very simple swaging

[Dragonheart]

I have the swage dies but not the 30 cal. mold. My plan, when I have the mold and some lee push through sizers is to cast some alloy bullets and reduce them, probably with a custom Lee sizer die ($38), to .306, then squeeze the remaining grooves out in the swage die and produce a nice 6 Ogive pointed bullet This will bump them up to .3085 but they won't have any grooves and I can reduce again prior to coating. I'm having some luck with making .257's with multiple coats of PC with the equipment I have but, as you say, the underlying core stability is of concern at rifle velocities and I hesitate to shoot them.

Sounds like you have a plan. I will add that reducing the size by more than .001" at a time was a strain, not on Rock Chucker, but me. If I end up doing a lot of these I will have to do it with an pneumatic cylinder.

I wouldn't worry about the polymer bond as it is tenacious and harder and tougher than the lead core. We have recovered bullets to find the polymer to be completely intact on the bands and base, discounting damage to the nose from impact. The bands showed no tearing or separation of the polymer due to the torque of spinup at 3000 fps.

I personally have test fired PC bullets in excess of 3500 fps, unfortunately at that velocity the small bullets were unrecoverable, however they left clean round holes in the target indicating bullet stability. A plated bullet fired at high velocity will tear, become unstable and tumble, indicated by a keyhole in the target. Even a thin coating of polymer will protect the barrel from leading, but we have found if we want accuracy we need a thicker jacket. Work Harding the polymer by sizing was recommended by the PhD. and it appears to work.

My plan is to coat a couple of hundred of these, but I will need to set up a nose down tray so I only PC the base and band. I will do partial a cure on all coats sizing between coats then a full cure on the final coat and see how it goes from there. The final coat I will tumble so it will be interesting to see how concentric the bullets remain. This is where I think swagging the final bullet completely would be of great benefit, but short of that these will be about as uniform as I will be able to make them.

[plus1hdcp]

My plan is to coat a couple of hundred of these, but I will need to set up a nose down tray so I only PC the base and band. I will do partial a cure on all coats sizing between coats then a full cure on the final coat and see how it goes from there. The final coat I will tumble so it will be interesting to see how concentric the bullets remain. This is where I think swagging the final bullet completely would be of great benefit, but short of that these will be about as uniform as I will be able to make them.

Is your plan to swage these to .308 or do you take it a bit larger to form to your barrel as one would with a plain lead boolit?

[Wolftracker]

Those are fine looking bullets Traffer! I think you will get improved accuracy due to that hollow base, as I have, so long as you are getting a good gas seal in your barrel. As you said, the weight forward design maintains stability better and the hollow base provides a more precise way for energy to be directed onto the bullet. This is hard to prove without scientific instruments. I just do comparisons myself. I compare to different styles of bullets of the same weight, some that I make and some factory made. Proof on paper is good enough for me. The hollow bases have consistently printed tighter groups for me. It generally takes more load development to get other styles to shoot as well, if they do at all! One other factor in my bullets is that they mic at .3085 at the pressure ring and factory bullets are put through a ring die to remove that. Swagers may get some advantage from this that you don't buy in the store, depending on your actual groove diameter.

[Dragonheart]

I plan to go up .001" to .309". Honestly, I have not slugged my Garand, but I will before the final sizing. I started going up by .001" from bore size when developing handgun loads as they seemed to perform well giving me groups well under 1.5" at 25 yards in both 9 mm and 45 ACP.

[Traffer]

Those are fine looking bullets Traffer! I think you will get improved accuracy due to that hollow base, as I have, so long as you are getting a good gas seal in your barrel. As you said, the weight forward design maintains stability better and the hollow base provides a more precise way for energy to be directed onto the bullet. This is hard to prove without scientific instruments. I just do comparisons myself. I compare to different styles of bullets of the same weight, some that I make and some factory made. Proof on paper is good enough for me. The hollow bases have consistently printed tighter groups for me. It generally takes more load development to get other styles to shoot as well, if they do at all! One other factor in my bullets is that they mic at .3085 at the pressure ring and factory bullets are put through a ring die to remove that. Swagers may get some advantage from this that you don't buy in the store, depending on your actual groove diameter.

Thank you. These are obviously without the final sizing. I will be doing that with the original swaging die. I have to modify it just a little to open the receiving end a bit to keep the die from cutting into the bullet. I am going to try a different method yet again soon. Making two identical swaging dies and polishing one to .001" to .0015" larger in diameter. Otherwise there is too much stress on the final sizing with the thicker coat on it. It seems that all i do now a days is work on dies. Extremely time consuming.

