.500 bullet from 45 ACP

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I recall I may have made you one that was specific to the core seat die and in that case ?????? Send me a Pm and we shall see what we can come up with.

Yep...inside the C&H 429 core seat die.
PM sent
Jon

[cgtreml]

How many steps to roll the tip over. Those are very nice looking. I have been putting them in the PF die backwards with the tip on the flat punch with some luck. Not very consistent.

[BT Sniper]

After bulllet is formed with lead core that is about 10 grains light there is still a bit of space left at top of jacket that did not fill with lead. I bump the top of this bullet into a concaved punch that fits my universal die to round/roll over the tip then reform in the swage die. Guess that would be 2 additional steps.

BT

[BT Sniper]

I finally got plans sent off to custom reamer shop so I can start machining these .500 dies.

The shop has the plans as of yesterday. I imagine it will take them about 3-4 weeks to get it to me. Then it will take me a month to machine the dies and get them set of to heat treat.

Here is a look at what the bullet profile should look like when made from a 45 ACP case.



Thanks to all interested for your patience. These bullet should look even better then my proto types posted earlier in this thread.

BT

[Lonely Raven]

Oh wow, I have no idea how I missed this. I shoot a LOT of .50AE in my Desert Eagle.

[Paints-n-cows]

I am impressed with these bullets and was wondering if to control the expansion, you could also do the light bullet, gas check, and soft bullet in the front?

I center punched a doe two years ago at 50 yards and it made a clean pass through with evidently no expansion. There was minimal blood trail that went away after about 100 yards. The coyotes were right around me while I was tracking so I suspect they got a free meal that night.

I have also had clean kills on them out to 187 yards with great expansion/penetration that dropped them in their tracks.

Anyway, if you did the "partition" bullet, wouldn't it help you out on not only expansion but penetration as well?

If you put your cannelure either right on the edge of the gas check or just in front of it, wouldn't that help it since it help keep the aft lead slug in place?

Would you be able to make a more aerodynamic bullet...something along the lines of the Barnes?

[DukeInFlorida]

Dude, these are NOT cast boolits.. NO GAS CHECKS.
These are jacketed bullets, using a 45 ACP brass case as the jacket.......

I am impressed with these bullets and was wondering if to control the expansion, you could also do the light bullet, gas check, and soft bullet in the front?

I center punched a doe two years ago at 50 yards and it made a clean pass through with evidently no expansion. There was minimal blood trail that went away after about 100 yards. The coyotes were right around me while I was tracking so I suspect they got a free meal that night.

I have also had clean kills on them out to 187 yards with great expansion/penetration that dropped them in their tracks.

Anyway, if you did the "partition" bullet, wouldn't it help you out on not only expansion but penetration as well?

If you put your cannelure either right on the edge of the gas check or just in front of it, wouldn't that help it since it help keep the aft lead slug in place?

Would you be able to make a more aerodynamic bullet...something along the lines of the Barnes?

[Paints-n-cows]

No kidding. I would have never guessed...thats what the shiney things are.

What I was asking was that if you used a .45 ACP case, could you insert a lead portion in the bottom, then a gas check, and then another lead on top so that you would have a partition type bullet.

Would the gas check serve as a stop for the expansion so that the base lead would remain in the case and keep a solid projectile that continues forward should the first section/petals become seperated?

I guess asking questions isn't permitted if a "guru" doesn't think it worthy

Dude, these are NOT cast boolits.. NO GAS CHECKS.
These are jacketed bullets, using a 45 ACP brass case as the jacket.......

[Lizard333]

I think Blaster62 is experimenting with this vary concept. He is trying to to duplicate the nosler partition. Not a bad idea. Something to think about.

[MIBULLETS]

Paints-n-cows,

This is an excellent question by the way.

I think the gas check idea is worth a try. It should at the least slow the expansion. If the jacket opens far enough it might slip off, but should help for a while. I'm not convinced that a cannelure will slow expansion much since you really don't make the jacket any thinker, you just push it in a very little bit, but it might help some.

[geargnasher]

How about filling the HP cavity with Bullseye and seating a LP primer over it? It ought to expand then!

Gear

[Paints-n-cows]

What if you seated the first lead projectile via the punch process to swell the case and then brought the "slug" to molten lead stage with heat. Would you be able to apply flux and actually adhere the gas check to the lower lead portion? I realize that during subsequent operations, it may be prone to detaching from the brass of the swaged projectile (perhaps the lead would act as a solder and joing the two pieces of brass/gas check?) but would it still remain attached to the lower lead portion?

