making small bullets larger

[oley55]

this is not a casting question but pertains to cast bullets. Moderator please move to swaging page if appropriate.

I have 1-2K of naked 160+ gr swc bullets I picked up at a yard sale for a song (no dance required). They can be dented with vigorous thumbnail pressure, so I'm guessing 18-20 BHN.(?) They measure .3576-.3577", and they are marginal or too small for two of three weapons I had planned to use. A 2" S&W J, 4" Ruger Speed-six, and 24" Rossi R92 lever gun. I'm pretty sure they will work in the Rossi, but are marginal in the S&W, and definitely too small for the Ruger.

The S&W and Ruger have odd lands and I have not been able to accurately measure them. I did slug one of the .3577 bullets into the barrel of each and looked for light seepage using a bore light stuck in the breach. The Ruger had light shinning through 4 of five grooves. The S&W had no light seepage, but when I examined the slugged bullet from the S&W, one of five grooves had no scuff or contact marks.

Until I get to the range with some test loads, the S&W is maybe. If it does not like them, that leaves me with a large number of bullets for just the Rossi lever gun. I'd sure like to be able to use them in more than one weapon.

I'm sure the first/best recommendation would be to recast them. Unfortunately I am not into casting yet and funds never seem to meet my wants.

And finally to the subject. I am wondering if there is a way to enlarge these bullets without spending a fortune. I have plenty of time, but not so much cash. No doubt I could smack them with a hammer and then run them through a sizer, but I suspect the accuracy of such a bullet would be worse than poor.

Since I have time and a number of Lee sizing dies on hand, I was thinking about the possibility of using one of them to swage the undersized bullet into it with a brass drift sized to just fit into the narrow swage portion as the stop. Then using a slightly larger brass drift, I could press/swage the bullet into the sizer and basically enlarge the bullet a bit while maintaining a fairly concentric bullet. Then I could size as normal.

To be sure the mechanics will need to be worked out, but I'm fairly certain I can make it work. But the big question is, just how accurate these would be. Better than smacking them with a hammer or just as poor? Yes, they will still be plinking rounds, but I always shoot to be as accurate as possible.

What say you?

[dilly]

Would it be possible to put a sort of plug in the die part of your press, press the bullets against them (a measured, precise amount, controlled by the depth of the plug, the same every time) and then run them through a sizer?

[oley55]

Would it be possible to put a sort of plug in the die part of your press, press the bullets against them (a measured, precise amount, controlled by the depth of the plug, the same every time) and then run them through a sizer?

Yes I believe I can come up with a repeatable/consistent process.

[CJR]

Oley55,

Years ago, I had some 311291 CB that needed a forebody diameter of 0.301"-0.302"D rather than their cast diameter of 0.299"D. The NRA had suggested increasing the forebody diameter and made a swage to do that. I made up a swage and it worked well. Since you have 1-2K undersized CB, this will work for you as well. There are a number of people on this site that can make a swage for you to increase the CB diameter.

Good luck.

Best regards,

CJR

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

what you talking about is called "bumping" or Bump Up.
having the proper terminology will help you with a google search.

There are many ways of doing that, but I think if your alloy is about 18 BHN, you will find the task difficult to say the least. If they were commercial cast, I do not doubt your guess that they are 18 BHN.

Good Luck.

[Shiloh]

From the info gleaned, I concur about the difficulty in bumping.
Shooting them will dictate your options. What the heck, try bumping as well.

Recasting may well be the order of the day.

Shiloh

[oley55]

what you talking about is called "bumping" or Bump Up.
having the proper terminology will help you with a google search.

There are many ways of doing that, but I think if your alloy is about 18 BHN, you will find the task difficult to say the least. If they were commercial cast, I do not doubt your guess that they are 18 BHN.

Good Luck.

thanks, bump would have been way easier to describe what I am doing. I knew that (damn brain cramps!).

yea on the BHN guess, hard pressure on the leading edge makes a slight dent. same hard pressure on the flat is barely discernible without rocking the nail back and forth. real scientific!

I have a heavy 8" cast iron arbor press with a 1.25" diameter ram. even if I can not get enough leverage for a constant press, I thought the use of the heavy ram dropping down onto a solid stop may work. pressing the swaged bullet back out is another problem to be solved.

[bhn22]

You need to bump them to fit the chamber throats, not the barrel. The throats need to be slugged and measured too. Bullets that aren't aligned into the bore, and of such diameter to fully fill and engage the rifling will give you no end of grief. Chamber throats should be consistently 1-2 one thousandths larger than bore groove diameter. The bullets should fit the chambers closely, ideally you should be able to push bullets through the throats with a pencil or similar dowel, etc with minor resistance, but without having to beat on the dowel to push them through.

