Looking for some education on swaging

[Triggerhappy]

Having never swaged I have a couple of questions. I've read this section of the forum off and on with interest but swaging probably isn't anything I'll ever attempt. Could someone enlighten me on a couple of items. I recently bought a case of Montana Gold bullets in a 185g JHP that has what seems like a solid brass jacket. Seems like the jacket would be hard enough to quickly wear out a barrel, more so than a copper jacket would. Is this true? When swaging how do you get around the wear induced by using a harder jacket? I've wondered this for a long time.

How much harder is a brass jacket compared to a copper alloy commonly in use? Does a brass jacket cause additional barrel wear?

Thanks in advance for the help.

TH

[sqlbullet]

Brass is a broad category with many different brass alloys. Cartridge brass (70% Cu, 30% Zn) is very common, however, and it will be assumed that this is the alloy referenced.

When fully work hardened cartridge brass has a brinell hardness number of 155, significantly above that of plain copper (about 40). However, cartridge brass can be heat annealed down to the mid 40's BHN. It work hardens. Heat quenching is not supposed to have a significant effect on it's hardness. I cannot speak to the hardness of the bullets in question.

Steel's brinell hardness is significantly higher than copper or brass, and therefore it is not expected that brass would have a significant negative impact on barrel life.

[felix]

Nomenclature is odd, and is basically historical. Bronze comes from the Bronze Age, and includes everything that is equal to 50 percent or more copper, including Brass. Brass is a subset of Bronze, and has special meaning nowadays as only zinc as a diluting agent to copper. The most common brass is called commercial brass, and that has 10 percent zinc. Guilding metal has 5 percent. Gaschecks are typically guilding metal, but that is more expensive than commercial brass and so the Gator has been using the 10 percent zinc brass in some sizes. If you have two checks side by side, you will see the 10 percenter is more yellow and harder. ... felix

[Triggerhappy]

Thanks guys for the info. Knew most of the metallurgy behind the alloy. Just wondered how it effected barrel wear. If one were to shoot thousands of rounds of the harder alloy would it cause a significant amount of barrel wear? Not too worried about an inexpensive XD barrel but I'd hate to cause undue wear in an expensive barrel.

Th

[bohica2xo]

Cartridge brass used as a jacket is just fine, and will not cause unusual wear in a barrel. I have fired hundreds of rounds of Barnes solid brass .224 bullets @ 3500 fps & above without any signs of barrel wear - throat erosion aside

Millions of rounds of military & sporting ammunition have been fired over the years with jackets much harder than brass - mild STEEL. USGI 30-06, 7.62x54R, virtually all of the chicom 7.62x39, 8mm mauser - all with steel jackets.

Many Norma bullets & ammunition with "silver" bullets are steel jackets. The old 8mm 196 gr. Dual Core would stick to a magnet, as will Geco 32acp ammo. There are other commercial steel jackets as well.

I fired thousands of bullets machined from 12L14 steel without an issue, in .224, 308 & .510 diameters. I wore out a hand, bolt & various other parts shooting an M29 S&W with galvanized steel washers on the bullet bases rather than zinc as was intended. I have no idea what the M29's round count was, but I know I burned powder by the 8lb can.

Most barrel wear shows up in the throat first, from powder erosion. If jacket friction was wearing out barrels, high velocity rifle barrels would wear out at the muzzle, not the throat.

B.