aaronraad
04-25-2015, 01:49 AM
Just two thoughts I've had following an email to another forum member today and some advice I received from a gunsmith in NZ this week. I figured this might be worth sharing with members and I think any comments relating to ones own personal experiences could add real value for other current members and those looking to make a start into swaging.
1) Why you shouldn't overlook a warm-up period when core seating or point forming. I've often read about the number of bullets (25 - 75 or x%), by those that have been willing to share their step-by-step precision swaging processes, designated as reject/varmint/barrel burners generated during the starting period they often describe as 'warm-up'. Typically this is described as a period where the die and/or press itself 'warms-up' and will take on features such a consistent stroke, diameter or meplat diameter etc. through the true production run of 'keepers' that require match grade target accuracy, for whatever reasons. So the discussion of 'warm-up' often points to our swaging equipment and tooling, but I believe the 'warm-up' period also has a lot of merit for the hand swager themselves. In part you also have to believe that the hand swager brings an element of 'feel' to the swaging process that automated pressing can't duplicate, without expensive precision sensors designed into the equipment and tooling.
So I believe that during the warm-up period, when you're making final adjustments and looking for correct (visual and measured) seating pressures, lead lines, boat-tails and meplats etc., you also need to be focusing on the tolerances of what feels right and wrong when operating the press. If you haven't swaged with that particular die set-up for weeks, months or years even, you have to have some form of incredible muscle memory to step-up without any warm-up and become that human gauge free from error, distinguishing all false bullets ejected from the dies without hesitation.
I believe that most humans need that warm-up period and for some it may take longer or shorter than others to get that 'correct' feel back. It can also be about finding the most comfortable position that produces the minimal and hopefully insignificant variances in your final product. I've found simple things like a change in footwear or brand/texture of mechanics type thin nitrile coated gloves I use, require some time to adjust on my part or 'getting use to'. For a while there I thought I was getting a little too precious or "Princess-and-the-Pea" if you like, when I felt a great amount of relief in removing what was nothing more than a piece of lead wire bleed weighing <0.5gr stuck between the out-sole of my 1" thick polyurethane foam footwear and the carpet on the workshop floor where I was pivoting my feet while swaging.
Distractions such as these deteriorate your ability to focus on what your feel if you're trying to swage with the most precision possible. Tragic I know, hardly the image of tough mountain climbing shooter braving the winter elements, or even the hardened gunsmith with calloused hands the size of dinner plates, straining to listening to the sound of metal cutting on his lathe to adjust the feed rate while watching the chip formation. I wouldn't discount a certain amount of physical strength, given I've seen a 12yr old boy put their full body weight behind my press and still not be able to point form, but the 'toughness' if you like comes in the endurance and being able to repeat that over your production run. You also need that certain amount of sensitivity to know when you're too tired to be repeatable and to stop and rest, or pack it away for the night or another day.
So I'd suggest that you should also remember to warm yourself up while you're warming up the swaging equipment and tooling.
2) You're allowed to make mistakes, especially in you're own workshop. We've all heard that part of being human is making mistakes and there is obviously a lot of human that goes into hand swaging and probably even more so into the tooling we use. There is no award or bragging rights for swaging the perfect projectile first up and quite frankly I don't expect anyone to do so. If you can't afford the cost of making mistakes while swaging, you've really got to ask yourself if you're into the right hobby. You have to give yourself time to learn and we don't all get the opportunity of one-on-one hands on training on our own equipment before we start using it. We might have written, verbal and video instructions but they really have their limitations when applied to hand swaging which is very much hands-on feel. Factor in people's preferences for learning across the common methods (visual, auditor and kinaesthetic) and you can understand why swaging doesn't hit the mark straight off the bat for everyone. One of the great attributes of being human, as opposed to machine (although AI is starting to get there), is our ability to learn and so to learn in part is to not repeat your mistakes...intentionally anyway ;)
Conversely there are no bragging rights for making the most mistakes/rejects. I always liked the John West tag line "It's the fish that John West reject that makes John West the best.". The slogan doesn't go into how many John West reject but they admit not every fish they pull out of the sea is up to their standard. During a conversation with a local bullet die maker and swager, he described a tour of the US he made during the 1970's during which time he had a chance to visit with Ted Smith at his workshop. It wasn't until he saw Ted Smith's workshop nearly completely covered, inches deep in rejected hand swaged bullets from experiments, trials and testing that he felt he had met one of two people he described to me as a true 'gun nut'. To give you some idea of how much respect this 85yr old applied to the term 'gun nut', the other person he applied the term to was L.E. Wilson after he had the opportunity to meet him also during one of his US tours decades ago.
