Milling Solid Copper Rods into Shotgun slugs

[victorfox]

see if this helps.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wDlENanzbPM

[Y-man]

Thanks Victorfox! I had been long following Tactical-G Code, and the videos of tests especially on Taofledermaus on YouTube... This is inspiring.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I looked at this video and the guy doing it has no clue what is going on. His Turbine slugs were tumbling immediately after leaving the barrel and most everyone here knows why.

Fins on a Slug don't pick up enough air to have any affect on the flight of the slug.

Fins on "Rifled Slugs" have nothing to do with stabilization. They are there to ease the "Sizing of the Slug" if it goes thru a choke. Nothing more.

A Rifled Slug in a smoothbore shotgun is nothing more that an oddly shaped Musket Ball. If they have a hollow base or an attached wad they tend to fly pretty strait like a shuttle cock, but are far from the same projectile shot from a rifled barrel that physically imparts spin to the slug.

There are several shows in TV right now from the 1700's era that are pretty accurate. "Outlander" is really good and last week one of the Scottish Officers was tasked to find the effective accurate range of a Brown Bess Musket. He had a bunch of rounds fired at him from about 125 yards and none hit him, but one did graze his head. None of their guns had sights so it was nothing but shear luck if you hit anything at any distance!

The Scots decided not to cross the bog and instead hit the British Encampment from the side.

"Turn" ,,, the AMC program about Washington's Spies also has lots of scenes with smoothbores shooting at people. You had to be pretty unlucky or stupid to stand in a line and be shot at,,, as if you did get hit a .75 caliber ball would have a very negative effect on you.

My experience with my M500 and round ball loads has convinced me that inside about 60 yards a round ball is about as good as it gets. They fly relatively strait and typically only the elevation is in question. Windage is usually pretty close.

From a Rifled Barrel a round ball is going to curve just like a Curve Ball does and for the same reason. Slugs, way different story, and are accurate enough out to 100 + yards.

I saw the Turbine slug and had to laugh as I knew what was going to happen before even looking.

The Copper Slugs were kind of neat looking but also pretty expensive to produce and not 1 Iota better in any way than a Cast Slug.

Randy

[victorfox]

Randy I got the samd impressions as you and burst into laughs when I saw the turbine slugs taking a funny departure like a crazy plane in the airport.... But then I remembered I have to test some stendebach ideal clones that have internal fins and I'm praying they don't spin the littlest hahahaha.
His experiments seems to be quite clueless like you said but the 7 metal series (including this copper one and the process of turning it),was quite decent.

[Drm50]

I have no experience making copper slugs. I have a friend who ruined a Hastings Rifled Barrel,
with Remington Copper Solids. If I remember right barrel is marked with warning not to use
copper solids. They blew knot in barrel from over pressure, gun was Remington 1100. Also know
of case of Moss 500/ rifled, blowing bolt open and warping action bars/ splitting forearm. This
was done with turned Alumilum slugs with poured lead cores. Adding riflings to the mix adds
pressure. There was a lot of Basement R&D going on in Ohio, when it was slug only. I gave several types of lead slugs, and even 54 cal. Maxi balls that were patched with foam sheets and
loaded in Power Pistons some experimenting. I could never achieve uniform accuracy. I only have
3 slug guns left, all smooth bores, they will shoot into 3" at 100yds with factory standard slugs.
I have friends with rifled slug guns, shooting sabots that will do 2" at 100yds. 3" is good enough
for deer hunting, so I never bothered to go with rifled barrel & sabots. Didn't feel cost of barrel
and cost of sabots was worth it.

[Greg5278]

Copper can be turned successfully on a Lathe will proper tooling and Feed rates.
The normal Copper is C110 which is tough and gummy. The C101 is much more costly but eaier to machine. I've had some Slugs machined out of Brass and Solid Copper Bar.
They do not need Lube.
The Taefloomaus From You is just a DumbA$$ with a YouTube Channel.
He tries all kinds of Stuff that other than Exiting the Barrel is a bad Idea. I kep waiting for Him to blow up ther Shotgun, or get hit with a Ricochet. He really is giving alot of People bad Ideas.
Greg
AKA 12 Bore

[victorfox]

Greg I dislike most Tao videos. But a few are interesting. Add to my bad list demo ranch, food and guns something, and all those dummies who try to destroy usable guns and win a darwin award...

