Die schematics

I have a real hydraulic press (25 tons), so I'd like to try to make some dies for it rather than throw money at pricey dies that are meant to work with hand-operated presses (I have both a CNC mill and a manual lathe and I'm fairly confident in my ability to get the job done). That being said, I've never done *any* metal swaging in the past, so I'm unclear on the sorts of tolerances and slack on the die internals that would be needed for swaging. Does anyone out there have schematics for their swaging dies that I could try to machine?

Welcome, you're in the right place. Many posts have been made including answers to that same question. There is a sticky on that as well as a series made by Cane_man who made some .308 dies. Good luck, I myself am suffering from information overload.
justbill

http://www.rtconnect.net/~wjmanley/S...ASswagedie.pdf
This may help the internal workings of dies, however the outside stuff can be adjusted to your particular requirements.

Most die makers wont give that out. This will help....http://www.corbins.com/hb9-text.htm

when you start making them and see how much work their is you might just buy them.

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Originally Posted by rbt50

when you start making them and see how much work their is you might just buy them.

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Oh I know it's a lot of work to make dies and tooling in general, but I know I'll be a lot happier cracking my own dies by improperly setting the press's limit switch than cracking a $500 set of them.

A better plan is to understand the pressure limits for each caliber of die and don't exceed it. This is slightly boring as you won't experience a die self destructing at odd times, but does save on cost and expense.

Just saying, it's not a mystery about how much pressure each die can take.

That would be like not having my 30,000 rpm 7 h.p. Perske spindle motor on CNC router occasionally grabbing a part and flinging it across the shop at the speed of a subsonic rimfire round. Having a shaper bit, router bit, end mill explode, part fly across the shop or Delta Unisaw and big 12" radial arm saw throwing a board at you or try to suck you in is the spice of life. It's all the near misses that keeps you paying attention, alive and boredom at bay.

Most people watch sports or maybe speed on the highway. Huey, you take it to a whole other level!

yes I know about cracking dies.

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Originally Posted by Surgo

Oh I know it's a lot of work to make dies and tooling in general, but I know I'll be a lot happier cracking my own dies by improperly setting the press's limit switch than cracking a $500 set of them.

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What diameter die body would be needed to take the full 25 tons without hurting the die body ??

That is what I would aim for :-).

At a past job we made all kinds of cold and hot forming dies. Quite often there was an outer die case that had a taper in the ID, the forming sections were made up and pushed into the die with a press, the same press had a large gear you sat over the nut that held the stuff in the case, so the press could tighten the nut with pressure on the inserts.

I would think a 3" dia case would take 25 tons ?? But just guessing.

Bill

I've done some swaging die designs. Specifically for 9mm and 308 Cal bullets. Designed for smaller RCBS single stage type press. The key I've found it to not try and do to much with one die, the tolerances between the punches and die set should be tight enough to prevent the jacket or lead core to bleed past the punch and die but loose enough to allow for them to freely slide. I've typically allowed .002-.003 total or .001 to .0015" per side between the punch and the die.

Corbin has some good information on what the strength of his H-type dies are, specifically for use in his hydraulic press in order to prevent cracking the die. 25 Tons is quite a bit of pressure and I think you'll find that you'll be able to do the vast amount of lead core bullet swaging with significantly less pressure. If you're looking to swage monolithic bullets you might need pressures approaching that.

I would approach the question from the other direction. Start with swaging pressure (10,000 psi) and bullet diameter, and work backwards to answer "what force when divided by bullet cross-sectional area will give 10,000 psi"

As an example, a 45 caliber bullet has a cross-sectional area of 0.159 square inches. To achieve 10,000 psi, one needs to apply 1590 pounds (three-quarters of a ton)

Rethink why you must apply 25 tons. That is more like what is needed to extrude lead wire from a 2" diameter billet.

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Originally Posted by tiger762

Rethink why you must apply 25 tons. That is more like what is needed to extrude lead wire from a 2" diameter billet.

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Well, I need to apply 25 tons because that is the press that I own :-) Yeah, I plan to first make a lead extrusion die.

I've found that OnShape has FEA so that should at least tell me whether or not my designs are going to drastically fail on me. If they don't, I'll publish the schematics for them.