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StarMetal
04-28-2005, 11:22 AM
Okay you fellows remember the other day I told you about Barnes new bullet which I said looked like a cast bullet? Well here is a picture of it. Please note the bullet laying over on it's side, how it seems to have a cast line on it ! Barnes says these are made of hard bronze not the copper they normally use. What do you think?

http://www.hunt101.com/img/279991.jpg

Joe

anachronism
04-28-2005, 11:42 AM
It probably is cast from architectural bronze. That sure does look like a parting line.

Bob

carpetman
04-28-2005, 12:20 PM
I think Barnes plans on this bullet being a dismal flop. If they had long range plans for it's existence they wouldn't label it NEW Banded.

Willbird
04-28-2005, 12:33 PM
Well it could also be swaged, the die would have to have some method to remove the bullet after swaging, and it may prove more consistant and cheaper than machining in relief grooves like has been done in the past (they relieve bore friction by lowering the amount of surface contacting the bore)

Bill

StarMetal
04-28-2005, 12:38 PM
If they aren't machined I'd almost bet they are cast. Wonder why bronze? Cast better then copper? For one thing if they were swagded they'd be made from copper, as it's softer then bronze. Besides the shape of it bringing it closer to a cast bullet, so is the alloy...it's bronze which contains tin.

Joe

buck1
04-28-2005, 10:23 PM
If --I-- cant cast it, I dont want it.( BTW thats yalls fault)
I think I'll pass , but thanks for the Info...Buck

Buckshot
04-29-2005, 02:40 AM
.............Yup, shure looks like a cast boolit. Could be swaged. The pressure would be hellacious. If they already had swaging equipment that might have been the cost effective way to go. Seems turning in a screw machine would have been the way to go (assuming they HAD a screw machine and didn't have to buy one). As has been mentioned, the grooves are probably to reduce engraving and sliding friction.

...............Buckshot

Finn45
04-29-2005, 03:47 AM
Are the swaging dies or machinery normally ready for splitted die setup or does that need special arrangement or equipment?

Ballistics in Scotland
04-29-2005, 05:45 AM
Well, this has to be guesswork, mine not excepted. But I don't think bronze bullets could be swaged to shape, long-term and to adequate standards of concentricity, in a split mould. Remember that it would have to be in some extraordinarily hard material, probably carbde, and everything of the kind I know is very brittle. A very close fit in some kind of supporting sleeve might work, and I suppose it might be done by lapping a tapered pair of halves into a tapered sleeve.

I think it is a bit more likely that these bullets are investment cast, from wax models made in a high-speed injection moulding machine, and attached to a wax sprue to form a tree. That mould like would be made in wax. A possible alternative is that the bullets are made very close to final shape but minus grooves, either by swaging (much more practical in a one-piece mould) or by turning on a CNC lathe or screw machine. The grooves could then be produced by pressing together, in a lateral direction, the halves of a two-piece mould. Either turning or investment casting would explain the use of bronze, since copper, although not very amenable to these purposes, swages better.

stocker
04-29-2005, 01:54 PM
These bullets look like they are made specifically for dangerous game (think Africa, etc. ) and are probably intended to act as solids. My guess would be that they are quite expensive. Not sure what calibers they are available in but possibly 9.3 or 375 and larger calibers????

Buckshot
04-30-2005, 08:19 AM
...........BiS and Finn45, there are multipiece swaging dies but those I've seen have been for thermoset plastics. Lead can be used in simpler 2 piece dies and that was for a relatively uncomplicated piece with simple features. The tremendous swaging pressures involved for a material like those boolits takes BIG machines. Just as you cannot use a Honda Accord to pull a 4 horse stock trailer, you can't use a 10 ton bottle jack to do the work, with hose clamps holding the dies together.

As BiS suggested, forming the initial shape via swaging and then cutting the grooves is much more likely, it seems that if it was going to be set up to cut the grooves, why not turn the entire piece from an extruded rod?

................Buckshot

Ballistics in Scotland
04-30-2005, 09:11 AM
My first reaction to Buckshot's thinking was that they COULD have turned them entirely to shape, but they didn't, so investment casting must be the front runner. However, is it impossible that what looks like a mould line to us, is in fact the reflection of something out of scene, such as the edge of the table? I don't know if anyone can see it in any of the vertical bullets, but I can't.

