Turning bullets on a lathe?

[stealthshooter]

I was wondering if anyone here has turned any bullets on a lathe from solid copper/brass? I have been thinking about getting a small CNC lathe to play with mostly for this very purpose.

[HollowPoint]

I've seen photos of these type of bullets turned on higher end CNC lathes. They were mostly larger bullets suited for 50 caliber ranges.

They looked like small rockets and from what I read they were highly concentric and very expensive to buy if you couldn't make your own.

I don't see why the same thing couldn't be done on a smaller scale. Give it a try. You may surprise yourself and turn out bullets that exceed your wildest expectations.

HollowPoint

[Chicken Thief]

Usually a BIG develoment goes before actual production!
Things like design, pressure measuring/proofing and a LOT of test shooting.
Unless it's for your own consumption?

[stealthshooter]

Usually a BIG develoment goes before actual production!
Things like design, pressure measuring/proofing and a LOT of test shooting.
Unless it's for your own consumption?

At first it will be for my own use and testing until I feel they are ready for the public. Don't know how else to go about it other than testing them myself. My main goal is to build some bullets specifically for my 450 bushmaster. I'm limited to what bullets I shoot due to the magazine so I'm wanting to maximize the BC the best I can.

[stealthshooter]

They won't be cheap for sure! Commercial machined bullets run $1 a piece or better most of the time. When you think about it though they won't be anymore than Barnes or Swift and I'll be able to make the exact weight and profile I'm looking for.

[stealthshooter]

There are other things I can use the lathe for to absorb some of the costs. I also designed an Archery stabilizer that I could build on it. I was thinking of something like this.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EMCO-compact-5-CNC-Lathe-/130583797171?_trksid=p3286.m7&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D3%26po%3D LVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D3364108345478143709#ht_500 wt_1287

[frank505]

I have turned brass (360) solids for my 416 Taylor. Used an older W&S cnc lathe. Bullets turned out well and even killed bison. I simply made a copy of the cast bullet that I was shooting.

[Artful]

careful of the ATF and their AP bullet rules

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/guides/importation-verification/firearms-verification-gca-ammunition.html


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

[John Taylor]

When I worked for a smith that was building 50 BMG single shot rifles there were not any bullets available except the barns round nose. He picked up an old automatic screw machine and change a few things on it to make bullets. It had chain drive and cams, no computer stuff. We were making 615 grain boatales and it would spit one out about every thee seconds. Noisiest machine in the shop.

[shotman]

That long range 50bmg that hornady sells looks like it is turned
ATF dont have anything about a brass bullet It dont have a steel core

[m.chalmers]

careful of the ATF and their AP bullet rules

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/guides/importation-verification/firearms-verification-gca-ammunition.html

That is HANDGUN, not rifle ammo! For rifles turned brass is GTG.

[Artful]

Exactly M.Chalmers - but think of what calibers you can get a HANDGUN chambered for !

Unfortunately that 30 cal bullet you turned for your 30-30 rifle can also be used in a 30-30 chambered Contender pistol - and if an over zealous ATF agent wanted to cause the maker trouble it wouldn't be hard with the way the law was poorly written !

I'm just saying becareful - and SHOTMAN as far as having a steel insert that has NOTHING to do with how the law was written ! Read the stupid law!

[El Gato]

The French turned bullets for thier 8mm Lebel Ball-D load. It worked for them but I can't imagine it to be cost effective

[Chicken Thief]

Might be cheaper to design your bullet and get the local mashine shop to do them when thay have a machine that is idle for some hours?
If you show up with the CNC code it's a nobrainer.

[Hardcast416taylor]

I seem to remember that Barnes turned their bronze/brass solids. Some of my early purchases for my .416 Taylor had the turning marks on the 400 gr. solids.Robert

[atom73]

I am very interested in this. Like to know where to get or generate CNC coding for some really long 30 cals with great BCs.

[uscra112]

I am very interested in this. Like to know where to get or generate CNC coding for some really long 30 cals with great BCs.

Get on the CNC hobbyist threads. There's dozens of 'em. You will fond freeware that will translate a CAD drawing to G-code for you.

