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Thread: Crazy Idea

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy
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    Crazy Idea

    I have started reclaiming range scrap from my local range.
    I've been thinking about how to turn the scrap copper back into bullets.
    My idea was to melt the copper down into ingots. After it was formed into ingots it would be ground into powder form.
    The powder would be put into a powder thrower to get the correct amount, and then dumped into a bullet swaging die on a hydraulic press.

    Similar to this video.

  2. #2
    Moderator



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    It seems like a lot of work, and I don't believe regular swaging dies made for swaging bullets would be able to withstand the pressures needed to swage copper.

    I would just sell the copper ingots for scrap and use the money to buy bullets. You should be able to sell them as #1 copper, if in ingot form.

    If you have a way to just deform the copper jackets so they don't look like bullets, you can get #2 copper price for them at a lot of scrap yards, but if they still look like bullets, even if the lead cores have been melted out, they're considered "gilding metal", and sell for a fraction of the going copper price. Been there, done that.

    Hope this helps.

    Fred
    After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. - William S. Burroughs.

  3. #3
    Boolit Grand Master GhostHawk's Avatar
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    Why melt into ingots? why not just grind the jackets?

    With heat, a little bit of tin to stick it together I think it could be done. If that is what you want.

    Me I like my cast lead.

  4. #4
    Boolit Master

    rancher1913's Avatar
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    the cost for tooling to do swagging is already way up there, just wait til you see the cost of the press you would need to do it this way. you could make a sheet of copper then punch the jackets out like they do already.
    if you are ever being chased by a taxidermist, don't play dead

  5. #5
    Boolit Master


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    For the cost of the equipment you could buy a lifetime supply of jackets and not have to do a lick of work!
    The particles of building metal would not fuse together with one enormous press and the electrical requirements far exceed the power available in a residential neighborhood.
    Same goes for a furnace to melt the metal and grind it.
    If you did get the metal melted and into ingots then instead of grinding it would be better to roll it into sheets or rods that make jackets the conventional way.

  6. #6
    Boolit Buddy Valornor's Avatar
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    Lead free fragmenting bullets use a tin/copper powder to form the core. The powder is fed into a machine that is very similar to what they use to manufacture pills.

    You might be able to do something similar with a Swaging press. You’d need to measure the powder very accurately because it won’t “bleed” off like a lead core will. However you may be able to apply enough pressure to bond the powder together into a core.

    I don’t know how this core would respond to being shoved into a point forming die without a jacket, but it’s pretty tough, it may work. It’s not all that different from what is being done commercially.

    Alternatively you could take the copper powder and mix it with a powdered resin. Fill the point form mold, add some pressure to “stick” it together and then bake the bullets to activate the resin. You’re not really swaging more just forming the bullet into its desired shape and then activating the resin to keep it there. I believe this process is similar to what is being used with some of the new fangle polymer bullets out on the market. It would make for a bullet that would basically vaporize when it hit steel.

    Lastly you could just take the copper powder fill a jacket, press it into as if you were seating a core and then have light for caliber bullet that will fragment when it hits anything.

    I think with all these it’s important to carefully measure the powder to make sure you aren’t getting a lot of variation. As mentioned before copper is pretty tough and it can’t be bleed off like lead. That’s what will break a die, so you’d need to be careful there. Also there is the safety aspect of playing with powdered metals, they can be quite flammable, and irritating if inhaled.

    It would be lots of work, I wouldn’t cast the ingots. I would grind the jackets just as is. I am in a similar boat as you and have brain stormed a few ways of trying to recycle the copper.




    Check out my website www.theballisticassistant.com

  7. #7
    Boolit Master



    MUSTANG's Avatar
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    Corbin's sells copper Powder. See the link for a couple of sentence description of Swaging Copper Bullets from Copper Powder.


    https://www.swagedies.com/mm5/mercha...ry_Code=funnel
    Mustang

    "In the beginning... the patriot is a scarce man, and brave and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." - Mark Twain.

  8. #8
    Boolit Mold
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    If you're able to turn the copper into ingots (it's not so bad temperature-wise, it's around the same as forge welding temperature on normal steels), and want to reuse them for bullets, how about making jackets? Pass it through a rolling mill to form sheets.

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