[KCSO]

Turning copper requires specially sharpened cutters and special cutting fluid. The copper cutting fluid I use I hate because it leaves white residue all over and is a bear to clean off. If you really need to know I can check and give you the cutter sharpening angles.

[Lloyd Smale]

be careful. Solid copper bullets with no lead or way to expand are considered cop killers. I know belt mountain bullets had to change there solid copper bullets by drilling the tip and putting lead in it.

[M-Tecs]

The OP is in Nigeria.

[JSnover]

Turning copper requires specially sharpened cutters and special cutting fluid. The copper cutting fluid I use I hate because it leaves white residue all over and is a bear to clean off. If you really need to know I can check and give you the cutter sharpening angles.

I never tried it but an Old School machinist once told me the best cutting fluid for brass was whole milk. I have no idea how, where or when he learned this, though he admitted it wouldn't be worth the trouble. After even one job you have a nasty mess that had to cleaned up and flushed out right now.

[jmort]

be careful. Solid copper bullets with no lead or way to expand are considered cop killers. I know belt mountain bullets had to change there solid copper bullets by drilling the tip and putting lead in it.

Does not apply to shotguns. Applies to ammunition that may be used in hand guns. 12 gauge shotgun ammunition does not fall into this catagory.

Armor piercing ammunition

18 U.S.C., § 921(a)(17)(B)

• A projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or
• A full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.

[W.R.Buchanan]

OK Milk ain't gonna get it. Copper is very abrasive and wears Hi Speed tools quickly. Milk which is essentially water with some protein mixed in has no lubricating properties whatsoever.

Once did a job making Buss Bars to an Environmental Testing Outfit. They were just 1/4 x1 Copper Flat Bar with a bunch of 10-32 holes drilled and tapped. Kept breaking taps until we realized the drills were being worn on the margins and the holes were going undersized. We then started changing the drills out every 50 holes as that's all the further they would go.

Form Taps and plenty of cutting oil was the best solution, but even a Form Tap was only good for about 100 holes then it was trash too. The stuff is very abrasive, and you'd never think that as it machines so easily.

Randy

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Milk is an emulsion of oily substances in water, as are most ordinary lathe lubricants, But anyway how does one substance wear a harder one? I think it is by creating frictional heat - and presumably a lot more, since copper will conduct some of it away better than steel does. Water is by far the best coolant in common use - absorbing some nine times as much heat as steel, to raise its temperature by one degree. So milk should be a pretty good coolant. How much a coolant is liable to improve the cutting of copper, and whether anything that doesn't require daily replacement will do as well, are another matter.

[victorfox]

Whole milk, whale milk or moose milk? ( sorry for the bad joke)
I guess BiS nailed it. Milk is oily and butter is actually made from the milk grease after it separates (butter not that **** margarine).

[country gent]

At work we had to machine blank copper spot weld electrodes for the production equipment out on the floor that welded fans onto alternators. I used the same high helix 3/4" HSS cobalt end mill for 3 years. flats needed to be cut on each side roughly 1' down from back end. These were cut at 2500 rpm 25-30 inches an minute feed and .030 a pass with a .010 finish at the end. WOrking at a steady pace 1500 or there abouts could be done in an 8 hour shift. The fixture held 4 parts at a time. (A special set of vise jaws for the kurt angle lock vises). Copper can be machined fairly easily with proper feeds and speeds. At the end of the shift there would be chips piled 3 blocks high up the wall. On this machine no coolant was used.

[bangerjim]

An old navy buddy of mine always used evaporated milk (NOT regular milk) for threading and cutting. Always available in the kitchen mess when you were in the middle of the Pacific! Worked great....if you could stand the smell and the mess! And it does rust steel and CI if you do not wash it off.

Better to buy commercial cutting & tapping fluids. That is what I always use. And avoid trying to turn copper boolits in a lathe!

banger

[M-Tecs]

Milk is the original water soluble oil. Never used it as a cutting oil but used lots of lard oil and kerosene mix.

[smokeywolf]

Haven't machined a lot of copper, but when I did, A-9 worked quite well for a cutting oil. Used drills dubbed for brass and lathe tools ground for aluminum. Hard to avoid the long horse-killer unbroken chips.

[Lloyd Smale]

didn't know that. Thanks.

Does not apply to shotguns. Applies to ammunition that may be used in hand guns. 12 gauge shotgun ammunition does not fall into this catagory.

Armor piercing ammunition

18 U.S.C., § 921(a)(17)(B)

• A projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or
• A full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.