EMCO-Meier is an Austrian company that makes a very good product. Parts and info can be had here: http://www.emco-world.com/en.html

I would not hesitate to buy that one on eBay if I was confident that it is in good shape. I passed up an EMCO 8 inch manual bench lathe at an auction last weekend only because I'd already shot my wad. I need another lathe like I need another divorce, but I would have bought that one just because EMCOs are so nice.

UPDATE: EMCO apparently sold off the little Compact 5 lathe line to another company that is now out of business. Parts may not be easy to get after all.
Phil

[uscra112]

When I worked for a smith that was building 50 BMG single shot rifles there were not any bullets available except the barns round nose. He picked up an old automatic screw machine and change a few things on it to make bullets. It had chain drive and cams, no computer stuff. We were making 615 grain boatales and it would spit one out about every thee seconds. Noisiest machine in the shop.

That machine HAD to be a Davenport ! I remember 'em only too well.

[TRX]

If you have a small lathe you can grind form tools for the ogive and grease grooves and make the bullets "by hand". Not practical for large quantities, but making some lead bars and turning them would be a good way to test new bullet designs before having a custom mold made.

With one of the inexpensive hobby CNC lathes you could turn lead wire into bullets, then melt the swarf to cast with. Or you could turn zinc bullets out of zinc rod.

Someone mentioned a screw machine earlier; that's what that type of machine was made for. Well, small, intricately shaped parts, anyway.

[Whiterabbit]

I'd be interested in some advice from machinists here, if any. My metal lathe has an autofeed but only along the major axis. This means I can not machine the point of the bullet by autofeed, only by manually cranking through the material, and I can about guarantee I'm not up to that kind of turn speed uniformity.

Basically, my bullets would be pretty ugly given no autofeed. My question for the machinists and enthusiasts, would this be no problem? Aesthetics only?

[stealthshooter]

So what brand of lathe would you guys suggest? I am only looking for a small one as space is a premium around here. Also how hard is it to learn to run one? I'm a pretty quick learner especially when I can get my hands on whatever I'm doing.

[Adam10mm]

I would caution you to do some serious engineering R&D before you fire a single bullet in your rifle. If anything, use a single shot rifle like a Contender or Encore and pull the trigger from a string.

Had a friend turn some bullets on his lathe and load them in his .30-06. Said they were accurate and flew true. I inspected his brass. Flat primers on every round like you wouldn't believe. As a favor I took 20 rounds from him and sent them to Hodgdon for pressure testing. They stopped the test after firing the first round. Chamber pressure was 78,000 psi.

Know what your design is going to do with pressure. It's about bearing surfaces. Machining is one thing, but designing a safe bullet is quite another. Best wishes!

[JSnover]

You don't need an auto feed. Grind the form tool to cut the profile you like, so it faces off the nose before it cuts the radius and grooves. This will be slow work because the smaller diameter the more chatter and deflection. With stops or a DRO it would be a piece of cake to part them off to a consistent length. I have not tried this but I certainly would. Definitely not a high-volume operation but it would be a good way to keep busy during the colder months.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I have to second Freakshows point. making a bullet out of brass is no big trick. Designing a bullet that is safe is something else entirely. I recommend copying existing proven designs or scalping the design of the driving bands and makeing a dfiferent nose section using someone like Barnes' designs and dimensions for the bearing surface area.

There are a variety of ways to turn the things. I have a friend who makes his own Bench Rest bullets from solid brass on a B&S 00 screw machine, his name is Steve Abel and you might have heard of him from Abel Fly Reels. He was the first person to get $400 for a single action Fly Reel! he can literally make thousands of Bullets in a day.

As far as a mini CNC lathe is concerned do yourself a favor and NOT BUY ONE,,, you will be very disappointed. First CNC does not mean "magically parts appear" that's MPA! there alot to it and you can't just learn it in a few days or weeks or even months.

To run a CNC machine you first must know how to make parts on a manual machine. All the CNC does for you is make the same parts faster. It can also make scrap faster. IN fact it will make scrap just as fast as it will make good bullets, even if you are standing there looking at it. Lots more to it, really been doin' it for some time now.

