Stump the swager!

[BT Sniper]

How about a thread to throw down a challenge? A thread to post pictures of bullets we would like to see made from our own hand rather then the big guys? Yes, lets go after the "man" and win! Tough words? Well maybe but it should prove fun to look at all the different bullets avialble and try to figure out how they made them and how we can make our own version better. Like a bonded XTP with tappered jacket walls aka. the bullets we all ready make from pistol brass. Critical defence bullets or glazers aka. airsoft pellets!

Come on making bullets is not rocket science I have certainly found that out.

Even if you don't make bullets yet, or are just starting, post a pick of a bullet you like the looks of, or your favorite bullet and lay down the challenge to the swagers to make one similiar or better. Nothing is to far fetched, anythign is possible. Lets add as many pictures as possible to this thread. Doesn't necessarly even have to be of a bullet you made but could be pictures of bullets you have seen others make.

The speer gold dot always stumped me for atleast a couple years and today, yes just now [smilie=w: I found the revealed sceret. Check out the link. This is definatly next on my list. I can't believe speer would let these pics out. Lets find more!

This would be so Easy! Anyone have some cheap ball FMJs they want to turn into expensive gold dots? Another selling point to swaging your own! Expect to see some of these in BT Sniper form real soon now that I have seen it done. Did I mention anything is possible! :)

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/golddot.jpg

Check out the Gold Dot links below!

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/training/firearms-training/module05/fir_m05_t05_09.htm

http://www.missouriwhitetails.com/forums/viewthread.php?tid=101692

Lets see what you got, challenge us, lets see what we can make better for less!

Swage On!

:swagemine:

BT

[ANeat]

What, you didnt know tha gold dot was just a plated bullet with a hollow point mashed into it??

I thought that was pretty common knowledge. Thats what forms the "gold dot" in the center of the hollow point.

Most bargain plated bullets Ive tried dont hold up too well to being swaged and the copper plating splits.

I think on the gold dots they really lay the plating on thick and the quality is much higher.

[BT Sniper]

Never had much time to look into it I guess. I certainly never bought or shot any of them :). I do know I can make the punch to form the intial cavity as pictured above and it is only a matter of tryle and error till I get the right combination. So it will be a fun project to try in the future.

I have seen a lot of custom look a like bullets. I will have to post some more pics of them soon. Anyone else? I have seen great looking rifle bullet with plastic tips, even rifle bullets with tips made from 22lr brass. The possiblities are out there.

BT

[ANeat]

I think a good HP could be formed into a plated bullet if youre not changing the nose shape too much.

I would be cautious of forming a regular FMJ Rn into a HP since the base on those is usually wide open. Might just send the core out and leave the jacket when its fired

[ANeat]

Speaking of plastic tips. I just wonder if a guy could make a mold for his own plastic tips and cast them like the glue-bullets guys make??

[BT Sniper]

Speaking of plastic tips. I just wonder if a guy could make a mold for his own plastic tips and cast them like the glue-bullets guys make??


I was thinking that too. Hornady leverevolution flex tips basicly. Simple mold spray with Pam to keep glue from sticking. Somone here a while back posted a great looking tip like this he made. Hopfully we can hear back on this one or maybe I can find the pic again.

BT

[BT Sniper]

I would be cautious of forming a regular FMJ Rn into a HP since the base on those is usually wide open. Might just send the core out and leave the jacket when its fired

Yes we will avoid altering open base bullets for sure.

BT

[BT Sniper]

Hornady Critical defence bullet!

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/critical_defense_hornady.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/40buldge028.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/2011-1-26006.jpg

[BT Sniper]

Balistic tips!

I made these a while back and are still a work in progress. These are 308 bullets with the BT 3rd from right of course.
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/2011-1-23147.jpg



I didn't make these but I sure like the look!
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/Bullets007.jpg

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/Bullets005.jpg

[BT Sniper]

Flex Tip!

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/flextip.jpg

Check out the link! I'll PM the maker of this bullet see if he can fill us in a bit. Sure looks Awesome!

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=98604

[BT Sniper]

Partitions?

I'll lay down the challenge. Anyone made a good partition style bullet. I'm thinking case inside a case with the base of the one on top forming the partition and everything bonded together.

BT

[nicholst55]

Yes we will avoid the use of open base bullets for sure.

BT

I've wondered if you could take FMJ bullets, and turn them upside down to swage a hollow point out of them. I've never tried it, and have no idea whether or not it would work. It would be interesting to try, though!

