Forming slugs by swaging

[Mr. White]

Hello!

Have anyone experiance with swaging slugs or boolits? I'm not talking about swaging for the correct diameter. Simplified, I mean, drop a lead or copper piece into a form or mold and swage it to shape with a "plunger".

I'm contemplating turnig a form and plunger to test it. I bet it's gonna be hard to get a copper slug to form correctly, but it would be slick to make your own copper slugs without cnc machines.
I'm more hopeful about swaging lead slugs, still gonna be tricky though.

Thought and experiences?

Excuse spelling errors and bad grammar. I'm not a native english speaker.

/ White

[longbow]

I suspect you will not be successful swaging copper unless you buy or build a substantial hydraulic press.

Here is a link with some info about sizing swaging presses:

https://www.thefabricator.com/stampingjournal/article/stamping/ask-the-expert-how-do-i-calculate-press-tonnage-for-swaging-

Also, a link to Corbin bullet swaging:

http://www.corbins.com/corbin.htm

It takes a pretty sturdy press to swage soft lead bullets as well.

If lead is banned/restricted I suspect that castable non-toxic materials like zinc and bismuth will get more use.

Longbow

[longbow]

Having said that, a copper Foster slug might be more easily formable by punching disks the drawing them so not requiring swaging forces.

Longbow

[Cap'n Morgan]

Years ago we were discussing homemade, swaged slugs in here. Brenneke slugs seemed to be made by swaging (or more correctly: cold forming), and one of the members "Chicken Thief" actually made a simple ripped die and plunger to prove the concept - and it did indeed work as expected. I contemplated to make a cold forming setup for a Brenneke clone, but gave up on the idea as I think it will only work with pure (or nearly pure) lead. I like my slugs to be a bit on the tough side, and was afraid that alloyed lead would be too brittle for any larger deformation.

Copper lends itself well to cold forming. Brass is also good, but will only work with hot forming (heat to a bright orange glow)

[Mr. White]

Thanks for those links. I have some reading to do.


If lead is banned/restricted I suspect that castable non-toxic materials like zinc and bismuth will get more use.

Longbow

Lead isnt banned for hunting or target shooting, but it's very hard to find scrap lead.

[longbow]

! can vouch for harder lead alloys being brittle.

I made a sizing die to reduce Lee Drive Key slug diameter to remove the taper. If memory serves the diameter was about 0.667" for the 7/8 oz. slug which in my case has a smaller skirt diameter than the 1 oz. slug. Wheelweight slugs cracked when sized that much (down from 0.685" at the nose). I wound up boring the die to 0.675" IIRC and that was enough to remove all teh taper from my 1 oz. slugs and most from my 7/8 oz. slugs... and didn't crack the slugs though it likely introduced enough stress that they may break up more easily on impact. They shot fine but I didn't recover any after impact to examine them.

Longbow

[Mr. White]

Having said that, a copper Foster slug might be more easily formable by punching disks the drawing them so not requiring swaging forces.

Longbow

Wouldn't drawing it cause it to be thin at the tip and thicker in the skirt?

[rancher1913]

a member on here that goes by "uncle dino" has done a lot of work swagging slugs, he also is a vendor sponsor and sells his work.

[longbow]

Punching disks of a specific thickness could be done then as it is drawn the nose left thick and skirt thinned but it would take multiple dies to accomplish this.

Impact extrusion is another method but again, it would take a big press for copper.

I think it would be a lot cheaper and easier to either use an alternative cast alloy or buy a small CNC lathe to machine slugs out of brass, copper, bronze or whatever is available. The main issue is that most other materials are lower density than lead. Not a real big issue for shotgun slugs because they are so big anyway but of course if you like casting then machining isn't casting.

CNC machining also makes chips which is wasteful but they could be sold as scrap and some money regained.

Zinc is non toxic and generally readily available plus zinc can be cast in the same moulds you have now. It is about 70% the density of lead but a longer slug will still get you a 1 oz. or so slug in reasonable proportions.

Another option is to use a readily available shape (round bar cut to length) in steel, copper, or whatever and make attached wad sabot slugs so you have a plastic sabot housing the slug with an attached wad. The slug never touches the barrel and that attached wad provides the drag stabilization... assuming this is for smoothbore. If for rifled gun then a slug like the Slugs R Us design can be used:

https://www.slugsrus.com/

Longbow

[Mr. White]

Rancher. Thank you for pointing me in that direction. That was some good food for thought.

[a danl]

Hello!

Have anyone experiance with swaging slugs or boolits? I'm not talking about swaging for the correct diameter. Simplified, I mean, drop a lead or copper piece into a form or mold and swage it to shape with a "plunger".

I'm contemplating turnig a form and plunger to test it. I bet it's gonna be hard to get a copper slug to form correctly, but it would be slick to make your own copper slugs without cnc machines.
I'm more hopeful about swaging lead slugs, still gonna be tricky though.

Thought and experiences?

