Concept : Jacketed rounds

[Colt .45]

Well I'm just getting into the making of 'boolits' rather forcibly as the local stores here (in canada) have not had shipments of 7.62 x 54 R ammo in two years. :( Seems people south of here have been buying lots of it.

Well in my desire to do a good job I thought about how to make bullet jackets. So the plan is to use annealed copper tube usually used for automotive uses, 1.80$ a foot; cut links of this approx 1/2 inch long and drop them inside a mold for a 7.62 boat tail spitzer. Then closing the mold on the soft copper and seeing if I can managed to form it nicely into a half jacket for the base end of the round. I have yet to slug the barrels of all of my weapons to get the exact diameters, and I will probably be going with a smooth edged mold ( no ribs on the bullet).

Annealed copper tubing link:
http://www.princessauto.com/air/compressor-accessories/secondary-accessories/8133142-3/8-o_d_-flexible-copper-tubing

Plan B was to use milsurp 7.62 x 39 ammo , which is readily available around here. in conjunction with a bullet puller ( already tested bullet and powder come out fine). According to wikipedia the powder in these is ssnf50. My curiosity here is as to whether using that powder in 7.62 x 54 R would be advisable? or just use the tips? ( ~120 grain, fmj boattail spitzers ). I was planning on starting below the lowest advised loads for a 120 grain bullet for X54 across all powders, which would be around 35 grains, then moving up to 40 ish tops.


Just for clarification I have access to and will probably be buying lapua brass.

Either of these solutions are for plinking ammo more then any thing else.

[mroliver77]

Why not buy a mold and shoot cast boolits? Most of my shooting is done with cast.
I dont know if you can buy bullets from the states but Pats reloading has/had pulled .311 bullets for $90. per thou.
Back to your post I dont see anything wrong with your idea except the surplus X39 brass you end up with.
Jay

[Colt .45]

Why not buy a mold and shoot cast boolits? Most of my shooting is done with cast.
I dont know if you can buy bullets from the states but Pats reloading has/had pulled .311 bullets for $90. per thou.
Back to your post I dont see anything wrong with your idea except the surplus X39 brass you end up with.
Jay

I had a plan for all of the leftover 7.62 x 39 brass, its actually lacquered steel casings berdan primed. I was going to take the primers out and then stick tips in the rounds and sell them with stripper clips on ebay as dummy rounds; Ive done something similar before with .303 rounds and they went for ~1$ per round.



I guess the idea of making jacketed rounds was because I had the idea that lead might foul the gas system on my SVT 40. Im going to try the jackets anyways to see if they work, but I may very well just go to straight lead boolits.

[sagacious]

Im going to try the jackets anyways to see if they work
Let's take a closer look before you try it anyway. Uncoiling, straightening, and cutting copper tube into wee bits, then deburring, lubing, drawing, cleaning, preheating and placing into a firey-hot mold, and pouring lead consistently enough to keep the reject % low seems like a lot of labor.

And after all that work, when someone has the tubing "jacket" stick in the bore, while the lead core exits..... and, wait for it..... then fires another round, bad things will happen in a hurry. Ay caramba, I don't even want to think about it.

Not trying to discourage; only hoping to educate and possibly save you considerable chagrin, and maybe even some grief.

You're far better off with the conventional casting route using alox/wax lube, and gas checks if desired. Pure copper tubing "jackets" foul the bore badly anyway. Good luck. :drinks:

[Colt .45]

Let's take a closer look before you try it anyway. Uncoiling, straightening, and cutting copper tube into wee bits, then deburring, lubing, drawing, cleaning, preheating and placing into a firey-hot mold, and pouring lead consistently enough to keep the reject % low seems like a lot of labor.

And after all that work, when someone has the tubing "jacket" stick in the bore, while the lead core exits..... and, wait for it..... then fires another round, bad things will happen in a hurry. Ay caramba, I don't even want to think about it.

Not trying to discourage; only hoping to educate and possibly save you considerable chagrin, and maybe even some grief.

