Bullet Making (originally owned by Stephen Perry)

Br Bullet making

George '
Please read my post on boat tails again.
We can talk tonight if you have time.
Your correct on keeping every thing clean. My trays are clean my room is clean and my dies are clean.
As to your opinion on lubing the jackets . How would you put the jacket on the punch? {fingers} Not being a wise guy eiither]
Once you touch the lubed jacket , whats the difference?
I have found that doing this the way i do gives me great rusults. As i said before every one has their little twist.
I guess some are under the impression that i have only one makers dies also.
i'll post again 1set B&A 22 Made in Rochester at RIT thats why they are good. They were shop projects for engineering and tool and die students. They had to be good or you fluncked'
I set of Detsch 22 i use . on loan from a good friend.
3 sets of 6mm dies I upside down set by Larry blackmon. 2 sets one by detsch one by Simonson. 2 sets 30 cal by detsch.
I asked about the culver upside down sets. any one using larry blackmons upside down sets? I have used a set of homers 30s
These are backwards die in the ram.
 
Gerry, blackmon,corbin all use the same style as ted smith die in ram you could also run all 7/8 14 this same way in a b&a press. george
 
Br bullet maing

B johnson.
The time i talked with TED SMITH , he was pretty sick and selling his operation to Corbin.
I found him to be a pleasent old gentelman, He answered a lot of questions for me. I bought a set of his economy dies .
I still have a set laying around . They were kind of rough on the outside but the bullets were fair. The bullets were good enough for 1/2 inch groups.
They were great on chucks. Ted was from the old school and had the jacket maker punch that ironed out 22 hulls for jackets.
I think Corbon still makes that die.
 
Br bullet maing

Yes B&A press
What a monster. Wish i has 6 or so. either or Most people wont know about it .
Most of the new guys will be using the Redding or the RCBS.
George do you make that Press? I had a chance for a copy but passed it up. I have a set of blackmon s that go in the ram and the punch is in the top where a die would go. The special ram came with the dies. Is larry making carbide dies this way? The one set i have are tool steel.
The culver dies were in a A2 press with a special ram.
 
Br bullet maing

Question to all
Can you follow the dies we are talking about {in the ram} ?
 
Gerry, larry no longer makes carbide dies i spoke with him a couple of years ago and he was having problems getting carbide made.his dies did work the same as his steel dies. yes we make a few b&a copies just delivered two at the cactus i need to get a good number i'm pretty sure we've made more than the 29 b&a did. re read your boattail post what i'm saying is you don't need a seperate die just an internal punch and external punch for boattails.as i said this works ok but i would recomend boattail in die if you are going to make any large amount of bullets. george
 
Br bullet maing

Looks like i skipped something
The boat tail
The boat tail bullet is made on a different core seating die.
You also get a seperate punch that is used for pointing.
This is used in the point die. It has the same shape as the boat tail and
keeps the boat tail on in the pointing operation.
Is this better george? Sorry for the boo boo.
I'm hopeing to be able to make boat tails in the 6mm cal soon.
david has an order for one also a double radis 7/11 ogive Point.
I think between playing with the 7 1/2, 8 and 7/ 11 Ogives and boat tails i'll be busy trying some things out next year.
As i said the dies i have are long with different lenght punches . This allows me to make either bullet in the 60 + grain weight to 95 at present.
I havent tried heavier then 100 grs yet. I'm noticing the long bearing surface on the 1.050 6mm bullets . I think the 1.150 bullets will look like
a pencil , without a boat tail.
I definately will need a special die as you said george.
I think the boat tail on a punch might be good if you wanted a shallow
or short boat tail. Clarance Detsch made a bullet like that years ago.
It looked more like a small bevel or heel at the base.
 
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A few photos of my Blackmon setup:

-The basics are the core cutter, inline press, core squirt, core seat and point die, the 'punch holder' (one for each die setup), a good .0001 micrometer and a bucket of jackets.
bulletdies.jpg


-A few spools of core wire. I mount the spools as shown and pull the wire off the spools.
wire.jpg


-Some 1.00" .30 cal. jackets. 1,000 per bucket.
jacketsbuckets.jpg


-Some squirted cores, ready to seat.
b3.jpg


-Seated cores in jackets
j1.jpg


-Pointed up bullets
1kB1s.jpg


-Little jewels
100_1959.jpg


-The results.
074.jpg


Good tools and a great teacher :) can make even a dumb azz like me look not too stupid.
 
Gerry said:
B johnson.
That was written quite a while ago on a thread about bullet jackets.
Remington was the first to specify pure copper.
Maybe Eric will chime in. I'm just about posative on the pure copper.
I also believe it was written about in PS magazine a long time ago 70s
Article on J4 jackets
Click to expand...

