where a group of say 0.3xxx" at a 100 yards may be something to brag about, it is a go slash your wrists group to a BR shooter unless it was shot at 200 yards where even then it is about average for a relay. Then we move on to aggregates, where matches are won. Commercial bullets shoot the occasional good group but the aggregates suffer when spread over the course of the entire weekend. There is Fclass where it's about score at long range, not group, where we do use high BC commercial bullets mostly because they are cheaper more available and do the job. But having shot Fclass, short range BR and long range BR for many years, head to head the finest accuracy is achieved through the use of custom swaged bullets in precision rifles.


Agreed, but I doubt anybody reading this thread has that level of competition in mind, they just want to be able to make their own bullets because it's either cheaper, or because they don't want to be reliant on outside supply. You can absolutely make the highest possible quality bullet yourself, but the time you put into it would be well above what the average shooter is willing to put in. It's not like sitting with a pot in front of a fire and turning out a couple hundred cast bullets in an hour. I couldn't find anywhere online explaining how quickly you can turn out swaged jacketed bullets, but I don't believe it's quick by any measure. I can cast and coat a hundred bullets quicker than going into town and buying them (and nowadays for less than the $5 it costs in fuel to go to town), I don't believe I could swage simple jacketed bullets anywhere near as quick.

Anybody want to give us an honest break down of the time involved in doing these?

I always liked these as you don't need to buy jackets.
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