StarMetal
04-30-2005, 11:33 AM
I don't know why my post to this didn't show up in this thread, but here goes again. I called Barnes and talked to a tech. He looked at the picture they have and he said by God it does show a line on the bullet. As we were talking he had a box of them in his hand and was looking at them and said he could gaurantee that there is no line on the bullets. He said they are machined. He wants to know why a line shows on the picture. He got a good chuckle at how we tease Barnes about maybe coming full circle back to cast bullets and he agreed it did look like a cast bullet with the bands and all. He said the bands are to reduce friction thus pressure and to cut down on fouling the bore with the copper or bronze alloy, whichever the bullet is made of. So they aren't swaged.

About swaging. You all need to talk to Dave , the owner of CH reloading dies. He'll set you straight on it. I don't think it's possible to swage a hard metal such as bronze, heck probably not even copper. Dave told me how big a die would have to be to swage the web or solid portion of a rifle casing down just .0001 of an inch and it's big.

Joe

Ballistics in Scotland
04-30-2005, 11:46 AM
My Dave is bigger than yours, on swaging - Dave Corbin, whose site is a complex one, full of valuable downloads on swaging, if you can find your way through its complexity. Am I allowed to confess here to having just bought a set of his .224 bullet from rimfire cases, on eBay... He says just about anything can be swaged, including solid copper, though it takes very special equipment. It is doing it in split dies that I think could be beyond even Barnes.

http://www.swage.com/

StarMetal
04-30-2005, 01:31 PM
BIS

Doggone you, I've alway wanted a set of those dies to turn 22rf brass in to .224 bullets. Hey if you need empties I've been saving them for years.

On the swaging harder alloys, my Dave didn't say it couldn't be done, he said it would require very special equipment like you mentioned.

I've been to the Corbin site, but he's way too expensive for my pocket book.

Joe

Ballistics in Scotland
04-30-2005, 01:56 PM
Starmetal, I wonder if there is any rule against promoting an auction on this site? I would have thought "an auction of one's own" would suffice, because it can be pretty useful information to the kind of eccentric we find hereabouts. There is a Corbin Mity Mite press with those rimfire dies on eBay at the moment, and it just might end up a pretty good deal.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=71120&item=7152502896&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW&tc=photo

It is obsolete, and a bit slower than a modern Corbin press. Against that, I think it is the ordinary 7/8 x 14 loading press size, which means you may find odd loading operations that a reloading press isn't quite up to. for some reason that lot includes one die body plus the little bits that screw into it, and I got ach of them complete.

I've also got 1000 rimfire cases which never were loaded, from someone who sells them regularly on eBay. I've heard somewhere that if ex-rimfire bullets have any liability that stops them reaching the highest benchrest accuracy, it lies in the firing-pin indentation. it's odd, but they are of roughly .22 Magnum Rimfire length, and yet .22LR diameter.

waksupi
04-30-2005, 02:20 PM
BIS - I shamelessly promote auctions when I have something of interest to the board for sale. Also, when we find some neat item, they get posted, if we aren't already bidding on them, and don't want the competition!

Ballistics in Scotland
04-30-2005, 02:52 PM
Yes, just what I was thinking...


I am now able to assure people that nothing to do with firearms is anywhere near my largest expenditure on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7144790721&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

Thanks to being in one of the less cosmopolitan areas of Saudi Arabia, I get 2½ months of totally unaccountable time at home in the summer. There is nothing like a good hobby to keep a man out of mischief.

45nut
04-30-2005, 08:15 PM
As Waksupi so said, There are no prohibitions on posting auction links or actually any links here.
BY Jove I hear some people still visit places I would shudder at . Just having a cookie placed on my 'puter from Tha Pond gives me the heebie jeebies. [smilie=l:

Buckshot
05-01-2005, 05:47 AM
..................That Corbin press on E-bay is an early Corbin, not having a top strap. Dean Grennell had one and swaged up a boogle of odd bullets with it. I don't know how Richard Corbin at RCE Enterprises compares pricewise to his brother. His presses are about $230 and the leverage is a bit easier to manage with it:

http://www.fototime.com/843853136AD317F/standard.jpg

................Buckshot