RepackboxLoad DataRotoMetals2MidSouth Shooters Supply
Inline FabricationTitan ReloadingWidenersReloading Everything
Lee Precision
Page 4 of 4 FirstFirst 1234
Results 61 to 66 of 66

Thread: PC'd, GC'd and Swaged boolits!

  1. #61
    Boolit Master Forrest r's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    NE Ohio
    Posts
    2,079
    Ya that lee 230gr bullet is a piece of dog ****. But it is an excellent platform to experiment with. You kept the nose long and unsupported with your swage die. That's good for slow bullets like a subsonic 300bo load. Add some speed and accuracy goes south real quick. Your 230gr 30cal bullet is a lot like that 22cal bullet I swaged. 1400fps & under it shoot lights out. Heat it up and forget it.

    I played with that same lee 230gr bullet myself. But I went a different route.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    Crude drawing but you can see that I wa actually swaging the lee 230gr bullet and a 212gr .301" paper patch bullet. The other thing I did was make a short strong nose and tapered the bullets nose to fit the leade/throat of the chamber.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    In the post above is a picture of a swaged 30cal bullet. This was the jacketed test bed of that bullet that easily shot moa/10-shot groups @ 100yds.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    The real issue with lead bullets and hv is the stresses put on the bullet. Things like nose slump, rotational torque from the front of the bullet twisting in the lands while the back of the bullet is still being pushed forward and is in the case/ball throat. That's why I went with a tapered nose on the swaged bullet to mirror the fit of the leade/throat of the bbl. A as cast 311413 bullet that was chambered vs the same bullet that was swaged and chambered. Huge difference in the lengths of the land marks in the 2 bullets. A tight fit and true alignment ='s less stress on the lead/swaged bullet.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    Enter the bump die. I actually made 3 different bump dies and have a egan bump die. The bump dies conform the bullet to the leade/throat of the bbl. The compression of the bullet in the bump die also removes any voids in the bullet. Bump dies can also withstand the pressures of the hard alloys needed for hv bullets in the high powered rifles.

    Ok great, got a good nose/bbl fit, got rid of any voids in the bullet. Chose a bullet design that has a strong short nose. Then tested alloys to find how hard of an alloy is needed to withstand high pressure hv loads in a 308w. Once I found a strong enough alloy I had problems with the base of the bullet and had flash from the al gc's. It took huge amounts of force to swage the hard alloy that was need to withstand the pressures/forces/torques that were applied to the lead/swaged bullets when loaded with high pressure hv loads. So I changed my gc maker to make a gc with a round edge.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    SWaging such a hard alloy was out so I went with bump dies and cast bullets. Put the rounded edged gc's on them and ran them in a bump die to form the nose on them. Then I put them in a herter's 9-ton press that uses top punches and a ejector rod that has a raised edge that mirrors the shape of the rounded gc's. The end result is a bullet that has had the nose bumped to fit the leade/throat of the bbl. Has the voids compressed out of the bullets. Has the bullets bodies trued to the nose of the bullet and the bases are trued/even and not deformed.

    I started with a 300/308 1 in 12 twist 26" bbl varmint contour 4-groove bbl
    Changed to a 1 in 10 twist 22" bull bbl 300/308 4-groove bbl
    Then changed to a 1 in 11 twist 26'' varmint contour with a long throat cut in it for the 175gr smk bullets 301/308 4-groove bbl
    A a bunch of testing with the other bbl's I changed bbl's again, this time a 30" varnmint contour match .340 chamber 1 in 14 twist 300/308 6-groove bbl. This is what the throat looks like in the custom 30" bbl.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    Anyway, swaging bullets is easy and doable for the 30cal's. Getting them to to go fast is another story. Just started playing with the hard alloyed bumped bullets last winter and plan of giving them 1 heck of a workout this winter.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    While that doesn't look like much there is 2 sighters on the bottom right target and 2 10-shot 100yd groups on the top 2 targets. Those bullseye's a 2.125", I chose to test in the 34gr to 35gr load range of h335 simply because I was getting 3"+ with the same bullet/load/rifle combo (see picture in post #56). Started adjusting the powder throw down and it landed on 34.7gr so that's what I tested.