I have to agree with JSnover, a form tool is a much simpler way to make something like a bullet.

Randy

[Whiterabbit]

If i ever move forward with this project, it's definitely going to start as suggested, I move in baby steps. First, buy barnes solids. Then duplicate the bullet. Only then would I experiment with new nose shapes. There's no reason for someone like me to screw with the drive bands.

And I know enough programmers to know I never want a cnc tool in my shop. (those rapid prototyper tools are really nifty though!) The lathe is certainly hand crank and if I ever buy the mill it'll be crank too.

I'll use the autofeed though, cause I have it. :)

[Ed K]

Ever seen these bullets? I suspect some have and I've been aware of them for some time now however never bought any due to the logistics and to a degree price. I've often thought Barnes may have grabbed from the design to lower pressure in their bullets.

They look pretty sophisticated and it is hard to imagine making these at home on a small scale just for personal use.

http://www.gsgroup.co.za/02hv.html

[perotter]

Cheapest source of copper rod I've found is the ground rods sold for electrical use.

I have made a few turned bullets for the .223. Just to try doing it when I was learning how to program CNC machines. It being a learning project, I used a CNC milling machine. Put the rod in a collet and the cutter in the vise. Using a CNC is the simplest way in todays world.

I've been thinking of getting serious about doing again for personal use. But, I don't know if I'll get to it in the next year as I have a few other gun project a little higher up on the test.

[stealthshooter]

Cheapest source of copper rod I've found is the ground rods sold for electrical use.

I have made a few turned bullets for the .223. Just to try doing it when I was learning how to program CNC machines. It being a learning project, I used a CNC milling machine. Put the rod in a collet and the cutter in the vise. Using a CNC is the simplest way in todays world.

I've been thinking of getting serious about doing again for personal use. But, I don't know if I'll get to it in the next year as I have a few other gun project a little higher up on the test.

The last ground rods I got were not solid copper they were only plated.

[theperfessor]

Same here - the ground rods I have are copper plated steel.

I would be VERY careful with my bullet design and diameter. Copper is soft in comparison to other metals but very much harder than lead. And without a lead core to give a little like a jacketed bullet would pressure could spike pretty quickly.

Run a cast bullet that's .002 oversize through a sizer, and then do the same thing with a solid copper slug that's .002 over IF YOU CAN. Note the force difference. Then think a little more about your bullet design and diameter tolerances.

[perotter]

That explains why it is so cheap.

[HollowPoint]

So what brand of lathe would you guys suggest? I am only looking for a small one as space is a premium around here. Also how hard is it to learn to run one? I'm a pretty quick learner especially when I can get my hands on whatever I'm doing.

If you're set on buying a CNC lathe get the best one you can afford. Don't rely on the recommendations of anyone of us here. Do some simple informal research.

You're better off going to a forum where machining is the mainstay of the site. There are alot of folks here with hands on knowledge of working with CNC lathes and there are even more that have only opinion or second hand information. (some of it is Sound-Opinion and Information" but, you're better off doing your own research.) I'm one of the ones that only has manual lathe experience and even that is very limited.

I do own a CNC mill and there is a learning curve associated with CNC but, it's not rocket science. I'm sure you can pick it up easy enough.

By stating it the way I have, I may give the impression that I've got it all down. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Even with the little bit that I have learned I still struggle with certain aspects of G-Code. I'm still learning. It's an ongoing process.

You'll find that folks that have had some difficulty learning CNC and G-Code will generally give advice that reflects this. Those who were able to learn it easily will generally tell you that it's not that hard.

I think I fall somewhere in the middle. For me, it wasn't that easy to learn but, I always knew it was doable. If you really want to learn G-Code or working with CNC machinery, there's really only one person stopping you.

CNCzone is a good site for learning about the various kinds of CNC lathes. You don't have to sign up to find the info you need. You can compare the pros and cons of any CNC lathe you might be interested in. And this is from folks that actually use them.

HollowPoint

[bowfin]

One of the older Hardinge lathes that uses collets to hold the stock (rods) would be able to repeat the accuracy to turn bullets, although it might not be fast.