[dudel]

Might powdercoating give you the additional size you need? You could powder coat a batch of boolits pretty inexpensively if you used a shake and bake method.

[NC_JEFF]

I was going to suggest powder coating as well.

[runfiverun]

I'd explore boiling the lube out, powder coating, then sizing to the right size.
bumping or squishing will most likely de-form the nose.

[oley55]

You need to bump them to fit the chamber throats, not the barrel. The throats need to be slugged and measured too. Bullets that aren't aligned into the bore, and of such diameter to fully fill and engage the rifling will give you no end of grief. Chamber throats should be consistently 1-2 one thousandths larger than bore groove diameter. The bullets should fit the chambers closely, ideally you should be able to push bullets through the throats with a pencil or similar dowel, etc with minor resistance, but without having to beat on the dowel to push them through.

Agreed. I have pin gauged and slugged all cylinder throats. I have honed slightly smaller cylinders to match all others with 1200 grit paper. I then honed my sizing dies to prezactly allow sized bullets to pass through the cylinders with slight pressure.

When I did the slug/light test, I then passed the slugs through the cylinder throats to verify they were not undersized for the barrel. Note: for the Ruger I followed up with a larger bullet since the .3577" were already smaller than it's barrel.

Shouldn't we still have an idea what size the barrel is? If I understand the science correctly, pushing a hard cast bullet through overly large/generous cylinder throats into a smaller barrel equals instant leading at and past the forcing cone. While it can be done with softer bullets. Or that is my understanding. I have a 44 mag Redhawk with .4326" cylinder throats and .4303" barrel. Haven't been able to test this as I do not have any cast bullets that big.

[oley55]

Might powdercoating give you the additional size you need? You could powder coat a batch of boolits pretty inexpensively if you used a shake and bake method.

yea I got a PM suggesting that a little while ago. I already have a little convection oven I use for pan lubing, so I may give that a try. Can you shake n bake twice if a little more bump is needed?

[MT Chambers]

Melt them and start over, it's very hard to consistently bump up bullets with out the proper equip.

[oley55]

Melt them and start over, it's very hard to consistently bump up bullets with out the proper equip.

can not argue except this still holds true:
I'm sure the first/best recommendation would be to recast them. Unfortunately I am not into casting yet and funds never seem to meet my wants.

I just did some hand bumping of a few into a sizing die and I am NOT excited with the results. Not sure that even after a lot of fingering around, I still won't be satisfied. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[Blackwater]

When I got started casting, I just had a mold, a dipper, and a stainless pan I stole from the wife. Lubed in a cookie sheet I stole from her and had the little lub cutters Lee used to make back then. Very cheap, and it worked. No sense waiting. Go order a mould, a dipper, and scrounge the rest. Thrift stores will likely alleviate your having to steal from the wife's stores of food prep items, and keep domestic bliss in order. Time's a'wastin'!

[oley55]

When I got started casting, I just had a mold, a dipper, and a stainless pan I stole from the wife. Lubed in a cookie sheet I stole from her and had the little lub cutters Lee used to make back then. Very cheap, and it worked. No sense waiting. Go order a mould, a dipper, and scrounge the rest. Thrift stores will likely alleviate your having to steal from the wife's stores of food prep items, and keep domestic bliss in order. Time's a'wastin'!

in what and how did you melt your lead on the cheap?

[FrankG]

My Dad and I poured a lot of fishing sinkers with a cast iron pan on a camp stove when I was a kid .

[w30wcf]

I have bumped up bullets using an aluminum pin placed inside of the case. Back out the seating die so that it does not crimp and the fired case fits into the die with no interference. Place the bullet and case into the shellholder and run it up into the die. Adjust the seating stem down to touch the bullet. Back off the ram and adjust the seating stem down 1/4 turn. Run the case back up into the die. Adjust the seating stem a bit at a time until the desired bullet size is reached.

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/w30wcf/45-70bumpingcase.jpg

Another option would be to add a 1/16" thick wad under the undersized bullet which will act as a gas check and provide more accurate shooting. 1/16” Vegetable Fiber, 1000 count bag, $16.00 : This wad is used in rifle and pistol cartridges to protect thebase of a cast lead bullet from gas cutting, thus reducing bore leading andincreasing accuracy. Available in .310”, .320”, .360”, .380”, .405”, .412” .430”, .450”, .455”, .460”, and.510”.
http://circlefly.com/html/products.html

w30wcf

[rbuck351]

I use an old Swag O Matic but they are getting a little hard to find and not so cheap

[Blackwater]