    I'm not knocking what anyone is doing & there's tons of testing to be done in this area. I've tested with cheap ebco bbl's to custom $450 shilen bbl's. Cheap lee molds to eagan nose pour molds along with making/testing different shaped gc's. Made bump dies for the lyman 450, rcbs rock chucker & herter's 9-ton press. Also made swaging dies for the herter's & rcbs presses. Can't even begin to tell you how many different alloys I tried/tested and ended up using a 4 to 1 ratio of 4 parts range scrap (8bhn/9bhn) to 1 part mono-type. The end result is a 16bhn/17bhn alloy. After all this I'm just now to the point where I can actually do some real testing (this will be year #3).

    My goal is to cut groups in 1/2 when I do a head to head traditional cast vs bumped/swaged cast with hv loads that are 2500fps+. Right now I have 2600fps+ loads that are doing 10-shot 1 3/4" groups @ 100yds with traditional cast bullets.
    Last edited by Forrest r; 09-15-2018 at 07:05 PM.

  2. #62
    Boolit Man
    Join Date
    Apr 2015
    Posts
    80
    Only Lee mold I use is the 160 grain 30 caliber which is sized with gas check then loaded in 7.62×39. My wife loves her semi custom SKS's with tweaked Tapco trigger, tritium sights and 20 round box magazines. She likes loading from stripper clips and the cost of lobbing low pressure lead from an SKS. Will hobble out on rear deck on cane or roll in wheelchair and run 100 rounds at least once a week. She has her choice of over four dozen AR 15's in 5.7×28, 5.56/223/Wylde, 6.8 spc II and 458 SOCOM subsonic and myriad of turn bolts from 22 Hornet to anything that doesn't break bones. She broke her right shoulder (street fracture) trying to push a heavy door open with still closer. Thats how fragile her bones are. Breaks bones in her feet walking and wrist opening jars.

    Yesterday got home from work as trying to get ahead because of surgery Tuesday and she had fired 50 rounds left handed. She was afraid if a home invader tried kicking down front door may not be able to engage. With the Lee bullet, weak handed at 75 yards she was grouping three to four inches resting on deck railing. Pushing 30 caliber cast fast and accurate as want has always been an issue for me. She is happy with fist size groups as only concerned about self protection. If can pick up decent velocity and accuracy with a pc'd and swaged 308 projectile have close to 25,000 once fired 7.62 Berdan cases that would be prefect for such a projectile. If loading nice jacketed bullets have been using less and less Berdan cases due to inventory of Berdan primers dimenishing. Can buy processed once fired Lake City so cheap fooling with the Berdan cases have not called my name as often. Would like to see some data on velocity, accuracy and how well work in M1a, HK91, CETME, FN FAL, L1a1 type rifles as wel, as turn bolts. If shoot accurate enough would like to work up a load and then put 20,000 pc'd/cast/swaged Berdan primed rounds for a rainy day as primers are paid for, brass is paid for and the boolits would be 95% labor and only 5% cost. Still having issues with 6.8 cast and this process might solve that issue as well. Have so many medical bills right now can't afford to be the guinea pig paying for swage dies, another press just to figure out if meets my needs.
    For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. 2 Timothy 4:3

  3. #63
    Boolit Master Forrest r's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    NE Ohio
    Posts
    2,079
    Quote Originally Posted by Hueyville View Post
    Only Lee mold I use is the 160 grain 30 caliber which is sized with gas check then loaded in 7.62×39. My wife loves her semi custom SKS's with tweaked Tapco trigger, tritium sights and 20 round box magazines. She likes loading from stripper clips and the cost of lobbing low pressure lead from an SKS. Will hobble out on rear deck on cane or roll in wheelchair and run 100 rounds at least once a week. She has her choice of over four dozen AR 15's in 5.7×28, 5.56/223/Wylde, 6.8 spc II and 458 SOCOM subsonic and myriad of turn bolts from 22 Hornet to anything that doesn't break bones. She broke her right shoulder (street fracture) trying to push a heavy door open with still closer. Thats how fragile her bones are. Breaks bones in her feet walking and wrist opening jars.

