Is Anyone Making Brass Cases?

[Four-Sixty]

I'm curious if anyone is attempting to make brass cases.

There is an easy supply of brass, range scrap.

Brass is soft and malleable.

People are making tools to swage lead and to swage lead in brass cased bullets.

We have dies already to shape the "finished" product.

Is this a possibility?

I think the biggest challenge would be to melt the brass into disks, or cylinders to be reshaped into cases.

Is it a possibility?

[GRUMPA]

That answer is much more involved than a person can imagine. Any multi stage process is going to take some rather expensive tooling and machinery to do anything like that on a productive scale. So can something like that be done? Simple answer is yes it can be, but would someone actually want to spend all the time and effort when there's so much of it out there?

[billyb]

Look for the Handloaders Manual of Cartridge Conversions. The author talks about making cases for obsolite cartridges. Using brass tubing solder and existing cases to make what he needs to put obsolete guns into service. He uses a small hobby lathe to transform the tubing ,files,neck turning and reaming to get where needs to go. Intristing book. Bill

[shooter93]

There's a fellow, I believe in Texas, who makes most anything. He specializes in very obscure and obslete rounds including rimfires. He has a very impressive shop and all manners of tooling.There are several articles about him around, if I can find the name of his company for you. I'd love to learn from the guy.

[EMC45]

There's a fellow, I believe in Texas, who makes most anything. He specializes in very obscure and obslete rounds including rimfires. He has a very impressive shop and all manners of tooling.There are several articles about him around, if I can find the name of his company for you. I'd love to learn from the guy.

He is featured a good bit in Handloader magazine. His name escapes me though. A good bit of his gear is 100 +years old.

[fredj338]

I am not sure that is even possible for the hobby machinist/reloader. Making brass cases from scratch is more than a die & hand press setup. Bullets jackets form cases is a pretty straight forward die procedure, but cartridge cases have rims or extractor grooves, all more complicated than simple jacket swaging.

[john hayslip]

His name is Bob Hayley, from Seymour Texas. He has a website.

[Harter66]

For what its worth it is a hassle just to make rimless from rimed. Ie 25,30,32 Rem from 30-30 or 32 Win..

I tried once to turn a few 30-30 capacity 30-06' cases from brass rod . Not worth the effort.

[MtGun44]

Possible to a limited extent. Converting one case to another is much easier.

The fundamental problem with really "Making" a case from scratch is that brass ONLY
hardness from 'working' - permanent deformation. You have to have a process worked
out that lets you anneal the brass periodically (between the MANY stages of forming) so
that at the end the head is hard, the middle is medium and the neck is pretty soft.

Pure soft brass for a modern rifle would blow out immediately, just the right hardness in the
head is critical, but not TOO hard. Even the factories sometimes don't get it right.

Bill

[Reload3006]

You are correct in your assumption that brass is drawn like bullet jackets. But the pressure required to draw a cartridge case would be a whole lot more than the best manual press even swaging. Just to get there would cost you a small fortune. Can ya do it? of course you can. But you could buy a life time supply of the most expensive cases for the cost of just a couple die heads punches and dies.

[.22-10-45]

Hello, Rocky Mountain Cartridge Co. turns it's brass from solid bar stock on CNC lathes..will make most any type of case...and your choice of primer pocket size.

[MrXrings]

You probably can on a lathe, I own one but don't think I'll be spending time trying. I'm sure someone has.

[BAGTIC]

Turned brass is never as strong as drawn brass. The work hardening of the drawing process adds considerably to case strength.

[MtGun44]

If the starting brass was 3/4 hard, and the neck shoulder area were annealed after
turning JUST right, you could do pretty good with turned brass. If the brass is softer,
it will not be able to stand up to full rifle pressures like normal factory brass where
the head is very hard due to work hardening.

Bill

[casterofboolits]

You can do it for a couple/three million bucks! Machines and tooling.

I worked for a tooling company that made the tools for drawing cases.