I realize that this is a time consuming process but for anyone that shoots a .500 S&W like me, you don't exactly go out and burn through a hundred rounds at a sitting.

[DukeInFlorida]

Sorry that I missed the nature of your question. We have lots of new people with low post counts show up. And, sometimes, they ask questions that are... well.... not on subject.

Most of us are using pure lead for the cores. Or, at least range lead, which is softer than wheel weights.

With the serrated hollow point, these babies will open up just like Hornady XTP's.....

http://www.hipowersandhandguns.com/HornadyXTP.htm

[Jailer]

I am impressed with these bullets and was wondering if to control the expansion, you could also do the light bullet, gas check, and soft bullet in the front?

I center punched a doe two years ago at 50 yards and it made a clean pass through with evidently no expansion. There was minimal blood trail that went away after about 100 yards. The coyotes were right around me while I was tracking so I suspect they got a free meal that night.

I have also had clean kills on them out to 187 yards with great expansion/penetration that dropped them in their tracks.

Anyway, if you did the "partition" bullet, wouldn't it help you out on not only expansion but penetration as well?

If you put your cannelure either right on the edge of the gas check or just in front of it, wouldn't that help it since it help keep the aft lead slug in place?

Would you be able to make a more aerodynamic bullet...something along the lines of the Barnes?

I think a more consistent and reliable way to achieve controlled expansion with weight retention in a swaged bullet using a spent brass case is core bonding.

A swaged brass case bullet is different in construction that a commercial jacketed bullet. The wall thickness of pistol brass increases as it gets closer to the rim of the brass. A commercial copper jacket generally has a uniform cross sectional thickness. Not always but in most cases.

A swaged pistol brass bullet will expand to a point where the energy is not enough to overcome the increase in wall thickness and it won't expand more when shooting into a soft target. Shooting steel is another story, they will flatten completely. If you bond the cores you'll have the weight retention you are looking for.

I have made some bonded core bullets but I haven't tested the expansion and weight retention to verify my idea but they should work as expected.

[rockrat]

How about taking a trimmed annealed40 S&W case, fill it with lead, insert in the 45 acp case rim side up, then put your remaining lead core in the case and swage to 50 cal. Might make a better partition type bullet

[BT Sniper]

How about taking a trimmed annealed40 S&W case, fill it with lead, insert in the 45 acp case rim side up, then put your remaining lead core in the case and swage to 50 cal. Might make a better partition type bullet

I haven't read to much in depth of this thread but this coment sounds interesting.

I would attempt the above coment as follows.

Seat the 40S&W lead filled case in the 45ACP using the core seat die as normal. Then seat the next lead core on top of that. If you where real good you would cannalure grove the exterior of the bullet at teh exact spot the 40S&W extractor groove is indie the case locking everything together.

Bonding it all would be cool but you woul dhave to figure out how to keep the 40S&W case from floating up in the case with all the melted lead and also figure out how not to trap any air in the process that would explode when heated.

I suppose if I where to try this I would

1. use a 40S&W with no primer, seat a core flush with the top of case (probably trimed shorter)
2. seat that in the 45ACP case using the 500 core seat die
3. lock it in place with a cannalure grove
4. melt any number of cast bullets on top of the seated core to bond everything together
5. form bullet.

Should make a heck of a bullet. If I get a spare moment somday I'll give it a try and section it to see what it looks like.

Good shooting and Swage On!

BT

p.s. Probably a lot more work then need be, I can't imagine a standard bullet made with teh 45 ACP case not being a great bullet!

[Plate plinker]

Those are some cool bullets. Way to go.

[Paints-n-cows]

The upside down gas check idea was to eliminate any problems of trapping air between the lead and brass. Perhaps the upside down .40 would be a better idea and depriming it first may eliminate the trapped air problem. Could you just keep pressure on the round as it cooled?

Would it be possible to make a more B/C efficient point? Turning the rim off of the .45 ACP should provide an almost "boattail" rear on it.

I was just trying to come up with a better performing bullet that had some personality in it....something along the lines of a partition that would give penetration but still have the soft expansion line so that I wouldn't have a failure on the thin whitetails.

[Stephen Cohen]

Brian your work is brilliant, I pray every night you move to Australia but so fare the lord has kept you in gods country. Keep up the good work and well done.

[DukeInFlorida]

He would nevah move to OZ............ He wouldn't want to give up all of his guns, mate. lol.

So, we get to keep him!