Is this called swaging ?

[DoctorBill]

Have not done squat with the swaging press.

Been vegitating, except for buying some .266 Hornady Carcano bullets
and reloading 12 with 31.6 gr of RL 15 - a Hornady load.

Want to see if that M38 Carcano Carbine I have will shoot straight with a
larger diameter bullet. It had been Key Holing with Cast lead Bullets.
I had a machinist I know recrown it - didn't help.

I have been told the Carcano will not shoot lead bullets for doodly squat.

Carcano's require .266 instead of .264 to work properly. (Hornady).

DoctorBill

[gitano]

Before you get discouraged, have a look at this http://thehunterslife.com/forums/sho...hlight=swaging. Read the the first post then skip to the last one. Your biggest challenge should be getting the exact profile you want.


Paul

[Traffer]

Thanks for that link Gitano. I make my own swaging dies (for 22lr) with a drill press and dremels. Indeed the modern myth is that they are so incredibly precise that only God and a couple of his special people can make them. They are just dies. Patients and precision is what is needed to make them. (or a willingness to do the job over and over and over until one gets it right. Which is the case for me.) I have learned so much...like how to grind a drill bit into a bullet die cutting bit. Drill bits are marvelous things once you learn to modify them.

Before you get discouraged, have a look at this http://thehunterslife.com/forums/sho...hlight=swaging. Read the the first post then skip to the last one. Your biggest challenge should be getting the exact profile you want.


Paul

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Really way out idea - Can one make a bullet that whistles loudly in flight ?

One can hardly avoid its making a noise, to some extent, but it is quite hard to keep it as a whistle. The human auditory range is from about 50 to 20,000 vibrations per second. The least irregularity or imbalance in the bullet, accidental or deliberate, can do it, but if a .30-06 bullet at 2700 ft./sec. from a ten inch twist barrel, for example, has a slight irregularity, it will throw out an air vibration at a frequency of 3240 hertz. We will hear that, but as a sound much lower than a whistle.Other things being equal, it will probably be a medium-low drone.

Where things aren't equal is when the pitch of the sound is altered by the Doppler shift, just like a car approaching, passing you and receding into the distance. Imagine machine-gun bullets fired from an aircraft. Those fired to the rear will be more widely spaced out than the equivalent on the ground, as the firing-point moves away, and those fired forwards will become closer together. The shooter will hear a long rumble floating back to him, if the range is long enough to notice, and the quarry or target marker will hear a sharp crack. The difference becomes more marked as bullets have higher velocity. But the approaching sound, doesn't get any sharper over the speed of sound.

Here is something of Kipling's on the subject.

The Instructor

At times when under cover I 'ave said, To keep my spirits up an' raise a laugh, 'Earin 'im pass so busy over-'ead - Old Nickel-Neck, 'oo isn't on the Staff - "There's one above is greater than us all" Before 'im I 'ave seen my Colonel fall, An 'watched 'im write my Captain's epitaph, So that a long way off it could be read - He 'as the knack o' makin' men feel small - Old Whistle Tip, 'oo isn't on the Staff. There is no sense in fleein' (I 'ave fled), Better go on an' do the belly-crawl, An' 'ope' 'e'1l 'it some other man instead Of you 'e seems to 'unt so speshual - Fitzy van Spitz, 'oo isn't on the Staff. An' thus in mem'ry's biograph, Now that the show is over, I recall The peevish voice an' 'oary mushroom 'ead Of 'im we owned was greater than us all, 'Oo give instruction to the quick an' the dead - The Shudderin' Beggar - not upon the Staff!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Have not done squat with the swaging press.

Been vegitating, except for buying some .266 Hornady Carcano bullets
and reloading 12 with 31.6 gr of RL 15 - a Hornady load.

Want to see if that M38 Carcano Carbine I have will shoot straight with a
larger diameter bullet. It had been Key Holing with Cast lead Bullets.
I had a machinist I know recrown it - didn't help.

I have been told the Carcano will not shoot lead bullets for doodly squat.

Carcano's require .266 instead of .264 to work properly. (Hornady).

DoctorBill

The Carcano has a gain twist barrel, which is an advantage but not a great advantage if it is well executed. Some, particularly those made by Beretta, were. But it isn't impossible that some were badly made in late wartime conditions.

Some were cut down from rifle length to police carbines, which meant losing the part of the rifling that was fast enough for the bullet. It may not have been a big problem in their intended function, as the Italians did have light-bullet guard loads, aimed at avoiding overpenetration and letting a miscreant make it to hospital. It is also possible that a sporterized Carcano may have received the same treatment.

[plus1hdcp]

Before you get discouraged, have a look at this http://thehunterslife.com/forums/sho...hlight=swaging. Read the the first post then skip to the last one. Your biggest challenge should be getting the exact profile you want.

Paul

Outstanding writeup and description Paul

[gitano]

Thanks, plus1hdcp. It wasn't my intent in that thread to "usurp" anyone's 'authority' or to suggest that the dies than one can get, (from the few places we can get dies), are anything other than excellent. It's rather that I just hate to see people discouraged from doing ANYTHING because "experts" tell them they can't. Too many times in my life I listened to "experts" and didn't do something that I wanted to do because I was told either that it "couldn't be done", or it "required too much skill", or it "requires special equipment", etc. Too, too many times those experts were wrong. Flat out. In fact, these days, if an "expert" tells me I can't do something, it pretty much assures me that I CAN!

