Making reamers?

[Bryan27]

For those of you making your own dies and the reamers to make the dies, is there anyone out there that makes these reamers commercially? I would think that the reamer itself would be one of the most important parts of the die making process since it and the laps determine the final shape of the bullet. I was just thinking that someone like PTG, who has the experience and equipment to make reamers to a high degree of accuracy would be a good source of reamers. Any thoughts?

[Utah Shooter]

I know a tool and die maker that may be able to help. The only problem is I do not think that he has made reamers for this purpose. However I do believe that he is a great maker and very competent.

[martin]

Bryan27,

I would think that PTG would make you anything you want as long as you provided them with appropriate drawings.

I, like several others have made my own "D" reamers. This was partially because I did not want to wait nor spend the money. Also there was enough information out there that it was not a major undertaking.

Martin

[jixxerbill]

skip thru the thread till you come to the part about making the reamer, ive made several like this and they work great......http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=2265.0

[scrapcan]

jixxerbill,

thanks for the link. good pictures and info over there. Also look at the link in the thread to the other discussion.

[firefly1957]

I have had a little luck doing that but am not happy with point form for my .257 bullets. it came out to rough?

[NoZombies]

Most people make the reamer .001-.002 smaller than the finished diameter, and then lap to final size.

[Hammer]

Is there a trick to shaping the ogive tip for the point forming die? I am a novice with a lathe and am still learning the finer aspects of turning steel.

I would be willing to pay a pro for a point forming die reamer so I can get on with other die making tasks and spend more time learning how to make my own...

I have gone to the comercial market for standard size reamers (ten thousanth increments) for the core swage and seating dies. My next challenge is making the Ted Smith design hone to lapp the dies after I ream them.

Thanks to everyone for the advice in all the die making threads - it helps.

Hammer

[BT Sniper]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=75201&page=8

post 145

KTN doessome good looking work. Ofcourse you would need a mill too. So many tools to buy not enough time :)

A file and sandpaper is your friend :)

BT

[deltaenterprizes]

Thanks for the link BT.

[Hammer]

I knew I had seen these somewhere and I plan on using his design and process. I figure after I have tried fifteen or twenty times, I ought to be able to get close......

[smilie=w:

My garage used to be a woodworking shop.... now it is a machine shop AND a woodworking shop. I need more room to store and play with my bad habits.... Tools? Time?

I can alway count on you BT. Thanks.

Ed

[Bryan27]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=75201&page=8

post 145

KTN doessome good looking work. Ofcourse you would need a mill too. So many tools to buy not enough time :)

I file and sandpaper is your friend :)

BT


I like the idea and KTN is obviously skilled at this, I just wonder how repeatable and measurable it is?

I spoke with a die maker a few years ago and got absolute sticker shock at what a set of high quality dies costs. He was nice enough to talk to me for the better part of an hour about what makes a good die and what he thinks makes a bullet accurate, I can't disagree with him because he has the results to back up his claims....and it just makes sense. He said that the most important thing is that the bullet is concentric with its center line and the base is perpendicular to the center line. Consistancy of weight is something that can be controlled after the bullet die is made, but if the die drops bullets that aren't concentric within the slightest of measurement, when the bullet is leaving the bore at 150,000 rpm's the accuracy is going to be effected on every bullet. Being off a grain on weight won't make that big of a difference in most cases.

All that just gets my wheels to spinning on how the reamer could best be made consistant, measurable and repeatable in a home shop enviroment. Repatable because you'd want the laps to be the same shape. Best ideas I've come up with I can pick apart and keep coming back to the idea that to get a higher level than I'd be able to perform would take farming it out. Grinding it out would, imo, be the most accurate way to do it. I keep coming back to the idea of using a rotary table with a tool holder to get a consistant ogive, but I don't know that you can get a rotary table close enough to the chuck to avoid work stickout issues. For us home shop guys KTN's method looks great.

[deltaenterprizes]

A radius cutter is what is needed in the lathe, do a search for Steve Bedair's page and you will see a nice one.

[trevj]

Better than a radius cutter, is to add a radius grinder attachment, to achieve a repeatable radius on hardened materials. :)

Once you understand the concept, you can play with it a bit and end up with a pretty wide variety of capabilities, limited out only by your imagination, and capability to measure accurately.

Stuff like grinding a repeatable radius on a carbide blank, then lapping it to size...
Diamond compound is pretty cheap and available, as is cast iron to make laps from, for example.


