DIY Jackets--Including Pennies???

[Grump]

I really did try some searching but so much stuff came up not on-point...

I've noticed that a lot of this swaging stuff for J-words involves just buying jacket (called blanks?) material and then doing your own magic to finish assembling and fabricating the projectile. If not buying jacket blanks, .22 RF brass seems the most common alternative. And sensible for the calibers it works in.

Anyway, years and years ago before you had to sort out the zinc core pennies and before .22 case jackets caught on, I *thought* I remembered reading/hearing about some heavy-duty rolling equipment being used to thin down US copper pennies for jackets (used in .30 calibers mostly IIRC). It was considered barely break-even back then because the very few jackets available then were about the same price, and people this dedicated to DIY understood that equal materials cost + more time making the stuff = really more expensive under the "my time is worth $X.XX per hour" rationale.

I also remember that penny jackets were okay for hunting bullets but thinner jackets were almost always more accurate.

So, what's the present state of the art on penny jackets? You can "buy" them at face value at the bank or out of what's circulating, but the copper content is worth about 3 cents apiece these days.

If I were to ever take the plunge into swaging, I would be most interested in making .355, .357, .400 and .451 projectiles.

My college years included time served at a high-volume Pizza Hut. Their thin crust then was rolled from a genuine ACME machine in two stages--first one came out about 3/8 or 1/2 inch thick, then the second stage below that took the prepped wad down to 1.8-inch or so. That dough is simply too stiff for me to roll than thin by hand in less than 15-20 minutes, so my home made is softer, but I digress. I am wondering if pennies could be easy enough to work with for swaging if we ran them through two or even three+ progressively thinner rolling operations. That of course would make the cupping process and the rest of the jacket operations much easier.

Just wondering.

Thanks!

[runfiverun]

could yes.
would I? no way.....unless I found two of those souvenir novelty penny masher machines at a yard sale for 5 bucks or something.

[OBIII]

I think that a lot of swagers prefer using fired brass for swaging into suitable jackets. Even using .22 lr cases can be time consuming. I think a better use of your pennies would be to save anything prior to 1982. The price of copper will do nothing but increase over the coming years.

OB

[I'll Make Mine]

Assuming you can find copper cents, and don't run afoul of laws (last I checked it was illegal, again, to destroy even pennies for their metal content, but this has flipped several times since pennies changed from copper alloy to zinc), the alloy used prior to the conversion to zinc was significantly harder than pure copper or gilding metal (used for commercial jackets), harder even than cartridge brass. As I recall, that alloy was around 20-30% nickel, which would produce a jacket closer to the unsuccessful cupro-nickel used prior to WWI than to a modern commercial jacket.

If you're insistent on trying it, I'd suggest annealing the coins first (similar method to annealing cartridge brass; heat to or near red hot and quench in water) to remove the work hardening from coining. Once that's done, it should be possible to use a hydraulic press or hammer driven punch and die to thin the coins, followed by annealing again before cutting the blank disk and starting the drawing process. I think it's safe to say it'll be more effort for an inferior jacket (cupro-nickel was replaced by gilding metal because it fouled bores and lose accuracy relatively quickly, as I recall) compared even to buying hobby brass sheet (which is close to cartridge brass in formula) or trying to find a source for gilding metal ribbon in roll form as used in commercial bullet manufacture.

[jimrk]

FYI

1864–1942 bronze (95% copper, 5% tin and zinc) 3.11
1944–1946 brass (95% copper, 5% zinc) 3.11
1946–1962 bronze (95% copper, 5% tin and zinc)
1962–1981 brass (95% copper, 5% zinc)

From Richards site.

"Gilding metal is the bullet maker’s metal of choice. Gilding Metal has between 94% to 96% copper, a trace of iron and lead, and the rest is zinc. Probably the most commonly used alloy is 95% copper and 5% zinc. It is known as alloy UNS-C21000 or 210. Gilding metal probably was named that because it was used as a substitute for gold and was used to coat or gild works of art. It is available, it can be drawn easily, doesn’t corrode easily, it is a bit more expensive than pure copper but not excessively so. If annealed correctly bullets made with gilding metal jackets will expand well. And barrel fouling isn’t much of a problem. All in all it is the ideal material for bullet jackets."

[Hardcast416taylor]

I`d almost bet you`d encounter some "eager beaver" local politician wanting to make a name for himself by claiming you are defacing currency.Robert

[bangerjim]

Those "penny rollers" are actually gold rolls. I have one. Used to thin out gold and silver for jewelry making. They make special rolls to fit in them with logos for the amusement park. Mine has 6 sets of patterns and "wire" grooves to make whatever shape/design you need.

Mine came from HF Insider Club about 9 years ago. Heavy a sin and built very well!

Works great for thinning out silver for making inlays.

Bangerjim

[Grump]

As I recall, it takes only 5% of nickel to change copper to silver-colored and ruin it as jacket material.

Sounds like the composition of pennies is near-ideal, just too thick to be worth the effort with commonly-available machinery. Who wants 2, 3, or 4 penny rollers from Disneyland? Or changing over wheels between batches on one machine, going progressively thinner.

Having hand-cranked one of those machines at least once or twice (they are not all motor-driven), I am also positive that you would need to plan for periodic overhaul.