By the way, if you really want to try to turn your own bullets, then find a way and do it. We have guys on this forum who make their own rifles, moulds, and even their own gunpowder, figuring out how to do so safely. Most people fail before they ever try.

[JIMinPHX]

I seem to remember that a board member machined some bullets out of either brass or bronze on a CNC machine a while back. I think that it was Captain Morgan.

Running a lathe is something that takes more than a little while to learn to do correctly. It can look simple, but there are actually a lot of finer points involved if you want to get good results. The difficulty of making the jump from a manual machine to a CNC depends largely on the particular controller that you will be working with & the availability of CAM or post software to go with it.

Copper is a little funny to cut on a lathe. It likes to suck the tools in. If you have slop in your feed screws, that can cause some fairly impressive tool crashes. It's usually best to use tool tips with very shallow clearance angles when cutting copper & its alloys.

[Whiterabbit]

I would be VERY careful with my bullet design and diameter. Copper is soft in comparison to other metals but very much harder than lead. And without a lead core to give a little like a jacketed bullet would pressure could spike pretty quickly.

Those of us who use all coppers learned very quickly that the published load data is all WAY below jacketed and cast when it comes to powder charge weights. Definitely worth repeating.

I haven't checked brass load data but it should be available on the barnes website for the banded solid design. Would be a good starting point.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Here's the problem with buying a CNC lathe when you don't know how to run a manual lathe.

"You don't know how to make parts!"

There are certain sequences of operations to making any part. You kind of need to know these before you can make the part. You must definately know these if you are going to make a part on an automatic machine.

Learning the G&M codes is part of the battle of programming that part into the machine, but if you don't understand the sequence of events necessary to make the part from beginning to end, you can't apply the G codes in an order that will be read by the machine and result in a part that "runs".

You need to learn to run a manual machine first. Then you can progress to a more complicated machine tool.

Alot of the used machines you see on the market come from guys who buy a machine and find out that it is much more complicated to operate than they were led to believe, and then abandon the tool.

Don't get caught up by outfits trying to sell you a simple hobby CNC machine that will be the cure for all your ails.

It ain't that way!!!

I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade here, I am just trying to save you a bunch of grief and money. I own a machine shop, I have CNC machines, and I design and build them too. I designed and manufactured the Omniturn CNC lathe, and an array of CNC Routers and engraving machines for BOBCAD. I have a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about here.

You would do well to pay attention!

Small hobby type machines are very diffacult to produce good parts on, because they are built very light and have little rigidity. Rigidity is the key element in machine design. With out it the finish on your parts doesn't look good and the machine flexes and you end up chasing diimensions as it will not repeat. A machine that wil not repeat is a very frustrating thing to use. I have no tolerance whatsoever for such equipment and get rid of it immediately.

I just got rid of a powder measure that wouldn't repeat!

You add this fact to the fact that YOU don't know what you're doing. You don't know what types of tools to use, what feed rates to use, what types of drills to use, etc, etc, etc,,, it is going to be VERY difficult to get a good product from your machine. I know what I'm doing, and it would be difficult for me using such a machine!

Do yourself a favor and not waste your time and money trying to automate a process that you can do an a manual machine, that is way more useful than a machine that is stacking the deck against you, and way more complicated than what you think.

I see people all the time thinking that a CNC machine just poops parts out of a chute on the end of the machine, and that's all there is to it ,and it should be worth almost nothing in the end because the part only takes 15 seconds to run..

There is alot that must occur before that happens, and somone spent a few years learning it and spent a bunch of money on equipment and failures before that part pooped out.

Take a machine shop course at your local CC, and learn to operate a lathe and learn how to make parts first. Then if you still feel the need to CNC take a class on that, and run your parts in the class. That will tell you if you really want to go down this road, and save you a bunch of money.

Here's one more thing to consider!!! It is really easy to buy a CNC machine, it is really hard to sell one!

I hope this post keeps at least some of you out of trouble!

Randy

[Whiterabbit]

And that's why I bought a manual machine. :)