    Yesterday got home from work as trying to get ahead because of surgery Tuesday and she had fired 50 rounds left handed. She was afraid if a home invader tried kicking down front door may not be able to engage. With the Lee bullet, weak handed at 75 yards she was grouping three to four inches resting on deck railing. Pushing 30 caliber cast fast and accurate as want has always been an issue for me. She is happy with fist size groups as only concerned about self protection. If can pick up decent velocity and accuracy with a pc'd and swaged 308 projectile have close to 25,000 once fired 7.62 Berdan cases that would be prefect for such a projectile. If loading nice jacketed bullets have been using less and less Berdan cases due to inventory of Berdan primers dimenishing. Can buy processed once fired Lake City so cheap fooling with the Berdan cases have not called my name as often. Would like to see some data on velocity, accuracy and how well work in M1a, HK91, CETME, FN FAL, L1a1 type rifles as wel, as turn bolts. If shoot accurate enough would like to work up a load and then put 20,000 pc'd/cast/swaged Berdan primed rounds for a rainy day as primers are paid for, brass is paid for and the boolits would be 95% labor and only 5% cost. Still having issues with 6.8 cast and this process might solve that issue as well. Have so many medical bills right now can't afford to be the guinea pig paying for swage dies, another press just to figure out if meets my needs.
    I've pc'd that same bullet (lee 160gr tl) as cast (no swaging/bumping, picture in post #54 was my 1st attempt @ hv/h335/308w/2 moa @ 100yds) and found several loads that would do 2600fps+ and hold under 2 moa in that 308w @ 100yds. The bullet is capable of hv accuracy.

    What is not capable is my poor casting skills, variation between the 6-cavities & not getting the gc's on square. The bump/swage dies fix a lot of these issues.

    On a side note:
    That same lee 160gr tl bullet that was cast, sized, pc'd + 45/45/10 lubed with a modest load/velocity (7.62 x 39 velocities). A 10-shot group @ 100yds 1 3/8" outside to outside. The bullet was not bumped/swaged but you can bet it will be and re-tested for accuracy.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    Your lee bullet is an excellent platform for manipulating/swaging/bumping/testing.

  4. #64
    Boolit Master

    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    NW Ohio, almost as N and W as you can be :-)
    Posts
    2,915
    Quote Originally Posted by Forrest r View Post
    Ya that lee 230gr bullet is a piece of dog ****. But it is an excellent platform to experiment with. You kept the nose long and unsupported with your swage die. That's good for slow bullets like a subsonic 300bo load. Add some speed and accuracy goes south real quick. Your 230gr 30cal bullet is a lot like that 22cal bullet I swaged. 1400fps & under it shoot lights out. Heat it up and forget it.

    I played with that same lee 230gr bullet myself. But I went a different route.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    Crude drawing but you can see that I wa actually swaging the lee 230gr bullet and a 212gr .301" paper patch bullet. The other thing I did was make a short strong nose and tapered the bullets nose to fit the leade/throat of the chamber.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    In the post above is a picture of a swaged 30cal bullet. This was the jacketed test bed of that bullet that easily shot moa/10-shot groups @ 100yds.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    The real issue with lead bullets and hv is the stresses put on the bullet. Things like nose slump, rotational torque from the front of the bullet twisting in the lands while the back of the bullet is still being pushed forward and is in the case/ball throat. That's why I went with a tapered nose on the swaged bullet to mirror the fit of the leade/throat of the bbl. A as cast 311413 bullet that was chambered vs the same bullet that was swaged and chambered. Huge difference in the lengths of the land marks in the 2 bullets. A tight fit and true alignment ='s less stress on the lead/swaged bullet.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    Enter the bump die. I actually made 3 different bump dies and have a egan bump die. The bump dies conform the bullet to the leade/throat of the bbl. The compression of the bullet in the bump die also removes any voids in the bullet. Bump dies can also withstand the pressures of the hard alloys needed for hv bullets in the high powered rifles.