So if you're learning, you might still be making mistakes to the very end of days, hopefully though they well be less frequent and produce a smaller number of rejects each time. :)
Here's hoping this post makes some sense to at least some one? ;)
1) Why you shouldn't overlook a warm-up period when core seating or point forming. I've often read about the number of bullets (25 - 75 or x%), by those that have been willing to share their step-by-step precision swaging processes, designated as reject/varmint/barrel burners generated during the starting period they often describe as 'warm-up'. Typically this is described as a period where the die and/or press itself 'warms-up' and will take on features such a consistent stroke, diameter or meplat diameter etc. through the true production run of 'keepers' that require match grade target accuracy, for whatever reasons. So the discussion of 'warm-up' often points to our swaging equipment and tooling, but I believe the 'warm-up' period also has a lot of merit for the hand swager themselves. In part you also have to believe that the hand swager brings an element of 'feel' to the swaging process that automated pressing can't duplicate, without expensive precision sensors designed into the equipment and tooling.
So I believe that during the warm-up period, when you're making final adjustments and looking for correct (visual and measured) seating pressures, lead lines, boat-tails and meplats etc., you also need to be focusing on the tolerances of what feels right and wrong when operating the press. If you haven't swaged with that particular die set-up for weeks, months or years even, you have to have some form of incredible muscle memory to step-up without any warm-up and become that human gauge free from error, distinguishing all false bullets ejected from the dies without hesitation.
I believe that most humans need that warm-up period and for some it may take longer or shorter than others to get that 'correct' feel back. It can also be about finding the most comfortable position that produces the minimal and hopefully insignificant variances in your final product. I've found simple things like a change in footwear or brand/texture of mechanics type thin nitrile coated gloves I use, require some time to adjust on my part or 'getting use to'. For a while there I thought I was getting a little too precious or "Princess-and-the-Pea" if you like, when I felt a great amount of relief in removing what was nothing more than a piece of lead wire bleed weighing <0.5gr stuck between the out-sole of my 1" thick polyurethane foam footwear and the carpet on the workshop floor where I was pivoting my feet while swaging.
Distractions such as these deteriorate your ability to focus on what your feel if you're trying to swage with the most precision possible. Tragic I know, hardly the image of tough mountain climbing shooter braving the winter elements, or even the hardened gunsmith with calloused hands the size of dinner plates, straining to listening to the sound of metal cutting on his lathe to adjust the feed rate while watching the chip formation. I wouldn't discount a certain amount of physical strength, given I've seen a 12yr old boy put their full body weight behind my press and still not be able to point form, but the 'toughness' if you like comes in the endurance and being able to repeat that over your production run. You also need that certain amount of sensitivity to know when you're too tired to be repeatable and to stop and rest, or pack it away for the night or another day.
So I'd suggest that you should also remember to warm yourself up while you're warming up the swaging equipment and tooling.
2) You're allowed to make mistakes, especially in you're own workshop. We've all heard that part of being human is making mistakes and there is obviously a lot of human that goes into hand swaging and probably even more so into the tooling we use. There is no award or bragging rights for swaging the perfect projectile first up and quite frankly I don't expect anyone to do so. If you can't afford the cost of making mistakes while swaging, you've really got to ask yourself if you're into the right hobby. You have to give yourself time to learn and we don't all get the opportunity of one-on-one hands on training on our own equipment before we start using it. We might have written, verbal and video instructions but they really have their limitations when applied to hand swaging which is very much hands-on feel. Factor in people's preferences for learning across the common methods (visual, auditor and kinaesthetic) and you can understand why swaging doesn't hit the mark straight off the bat for everyone. One of the great attributes of being human, as opposed to machine (although AI is starting to get there), is our ability to learn and so to learn in part is to not repeat your mistakes...intentionally anyway ;)
Conversely there are no bragging rights for making the most mistakes/rejects. I always liked the John West tag line "It's the fish that John West reject that makes John West the best.". The slogan doesn't go into how many John West reject but they admit not every fish they pull out of the sea is up to their standard. During a conversation with a local bullet die maker and swager, he described a tour of the US he made during the 1970's during which time he had a chance to visit with Ted Smith at his workshop. It wasn't until he saw Ted Smith's workshop nearly completely covered, inches deep in rejected hand swaged bullets from experiments, trials and testing that he felt he had met one of two people he described to me as a true 'gun nut'. To give you some idea of how much respect this 85yr old applied to the term 'gun nut', the other person he applied the term to was L.E. Wilson after he had the opportunity to meet him also during one of his US tours decades ago.
So if you're learning, you might still be making mistakes to the very end of days, hopefully though they well be less frequent and produce a smaller number of rejects each time. :)
Here's hoping this post makes some sense to at least some one? ;)