In the past 10 years or so, I have lost 3 dear friends to cancer. Once the cancer was finally diagnosed, EVERY SINGLE expert (doctor) told EACH of them that they only had "6 months, at MOST" to live. All of them lived AT LEAST 3 more years. In my experience, if you get diagnosed with terminal cancer, the BEST possible thing the doctor can say is "you've got six months to live, at best". You can plan on AT LEAST three more years.

Getting off that particular hobby horse... I just don't want people to be discouraged from TRYING the things they want to do. Failure is better than not trying at all! Or, as The Great One (Wayne Gretzky) said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

Paul

[DoctorBill]

Sorry gentlemen, but I have not come back to this swaging die project
because I bought a .44 cal Pietta Cap 7 Ball revolver. Been messing about
with THAT.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...llet-do-I-use&

Not sure swaging is worth all the effort to me at this point.

DoctorBill

[gitano]

I read back through all of the posts and noticed two points that I think need to be addressed.

1) LUBE THE DIE! Wish I had seen that before you tried your first swaging. Did I mention LUBE THE DIE? (Actually, lube the bullet you are swaging.)

2) The primary reason why the pneumatic ejection doesn't work is PSI - with emphasis on "inch". Let's say you are using a pneumatic port diameter of 1/16th of an inch (0.0625"). In SQUARE inches, that represents a cross-sectional area of 0.00307 SQUARE inches. If I remember correctly, you said you pneumatically loaded the system to 80psi. Multiplying 80 POUNDS per square inch, times 0.00307 square INCHES, we get 0.245 POUNDS of pressure on the bullet. That's a QUARTER of a pound of "oomph"! Essentially, that's "nothing".

People don't think about this in the context of "bolt thrust". A cartridge that produces 50,000 psi of chamber pressure DOES not put 50,000 POUNDS of thrust on the bolt face UNLESS the base of the cartridge case equals 1 SQUARE inch or more. I don't think even a .50 BMG has a head diameter of 1 square inch.

Looks to me like you are doing great!

Paul

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Geitano is entirely right, but there are ways round this if the bullet is swaged in a cylindrical die with full-diameter punches for both front and rear. I think in this situation the best way of extraction is to drive the bullet out with one of those punches. But if you really want to use compressed air, raising the nose punch a small fraction of an inch would admit it to the full bullet diameter.

Corbin say that you can only form the full ogive by swaging if the punch for it has a rim to leave a considerable step down from bearing surface to ogive. But their standards include commercial operators who require enough hardness to swage many thousands of bullets, sometimes at high speed. The amateur who wants only a few hundred for his own use could probably temper the punch for greater toughness, with a narrower step. But not, I think, no step at all.

The trouble with making the ogive part of the die itself, is that a small diameter ejection punch may be driven into the nose of a cast bullet, and a large one will impose a meplat of the size people often abandon casting to avoid. One possibility is to have the punch, say, ¼in. in diameter for the half-inch or so nearest the bullet, then narrowing down after that, and precisely located by the end of the ¼in. part of the hole. Then you could use your cutter to turn it into part of the contoured cavity.

[gitano]

I'm not arguing, Ballistics in Scotland, because I agree with all you wrote, but... In fact, the pointing die I got from Corbin is for an 8mm bullet with an 8s ogive. It has a 0.091 ejection punch which works just fine (meaning that it doesn't "poke a hole" or otherwise deform the nose), as long as the bullets are properly lubed. With 'dead soft' lead and poor lubing, the ejection pin does indeed poke into the nose of the bullet unless it is a 'closed HP', in which the pin pushes against the jacket and does not harm the point/meplat. The same holds true in my home-made pointing dies for my .510 caliber bullets. In those bullets, I don't really care about a little 'dimple' in the nose. Since Doctor Bill is swaging un-jacketed bullets of wheel weight alloy, it is likely that the bullet's noses will get deformed to one degree or another by the ejection pin if he does not lube properly OR employ the methods you mention - or both.

Paul

[Traffer]

I have made several dies for 22lr. I have found that the 3/32" "poke out" punch ( very near the size that Corbin uses) works fine, IF the die is polished to a good shine AND it is lubed. Then no problem at all. A very slight tap will dislodge the bullet. I think the reason for the step down on the ogive may be because the full ogive in the die will eventually expand the die at the beginning of the ogive causing the die to be slightly larger in the tip making the bullet much harder to get out. But that is just a guess.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I'm not arguing, Ballistics in Scotland, because I agree with all you wrote, but... In fact, the pointing die I got from Corbin is for an 8mm bullet with an 8s ogive. It has a 0.091 ejection punch which works just fine (meaning that it doesn't "poke a hole" or otherwise deform the nose), as long as the bullets are properly lubed. With 'dead soft' lead and poor lubing, the ejection pin does indeed poke into the nose of the bullet unless it is a 'closed HP', in which the pin pushes against the jacket and does not harm the point/meplat. The same holds true in my home-made pointing dies for my .510 caliber bullets. In those bullets, I don't really care about a little 'dimple' in the nose. Since Doctor Bill is swaging un-jacketed bullets of wheel weight alloy, it is likely that the bullet's noses will get deformed to one degree or another by the ejection pin if he does not lube properly OR employ the methods you mention - or both.<br>
<br>
Paul

