Bronze boolits

[JLF]

Lead bronze alloy is possible. Boolits of said alloy would be self lubricating.
Apart from the mold it has to be made of steel. What would be another inconvenience?

[CastingFool]

The one drawback I see is the high temp needed to melt brass. My suggestion would be to find very soft brass rods and machine boolits out of it.

[VariableRecall]

Unless you were very patient and recovered all of the boolits, all that bronze may not be worth the expense, especially when copper prices are the way they are now.

[Polymath]

The only time I heard about Bronze or Brass bullets was custom machined sniper projectiles for the .405 Cheytac. Be ok if Uncle Sam was paying for them.

[tiger762]

There will be a lot of shrinkage as it cools down from 2000F :drinks: The mold will have to cast an oversized product. That is the biggest problem I see.

[country gent]

I see several things with the bronze copper bullets. You will lose some bullet weight since a lead cored 180 grn is shorter than a solid 180 grn bronze bullet. Swaging force will be very high to get bronze to "flow", Bronze being harder wont swell or upset as easily to rifling and bores. Casting bronze requires some higher heat and cutting sprues will become much harder and the fluxes are much different.

A small bench top cnc lathe with bar puller and tool changer could be set up to turn from bar stock easily and would run almost unattended. for a 308 bullet start with 5/16 stock a light turn to size then the ogive and base cut off and it drops in the parts bin. would probably be 10 - 12 secs per bullet, much faster than casting or swaging.

[MostlyLeverGuns]

The heat required is the first issue and a major point, machined copper/gilding metal would probably be more cost effective, would not meet state requirements for 'LEAD-FREE' bullets, pressure issues due to difficulty with engraving by rifling.

[perotter]

The only time I heard about Bronze or Brass bullets was custom machined sniper projectiles for the .405 Cheytac. Be ok if Uncle Sam was paying for them.

The 8mm Lebel used them in a military round. Yup gov paying for them. I think they were forged and then maybe swagged.

[BNE]

The OP mentioned an alloy. That’s a lot different than just bronze.

I’m intrigued, what % would get you to a hard, self lubricating Bullet and still be cast able at home?

BNE

[rockrat]

Fellow used to make 50 cal. bullets out of an oil impregnated bronze alloy. He said you could see a smoke trail from the bullet going downrange

[Bmi48219]

Fellow used to make 50 cal. bullets out of an oil impregnated bronze alloy. He said you could see a smoke trail from the bullet going downrange

That sounds like it was Oilite Bronze used for bearings.

”Oilite is formed using powder metallurgy so that tiny pores are present in the metal. The pores are then vacuum impregnated with an oil to improve the material’s bearing ability. The material holds approximately 20% oil by volume. The most common lubricant is SAE 30 oil.”
“Due to the porous structure, machining Oilite poses a special situation. To machine Oilite, the cutting tool must be—and stay—sharp; therefore, tungsten carbide is often used.”

Copper [%] Iron [%] Graphite [%] Tin [%] Other elements [max.%] 87.2–90.5 1 max. 0–0.3 9.5–10.5 1.0

Wonder if he sized or machined them?