[BT Sniper]

I have done it with 40 cal 200 grain FMJ bullets turned up side down to form a JHP out of it. One step no problem. Got a pic of it here some where.

[warf73]

Partitions?

I'll lay down the challenge. Anyone made a good partition style bullet. I'm thinking case inside a case with the base of the one on top forming the partition and everything bonded together.

BT

Thats how corbin shows to make partitions.

[jixxerbill]

use the search engine at the top of the page u can find plenty of bullet pic's that have been posted before...

[MakeMineA10mm]

Partitions?

I'll lay down the challenge. Anyone made a good partition style bullet. I'm thinking case inside a case with the base of the one on top forming the partition and everything bonded together.

BT


Thats how corbin shows to make partitions.

This is true, but it's a very, very bad way to make a partition. There is a commercial swager selling partitions made this way, and he markets them specifically because they come apart... Wait a minute, I want a partition that doesn't come apart; isn't that the whole point?

Basically, when you make a partition like this, the front core and the main jacket open up during the first few inches of penetration. The jacket stops pretty early (like a shotgun wad - it doesn't have much mass once the lead is gone, and it has a huge frontal area acting like a sail), and the front core separates, leaving the smaller-diameter, inner, rear core to penetrate like a sub-caliber FMJ-WC.

The guy who markets them commercially uses this as a "selling point" to say that the damage early on is worse than a Nosler or Swift, but the penetration is more like a 9mm FMJ after that... This flies in the face of what a Nosler or Swift A-Frame do in an animal.

This is definitely NOT the way to make a partition. Definitely need real drawn jacket metal with a central wall and space for two cores. Now, if you could find someone to make that for us, we'd have to play around with how far forward (or rearward, depending on how you look at it...) we want the bulkhead??

[MakeMineA10mm]

Here's my post (#6) in that other thread you linked, Brian:


I've got several:

Replicate the now-discontinued Speer HJ-SWC-HP. (CH 105 series only have SWC, no SWC-HP form, so you could make harder, new base punch to form the nose and new, harder ejector, but otherwise use the 105 die.) I'd like to start w/ 44s (225gr), but I'd need the 146gr 357 version too, eventually. Of course all the adjusting we can do with jackets and cores could give us many weights...

I really liked the Quik-Shok JHPs, but no one has picked up the design for pistols, so we probably need to make our own, if we're to have any. Jackets are standard, and the newly-perfected notching die is part of the design. Just need a way to make a 3-segmented core, connected slightly through the center.

I'd love to be able to make partitions, but I don't like the Corbin-method of nestling a smaller, reversed jacket with rear core in the bottom of the main core. It won't hold together like a real partition...

I've also been wondering if anyone has perfected the Leverevolution soft-but-firm tip?

Brian,
I'd really like to see you come up with something to replicate the Quik-Shok. I've got pictures somewhere of what the core looked like, before they swaged it into a jacket. Our fired brass case jackets would work just fine. It's the core that needs modifying to make these.

Oh, one other thing -- Those flex tips are fairly easy to make, but the problem is finding just the right material. They need to retain their shape when fired, but they need to be soft-enough to deform while in the mag-tube and loading process. Has anyone figured that out yet? Also, I really like the idea of modifying a factory JHP with these. For example, since it's so hard to home-swage a Partition, what about getting a point-forming die and some of these flex-tips and assembling them into Swift A-Frames. Personally, I like the 280gr A-Frame JHP in the 444 Marlin, but if we could get some flex-tips, insert them in the HP, and then run it up in a swaging die to re-form the front half of the bullet to a more aerodynamic shape and lock the flex-tip in place, I think we'd have the ultimate 444 Marlin bullet!

We don't need to swage everything from scratch -- we can modify existing bullets to make them better!! :)

[MIBULLETS]

Corbin has another method for making partition bullets as well...

I searched his site, but no info. It is in his Swaging Hand Book though that you can download for free at http://www.swage.com/ebooks.htm

Anyway, you start with a cut piece of tubing, then take two shouldered punches that go into the tubing, one from each end but leaving an empty space in the tubing between the ends of the two punches. Then apply pressure. The punches will support the tubing in the die so the tubing doesn't colapse, but the unsupported section in the middle will fold in until the two punch tips come together with a layer of tubing between them. Now you have a partition. Then seat the base core and round the tubing over it, insert and seat the top core then point form. I hope this is easy to understand without pictures.