Cheers
Trev

[deltaenterprizes]

Radius grinder is a really specialized animal and would be tricky to fabricate one in the home shop environment.

[trevj]

No.

Nothing more complicated than adding a grinder to the radius turning attachment that was referenced above.

The complicated part, is beginning to get an understanding of what is possible.

Once one gets past the beginning stages of understanding, then it is pretty clear.

It can be as simple as a holder for a Dremel tool, to mount it in place of the cutter, or as complicated as building an integrated variable speed motor, with a spindle integral to it, and adding CNC controls. Those are pretty much the extremes, anyway.

Mounted points are cheap and available, as are diamonds to dress them true with.

Any guy that can get his head around a radius cutter, has the ability to do the grinding as well.


Cheers
Trev

[deltaenterprizes]

The bearings in a Dremel tool are not suitable for close tolerance work.

[gitano]

I have ordered a number of custom chamber reamers from PTG and thought they would be the 'perfect' place to get some swaging die reamers made. I had a short conversation with Dave Kiff at PTG regarding him making some bullet swaging reamers for me. The 'long' answer is: "No. I don't do that." He was rather emphatic in his assertion, so I didn't ask him why.

Paul

[teddyblu]

My answer to a home made radius gringer.

[BT Sniper]

Nice!

[deltaenterprizes]

That is better quality bearings than a Dremel! I may have to give it a try.

[trevj]

The bearings in a Dremel tool are not suitable for close tolerance work.

Home made radius tools in general, are not suitable either. So that's kind of not really much of a point.
If a fella is making his own radius tool, he's gonna have to live with a few gaps in the capability, ain't he.
Otherwise, he'd just buy the tool and get down to making money with it.

We're not talking about guys making rocket parts for NASA, either.

Cheap gets cheap, but cheap can be made to work if the nut holding the handles has the capability to recognize cause and effect, while working.

But I'd be willing to wager that the average fella making a radius tool along the lines of the one with the Rotozip on it, will have more play in his pivot, than there is play in the Dremel's bearings.

Cheers
Trev

[scrapcan]

teddyblu,

thanks for sharing once again. You have lots of good info to pass along on swaging and die making. I for one thank you for everything you share.

[teddyblu]

TREV.
You could be right on the pivot precision, my mike and finished product tells me if it is a usable product.

Please show us what you do ?

Teddyblu

[deltaenterprizes]

The reason I prefer the Rotozip over the Dremel is a more rigid housing and a more powerful motor.
I made a bracket to mount a HF air grinder to my lathe tool post to do a small job, not precision, the bearings are mounted in plastic, but it did the job.

[teddyblu]

The rotorzip can run to 30000 rpm, so the wheel should be rated for your max rpm and well dressed and balanced. This wheel Is 1.5 dia or close to it.

They mabe some vibration but repeatable ojive and better than a file,emory cloth and eyeballing the ojive.

[MarkP]

Older method used in bullet industry to make dies: 1. Transfer 10X hand drawing of bullet profile to template (plastic or aluminum) 2. Use 1:10 pantograph to make 1X steel template. 3. Use steel template in lathe with tracer attachment. 4. Cut EDM electrodes with bullet profile. 5. Die sink EDM swage die. (die mat'l usually carbide 94% WC , 6 % Co)
The next progression the 1:10X pantograph was replaced by using a wire EDM to generate the tracer templates from a CAD file of the bullet.
The electrodes were then made with a CNC lathe rather than on the tracer lathe directely from a CAD file.

[Reload3006]

Older method used in bullet industry to make dies: 1. Transfer 10X hand drawing of bullet profile to template (plastic or aluminum) 2. Use 1:10 pantograph to make 1X steel template. 3. Use steel template in lathe with tracer attachment. 4. Cut EDM electrodes with bullet profile. 5. Die sink EDM swage die. (die mat'l usually carbide 94% WC , 6 % Co)
The next progression the 1:10X pantograph was replaced by using a wire EDM to generate the tracer templates from a CAD file of the bullet.
The electrodes were then made with a CNC lathe rather than on the tracer lathe directely from a CAD file.

That is the way we do it today. But they were making bullets long before there was a computer. If you have a lathe and are short on funds hand grind a form tool and you can get very close that way then sand and file to finish. IF your making a reamer to make a swage point form die. That reamer will make several dies unless you break it. Cut out a template and use it to hand grind your form cutting bit. It really does work.