[Wolftracker]

Having a lathe (and the skill) is a great advantage in this effort that I wish I had. My final diameters are limited to the dies I have if I elect to use the re-strike method. I guess I could make them fatter if I only used push through sizers but I like that perfect finish on the whole bullet, which can't hurt accuracy. If one can make dies that target a specific final diameter using PC and punches that let you add a hollow base, I think you'll get excellent results.

[Dragonheart]

Having a lathe (and the skill) is a great advantage in this effort that I wish I had. My final diameters are limited to the dies I have if I elect to use the re-strike method. I guess I could make them fatter if I only used push through sizers but I like that perfect finish on the whole bullet, which can't hurt accuracy. If one can make dies that target a specific final diameter using PC and punches that let you add a hollow base, I think you'll get excellent results.

I now feel that if we are going to get a bullet capable of delivering accuracy at full power it is going to take addressing the full bullet in a single operation. I had high hopes yesterday from my small sample using the NOE nose and body sizing bushings , but after starting in earnest today I am finding too much variation between the nose sized body and the sized band. The NOE sizing creates a more concentric bullet than what comes out of the mold, but some bullets have a run out of more than four thousands, some are have mush less, but no uniformity. The sized bullets are not concentric as compared to a premium commercial bullet with almost no run-out. So from an accuracy standpoint I find the NOE sizing system just doesn't work as each bullet will have to be checked and sorted, not what I want to do, and PC is not going to fix a bullet that is not concentric.

[Wolftracker]

I am finding that uneven application of PC from bullet to bullet results in small length variations at the tip but not on the bearing surface and, since I'm re-swaging them after coating, diameters and concentricity are consistent. I'm going to have to go to the ESPC method to get better PC uniformity and for me at least, bullets with some antimony and solder in their make up seem to coat better and are easier to eject from the swage die and are less likely to deform at the base when being sized. Soft lead presents challenges in this area if you don't lube enough or don't line things up just right.

[Dragonheart]

ESPC does lay on a much more uniform coating, but the choice of powder make a big difference. Just as some powders tumble really well, some not so good and some not at all, some powders just coat better than others even when sprayed.

[Wolftracker]

I'm not satisfied with how my pure lead rifle bullets are coating with HF powders and the electrostatic bond is not what it should be using shake n bake. I'll have to try a different type of powder for them I guess, as what I'm getting is flaky in spots.

[Dragonheart]

The alloy shouldn't make any difference so I would blame the powder or contaminated ally so make sure you bullets are completely clean just like they come out of the mold.

Other than that here in the Gulf Coast high humidity creates coating problems. Working in AC after the humidity has dropped or preheating the bullets under 200 degrees works for me.

[Wolftracker]

It could very well be the powder and it is presently more humid here in Southwest Montana than usual. I did try the preheating at 140 degrees for 4 minutes. I'll do it again with fresh powder and see what happens.

[Traffer]

I have found rather amazingly that heating the bullets at 140 for 4 minutes then putting them in the container with the powder and shaking is not working but when I remove them from the powder, I strain them through a cheap kitchen strainer that I got at Dollar Tree to get the excess powder off. After all the powder goes through the screen, I take the piece of cardboard that I used to catch it and pour it back in over the bullets in the strainer again. Obviously with a fresh piece of cardboard under the strainer. I then shake the bullets and powder around until all the excess comes out and repeat the process until I get a good coat. Each time I dump the powder back over them in the strainer and shake off the excess the coating gets a little better. I do that 4 or 5 times and get the powder to be pretty thick and even. I don't know why that works, maybe something to do with electrostatic and the strainer or something ...just discovered it by accident. It may sound like a difficult process but it is actually very easy.

[Wolftracker]

I will give that a try Traffer, thanks for the tip! It is likely that the powder is picking up a charge this way, either from the strainer or the cardboard or both. I'll have to wait till next week to try it as we are taking a short trip over the holiday weekend.

[Wolftracker]

Well, I just had to try one. A pure lead bullet, PC'd with 3 coats out of a 25-06. Nope! Lead fumes aren't good for you. I should obey my own predictions but that doesn't satisfy curiosity, does it. So, an alloy, don't know how hard, is necessary if you don't like lead mining.

[Traffer]

Well, I just had to try one. A pure lead bullet, PC'd with 3 coats out of a 25-06. Nope! Lead fumes aren't good for you. I should obey my own predictions but that doesn't satisfy curiosity, does it. So, an alloy, don't know how hard, is necessary if you don't like lead mining.

Ugh. Sorry my friend. You are paying the price for being a pioneer.

[Dragonheart]

I would guess since typical rifling is approximately .004" it will take more than three coats to insure the bullet is completely riding on the polymer at that high of a pressure.

[Wolftracker]

Good news! Since I only fired one, the bore wasn't too bad to clean up. The coating must have helped.