Oley, I just used that stainless cook pot, a "sauce pan." Melted it on the stove which had a vent to the outside (was lucky in that). It worked very well if I just learned to monitor the temp by watching the bullets for frosting, and noted how long it took the sprue to solidify. Not really a lot to it. It just took a little observation and thought on an on-going basis, but you STILL have to do that with just about any melter, so it's really no big deal. Those old pioneers who cast over their usually small camp fires did much the same, and their ability to control the heat was usually governed by how long and how high they sat their usually small melting pots over their beds of coals. They did some awesome things with those bullets, and the same can be done that way today. We don't really NEED all the expensive casting stuff. All we really NEED is the will, desire and/or need to make our own bullets, and a decently humble and observant attitude. That's it, really. All the rest makes things a little easier, more convenient, maybe just a tad safer, but it's not really all that significant when you get right down to it. I know I killed a lot of stuff and did some darn good target shooting with those early cast bullets I made. You can too. Just keep your eyes and your mind open and react as appropriately as you know how to those things, and you'll do very well indeed. Pot temp is the main thing you'll wrestle with at first, but with a little experience, that'll turn out to be not nearly the bugga'-bear it looked like at first. Like most skills, casting is really pretty simple. It's learning the finer points that keeps us steadily improving. I know I've been casting for nearly 50 years now, and I'm STILL learning from the guys here, and always expect to 'till I'm taken from this mortal coil. Funny thing is, it just makes it all more interesting, and leads me to notice things I'd missed before. If you EVER quit learning, you're dying, if not in body, then in Spirit, and that doesn't serve ANYTHING well. Just pay attention and it's amazing how easy "simple" can get. Even if total perfection eludes us, "near 'nuff" will suffice 99.999% of the time. There's a lesson in there somewhere, I guarantee it.

[oley55]

I went back to it again today with better results (I think). Probably won't be shooting any 5" groups at 100 yds, but they should be OK for plinking rounds with the kids n their spouses.

Components used: a 60-80#, 8.5" cast iron arbor press and a .358 (.3583") Lee sizer. I used the Lee die's push through stem and shimmed with spacers to stop the stem at the right dept to have the bullet's first drive band even with the top of the swage/throat portion of the die. Then I used a 3/8" all thread with most of the threads removed for proper fit as the top driving punch. Then via trial and error I adjusted the length of the driving punch until it was flush with the top of the die while maintaining the desired bump.

With the stem sitting in the arbor press with the spacers on it, I put the bullet on the stem, placed the die over the bullet with top punch and lowered/bumped the ram down until it bottomed out on the top of the die. Giving me a repeatable/constant depth/stop.

When pushing the bumped bullet back out of the die, a slight amount of lead is shaved off the band in front of the crimp groove. The front of the bullet matches the the die's dimensions while the base is a bit larger, but will still sizes down without seeming to abuse the already shallow (IMO) lube groove.

Before bumping length is .634-.636", and after is .605-.607".

I went ahead and bumped a 100 to load and test.

[oley55]

thank you all for the advice and input.

since my bumping effort remains an unknown, and recasting still remains an option. Frankly I am not all that impressed with the depth of the lube groove on these, so I may try recasting just because.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Well, I'm impressed you were able to bump that hard of a boolit.



thank you all for the advice and input.

since my bumping effort remains an unknown, and recasting still remains an option. Frankly I am not all that impressed with the depth of the lube groove on these, so I may try recasting just because.
and that's how it starts :razz:

[oley55]

Well, I'm impressed you were able to bump that hard of a boolit.

pretty sure I would not have been able to except for that heavy as hell arbor press. 13 inches of a 1.25 inch square shaft makes for a pretty solid bump with only the slightest nudge back and forth on the handle. By luck the handled ended in a near vertical position, so one or two little bumps holding the handle with just a finger and thumb was more than enough.

[oley55]

tried my bumped bullets out, and my groups were pretty dismal. but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

while thinking through all options I came across a discussion about knurling. I went ahead and knurled a few with a cross hatch file. that increased the measured diameter a good bit. then I ran them through my sizing die to desired dimensions. They performed fairly well. not great but better than I got with bumping and I didn't have any appreciable leading. (except in that darn Ruger Speed-Six, but that's another topic).

I even ran the knurled bullets through my 24" Rossi lever gun all the way up to max load of 15.3 gr IMR4227. Some lead on the leading edge of the lands but then it does have some pretty aggressive lands. I guess tall lands are needed with the slow 1:30 twist. Best group was 3" at 50 yards, but I can get a 3/4" group with an unmutilated 158 gr RNFP, Hi-Tek coated bullet from SNS casting.

the short of a long story is those undersized SWC's can be knurled and made to function as decent plinking bullets. That is until I start melting lead.

[gloob]

I have bumped up bullets using an aluminum pin placed inside of the case.
W30wcf, that is pure genius!