It's not right Gerry. No commercial jackets are pure copper the fouling would be terrible and the drawing more difficult.
 
Br bullet maing

If you have the percentage or chemical composition .
Would you please post it.
Thats what i read in the article. Maybe the article is incorrect.
I do know what Sierras are for thats printed in their manual.
Noted that jackets today are even softer.
30% from what i have been told by an engineer bullet maker.
Copper can be hardened . I believe it's work hardend during the jacket making process. Has any one read the jacket making progress?.
It's on corbins site. Not being a smart guy on this either.
I"m Flexable;)
 
Br bullet maing

Good post Al
Nice photos.
Theres those upside down dies. {dies in the ram}
Thanks for posting it.
 
Bullet Making Boards

Bullet making boards are something a newer bullet maker needs to invest in as soon as possible. There are several reasons to use bullet making boards. First is the time saved on loading cores into jackets. After you get the knack of using the boards you should be able to load 200 cores into jackets in about 5 minutes. Compare this to picking up a core and stuffing it into a jacket before you core seat each one. After I load a board of seated cores I can core seat them in short order. In the old days when I didn't have the boards I felt there had to be a faster way of core seating. I got my bullet making boards the 3rd year I started making bullets. Mine are made by Wendell Croye hope I got the name right- alzheimers setting in -and really work nice. I have 7 boards hold 200 in each.The set includes the box and 2 what I call funnel boards that line the jackets and cores to be dropped into the main boards. Mine are made of plexiglass. Like I said several make the bullet boards.

Another reason I use the boards is that it lets me load up as many as 1400 jackets and cores if I use all my boards. Also keeps my jackets clean since I'm not handling all the jackets and cores as they are being loaded into the boards.

This bullet making Thread is going really well. I taked with Bryan Armatys formerly of ZIA bullets about Posting. He said he would come on and do some Posting on his experience in BR bullet making. Bryan is one of the bullet makers that I swapped bullet making experiences with still do.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR
 
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Br Bullet making

Good post stephen.
Wendel made those boards yes i remember. He was quite a guy .
We miss him. Jason is around from time to time.
 
Here's a stuffing block I made from some Delrin. Using a 5/16" Forstner bit, I drilled 200 evenly spaced holes. After the jackets are lubed, I put 'm in the holes, then drop the cores into each jacket. Not as quick as a bullet board setup, but it works.
b2.jpg


Here, a lubed jacket (with the core dropped in) is loaded over the core seating punch.
b5.jpg


The press handle is lowered and the die comes over the jacket/core. Note the liberal use of a moly lubricant on the pivot points. Also, I replaced the staked in pivot pin (rt. side of ram) with a full width grade 8 shoulder bolt with brass thrust washers and a NyLoc nut. I relube the pivots after each 1,000 cores are seated or 1,000 bullets are pointed.
b6.jpg


The handle is lifted, the jacket comes off the core seating punch and the jacket (now with core seated) is ejected out of the die by the internal die punch. It rolls down a little chute I made from some sheet Styrene and into a plastic tray.
b4.jpg


Here's an overall view of the press, chute and tray. The tray are sterile epidural anesthesia trays.
b1-1.jpg


p.s. editted to correct error.
 
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Br Bullet making

Nice photos Al
A picture is worth a thousand words.

How many presses in your set up. 1 or many?
Its really nice and clean too'''
 
Gerry said:
If you have the percentage or chemical composition .
Would you please post it.
Thats what i read in the article. Maybe the article is incorrect.
I do know what Sierras are for thats printed in their manual.
Noted that jackets today are even softer.
30% from what i have been told by an engineer bullet maker.
Copper can be hardened . I believe it's work hardend during the jacket making process. Has any one read the jacket making progress?.
It's on corbins site. Not being a smart guy on this either.
I"m Flexable;)
Click to expand...

Gilding metal is usually 95% copper 5% zinc.

There is also Commercial bronze which they sometimes use for primer cups but I think it also finds its way into jackets at times.
Copper ****Lead****** Iron ****************Zinc
90 Nominal .05 Maximum .05 Maximum . Remainder (nominal 10%)

At 30% zinc the alloy would be cartridge case brass.
 
Al .

" The handle is lifted, the die moves off the jacket and the jacket (now with core seated) is ejected off the seating punch. It rolls down a little chute I made from some sheet Styrene and into a plastic tray."

With that press system how do you know that the jacket has been fully bumped out to the core seater diameter if the jacket starts and finishes on the punch?
 
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