Yes, lubrication is very important. Dr. Bill mentioned sizing wax early on, and it would work for undemanding swaging, as would the STP oil treatment, just about identical to most die makers' liquid lube, which I still use. But people like Corbin have special swaging lubes which are intended to avoid "dieseling" under much higher pressure. That isn't as dangerous as it may sound, but it stops them lubricating. I believe most of them are a mixture of anhydrous lanolin and castor oil, but any kind of lanolin prepared as a skin treatment may include volatile solvents, which precisely restore the problem.

The best way of making the end of the ejector pin concave would be to hold the cutter immobile in the cavity it has just made, and use the ejector pin like a rotating drill. For making D-section reamers pin gauges are useful. You can buy them in a wide range of sizes, mostly metric, on eBay, either in very hard steel or in carbide.

I have dies for my ancient SAW swaging press which do a very satisfactory job with .22 bullets from rimfire jackets. There is no point forming die, and a rather smaller ejector punch than mentioned, which might well give trouble with lead, but it works fine when it rests on a closed brass tip, which is harder than copper, but thinner. I haven't recovered one from game, but it does appear to expand just as well as a soft-point, and stands up well to 5.6x50R (or approximately .223) velocity.
Back on photography, I agree you don't need state of the art equipment. This picture was taken in 1998 with an early Philips digital camera which reached the dizzy heights of 360 kilopixels, but had the now exceptional property of focussing down to 1cm. It shows the primer of a corroded 5.56mm. case, one of fifteen, from what I think was a Resistance ambush site in Kuwait City. The little rounded-pyramid bump is where the primer was extruded into a tiny pit made by slamming shut on a hard sand grain, so that I could tell that M16, which fired about half the shots, from any other in the world.

My wife worked for a while as a computer helpline person for Nikon digital cameras, and gave me a Nikon 1V1 bought at a large staff discount, which is a sort of small and modest interchangeable-lens one, but small enough to use as an ordinary but not pocketable camera. In the interests of harmony I surreptitiously use my Sony DSC-S85, an expensive camera in its day, but now grossly obsolete.

The S85 uses Sony memory sticks and a special camera batteries, but they are available at around half Dr. Bill's worst possible case, and I have never had one die on me. It is only 4.1 megapixels, but has a very good Zeiss lens. Even better, I know exactly how to operate it quickly without fumbling. The lens mounting is threaded, and I bought a cheap adapter to use threaded closeup lenses, and to fit the portable copying stand I bought for my 35mm Pentax in 1975. The Glasgow city library won't let me upend the large volumes of 19th century patents on the photocopying machine, so the use of that thing is one of those small victories that keep us sane.

One important point is that like many old digital cameras, it won't communicate with a Windows 7 computer (the furthest from my hard-learned operating knowledge I care to go) with the mini-USB cable. But I can use the memory stick in an inexpensive card reader. In fact with the Nikon I do the same with the SD card slot most laptops have nowadays, because it is easier than finding the cable.

My favourite graphics program is Micrografx Picture Publisher, which is also obsolete, but works reasonably well in compatibility mode for Windows XP. It occasionally freezes up after a long session. It is no longer supported, since Corel bought the company and discontinued this worthy competitor with their own product. But it does about everything I could need, and again the big advantage is that I really know the program. Here is a totally fake case label I made for my 1926 Pieper shotgun, based on an old share certificate (What can't you buy on eBay?) and their 1911 catalogue.

[Traffer]

On the camera info,
I use a Pentax Optio E10 which I bought used on eBay a long time ago for in the $20 range. It is 6 megapixls. It has some fair features like macro focus. I first tried using it with a 10x jewelers loupe. In 2008? or 9? I bought a video card on eBay that had a cracked silicon chip. It was very nearly not visible with the naked eye. I wanted to take a picture to send to the seller. It worked extremely well. I have been using that method of taking fine pictures of computer electronics since (I am a PC Tech) I recently bought another loupe from eBay/China. for less than $4. It had a bezel that unsnapped to free the single lens. So I cut off some of the main base of the loupe and glued it around the lens of the camera. Now I can snap on or off the lens. The camera however is faulty. The mini usb port is damaged and I too have to take the memory card out and stick into a chip reader to read it. It also has the problem of eating batteries BADLY. It is stored with the batteries out and still goes through 2 alkaline batteries every 10 to 20 photos. It is also a real hassle to focus. The auto focus works much better with the 10x lens on than it does off. Here are a couple of pics I took of it with an old video camera:
Attachment 178702Attachment 178703
I need to pick up a different cheap digital camera but I have read that many have the same problem of eating batteries. If the focus motor is stuck or bad they use inordinate amounts of energy.