    Ok great, got a good nose/bbl fit, got rid of any voids in the bullet. Chose a bullet design that has a strong short nose. Then tested alloys to find how hard of an alloy is needed to withstand high pressure hv loads in a 308w. Once I found a strong enough alloy I had problems with the base of the bullet and had flash from the al gc's. It took huge amounts of force to swage the hard alloy that was need to withstand the pressures/forces/torques that were applied to the lead/swaged bullets when loaded with high pressure hv loads. So I changed my gc maker to make a gc with a round edge.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    SWaging such a hard alloy was out so I went with bump dies and cast bullets. Put the rounded edged gc's on them and ran them in a bump die to form the nose on them. Then I put them in a herter's 9-ton press that uses top punches and a ejector rod that has a raised edge that mirrors the shape of the rounded gc's. The end result is a bullet that has had the nose bumped to fit the leade/throat of the bbl. Has the voids compressed out of the bullets. Has the bullets bodies trued to the nose of the bullet and the bases are trued/even and not deformed.

    I started with a 300/308 1 in 12 twist 26" bbl varmint contour 4-groove bbl
    Changed to a 1 in 10 twist 22" bull bbl 300/308 4-groove bbl
    Then changed to a 1 in 11 twist 26'' varmint contour with a long throat cut in it for the 175gr smk bullets 301/308 4-groove bbl
    A a bunch of testing with the other bbl's I changed bbl's again, this time a 30" varnmint contour match .340 chamber 1 in 14 twist 300/308 6-groove bbl. This is what the throat looks like in the custom 30" bbl.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    Anyway, swaging bullets is easy and doable for the 30cal's. Getting them to to go fast is another story. Just started playing with the hard alloyed bumped bullets last winter and plan of giving them 1 heck of a workout this winter.
    [IMG][/IMG]

    While that doesn't look like much there is 2 sighters on the bottom right target and 2 10-shot 100yd groups on the top 2 targets. Those bullseye's a 2.125", I chose to test in the 34gr to 35gr load range of h335 simply because I was getting 3"+ with the same bullet/load/rifle combo (see picture in post #56). Started adjusting the powder throw down and it landed on 34.7gr so that's what I tested.

    I'm not knocking what anyone is doing & there's tons of testing to be done in this area. I've tested with cheap ebco bbl's to custom $450 shilen bbl's. Cheap lee molds to eagan nose pour molds along with making/testing different shaped gc's. Made bump dies for the lyman 450, rcbs rock chucker & herter's 9-ton press. Also made swaging dies for the herter's & rcbs presses. Can't even begin to tell you how many different alloys I tried/tested and ended up using a 4 to 1 ratio of 4 parts range scrap (8bhn/9bhn) to 1 part mono-type. The end result is a 16bhn/17bhn alloy. After all this I'm just now to the point where I can actually do some real testing (this will be year #3).

    My goal is to cut groups in 1/2 when I do a head to head traditional cast vs bumped/swaged cast with hv loads that are 2500fps+. Right now I have 2600fps+ loads that are doing 10-shot 1 3/4" groups @ 100yds with traditional cast bullets.
    I really appreciate all that you put into the development process . Testing the bullet shape with a gilding metal outer skin was a really good idea.

    I know it might be tough for the home hobbiest to achieve, but I wonder about warm forming the bullets...the whole press and die would end up at 250F or 300F..whatever temperature worked..with the ANeat type press I guess only the top plate and die would end up full temp. Handling bullets that hot would take some messing around too. Our 2500 ton presses work use tooling heated to 300F-350F....parts of the press pull that heat away but where the tool is bolted to the bed and slide must come close to the mold heater temperature. Stuff needs to be fit up at temp too. Could be an interesting experiment if one made their own dies to begin with .

    Need to study on the plastic properties of the alloy as temperature rises .
    Both ends WHAT a player

  5. #65
    Boolit Master

    glockky's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    Kentucky
    Posts
    600
    Having trouble figuring out where to order one of these. Could someone point me in the right direction.
    Ill keep my guns money and freedom you keep the CHANGE!!!

  6. #66
    Boolit Buddy
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Near the Keg
    Posts
    242
    Alcohol Inventory Reduction Specialist (Journeyman Level)

Page 4 of 4 FirstFirst 1234

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check