Excuse spelling errors and bad grammar. I'm not a native english speaker.

/ White

i have been doing that for a number of years, but the conclusion i have come to is the twist of shotgun bbls is wrong and every once in a while i get one that keyholes although they still hit the target at 50 yds. all because the slug is too short for the twist rate. plus a longer slug would weigh much too heavy. fortunately here in Pa. we are now allowed to use straight wall cartridges such as 45/70. i have also killed at least 8 bucks with my swaged slugs at above bore dia so all was not in vain

[Mr. White]

LB. I could without a problem make some slugs with cnc-machinery as I am a machinist, altough it's not my proffesion anymore. It is however, hard for the diyer to either buy or operate a cnc.
I'm just exploring if it's possible to swage a stable slug, like the foster slug. I guess that's the easiest shape.
You do make some good points. It might not be an effective way to make slugs. I mean, known companies use cnc for a reason.
It would be a non issue if copper were easier to cast.

/ White

[Mr. White]

A danl.
Could you go into more detail on the slugs please? Lead? shape? Weight? Tailwad?

/ White

[longbow]

Here is a link to a thread from a few years ago about copper slugs:

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?168755-Copper-Slugs-info

Also, something not quite the same but... a few years ago I concluded that the wad column and/or attached wad for home cast slugs was the biggest issue for consistency. Attached wads have to retain their shape if they are to provide anything other than tail drag... they have to be straight and even to provide accuracy. I have tried various plastics, nitro card wads stacked and screwed to a slug, felt and others with little success. One day it occurred to me that copper pipe is quite light compared to lead and with the thin wall could make a nice attached skirt. So, I cut some 1/2" copper pipe in about 5/8" (16mm) lengths, drilled some 0.662" lead balls and ran short wood screws in with the head sticking out. Set the balls with screw heads upright, put pipe "skirt" onto ball then fill with hot melt glue. The screws are to give the glue something to hold onto.

I loaded those in trap wads and found they shot pretty well. Same idea could be used for zinc balls or cylinders, steel balls or cylinders, copper bars or cylinders, etc. Cutting round bar to length then adding an extended copper pipe skirt is fairly easy. Steel shot wads have thick enough petals that a 0.662" ball is a press fit in an unslit wad. In fact the unslit wad cut down and with a couple of nitro card wads in the bottom makes for a not bad attached wad slug using 0.662" RB's Same would apply to appropriate size steel rod, brass rod or whatever. The only "machining " required would be to cut the rod to accurate length with square faces.

Kinda thinking out loud here. Sorry! But the ideas work. I found some to be a bit much work for my liking but for a few rounds for hunting not a big deal.

Longbow

[a danl]

A danl.
Could you go into more detail on the slugs please? Lead? shape? Weight? Tailwad?

/ White

i use a lyman foster mold and then i use my press and adaptors for forcing the slug into a section of cutoff bbl which i honed to .734 and fill the base with beeswax so wads cannot jam into slug. also a little bit of mica lube on base of slug to keep wad from sticking to the slug. build wad column accordingly for proper height and rollcrimp. one of the 1/4 in wads is saturated with bore butter melted in a pan which eliminates all leading

[Sasquatch-1]

You may want to go to the swaging sub forum and do some reading on the stickies. If you do some digging I remember lots of threads on making dies.

Also, what do you plan on using for a press?

[W.R.Buchanan]

My .02 on this subject is that if you are going to swage slugs You might just as well copy the one that has been in production for over 100 years and arguably the best one out there. IE: Brenneke.

Obviously making the tooling to make that type of slug with twisted splines is going to be expensive and time consuming. Probably going to require a Wire EDM Machine to accomplish. Capt?

I don't see anything to be gained by swaging Foster Style Slugs that can be cast much easier. Now if you wanted to make a zillion of them yes it would be faster and easier to swage them and the Tooling Costs would be amortized over a larger number of slugs. We are talking many thousands of slugs, not a couple of hundred for personal use.

Then you have to have a fairly substantial Hydraulic Press to squash the lead into submission. Really the only way this works is if you already have all the machinery,,, and the only thing left is the dies that go into the machinery.

Otherwise it becomes,,, "First you spend a Million Bucks, and then you try to make it back!"

My .02

Randy

[longbow]

I was responding mostly re the copper swaging. Corbin has it all covered fora price if you want to swage lead:

http://www.corbins.com/slugs.htm

This link says helical fins but they don't look helical to me:

http://www.swagedies.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=CBST&Product_Code=SGS-3-H&Category_Code=HSWAGE

Since the fins produce very little spin straight ribs should for all intents and purposes be just as accurate if an attached wad is used. The purpose of the ribs according to Brenneke is to swage to bore size (slugs are oversize) and to allow easy swaging though a choke. I suspect they would result in reduced bore friction too.

Yes, it seems to me Cap'n Morgan used EDM to make his Brenneke clone. Few people have his skill set and access to all the equipment he does.

Longbow