You're far better off with the conventional casting route using alox/wax lube, and gas checks if desired. Pure copper tubing "jackets" foul the bore badly anyway. Good luck. :drinks:

You may well be very right, the only sizes at the store were 1/4 inch and 3/8 inch, what I need is .308 ish in diameter so i have too small and too large. I bought a foot of each (came out to 2.50$) to give it a try, chances are it most likely wont work. But hey nothing beats trying!

As to the other idea, no one sees any problems using the powder for a short cartridge in the x 54R?

[Rockydog]

IF you were 1. absolutely sure what the powder was. 2. could find reliable loading data for that exact powder 3. Could find data for that light a bullet in that particular chambering. I'd see no problems. But I really doubt if you'll meet those 3 criteria. Wikipedia isn't exactly a reliable source for powder types. With all of the countries, many 3rd world, making 7.62 X 39 ammo I'd bet there are many types of powders out there. Just because a load is light does not mean it's safe. There are some powders out there that are very hard to light unless packed tightly against the primer. The primer detonation may start the bullet down the barrel before the powder lights and in effect makes a bore obstruction that causes bad juju when the powder does light. Not saying that will happen but you are dealing wth a whole bunch of unknowns here. Better safe than sorry. Find some cast boolits to try with some proven cast loads. Low recoil, often very accurate, cases last forever, whats not to like. RD

[sagacious]

... But hey nothing beats trying!

As to the other idea, no one sees any problems using the powder for a short cartridge in the x 54R?
Yeah, I'm with you on that. Try it and see how it goes. As long as you're aware of all the potential pitfalls, you can prepare for them. As the saying goes, forewarned is forearmed.

I agree with Rockydog on the powder. Be careful and good luck.

[Echo]

Well, I disagree. I would store the x39 powder for use in magnum pistols. Of course, mild loads of ~16-18 grs of unknown powder might be OK... maybe...

[Buckshot]

...............You can go visit the Swaging Forum here and find out all about creating jackets via copper tube by using draw dies, dies to swage the base closed, core seating and nose forming dies.

"Either of these solutions are for plinking ammo more then any thing else."

By casting your own, an estimated price would be somewhere around:

Primer: 3¢
Gas check: 2.8¢
Powder: 5.7¢ @ $25/lb and 16.0 grs charge (2400 powder)
Boolit: 1.4¢ @ 200grs (lead .50¢/lb)
__________________
12.9¢ per shot

..............Buckshot

[mroliver77]

AND..... I shoot cast in all my gas operated guns with no problems. We can talk you through it if you give it a try.
Jay

[XWrench3]

Well, as for the "jackets", i think that might get you into trouble. Unless you can solder, or somehow otherwise bond them to the lead. As for the 7.62x39 powder in the 7.62x54r case, if you are using the exact amount that came out of each "39" round in your "54r" rounds, i would think it would be fine. But if you are thinking of upping the load, by say using the powder from 50 "39"shells to load 30 "54r" rounds, you could get into some serious bad trouble.

All of this ammo availability **** is just that. And if we do not stand up and be heard, it is only going to get worse. All the touchy feely whiners are going to whine your guns and ammo right out of existance if we do not make as much noise, if not more than they do. It has been said many times, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. In my opinion, the touch-feelies are evil, and, well, they are winning!

[kawalekm]

Hi Colt45
You have lots of options with swaging, which you can do with a set a swaging dies that screw right into your reloading press. Besides tubing jackets another long practiced method is to make bullets from recycled brass cases. I myself have made .224" jacketed bullets from spent .22 rimfire shells, .357 bullets from .380 auto cases, .40 from 9mm, and 44magnum from .40S&W cases. Here's a pic of how I made two .357" bullets from a .223 case cut in half. Visit the swaging section of this forum and you'll get lots of great ideas on making jacketed bullets.
http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r55/kawalekm/223caseto357jackets.jpg

About the idea of recycling powder from 7.6X39 rounds; this same question was posed on another forum. To help the discussion, I pulled the bullet on a commercial round of 7.6X39 and measured 24 grains of ball powder. For that weight of bullet, I guestimated that the powder used MIGHT have a burning rate close to IMR 4198. If so (and remember, that is a guess) you MIGHT use 4198 data for developing a load in your cartridge. That might be hard, because 4198 is considered too fast burning for such a large case, and there are only a few cast bullet loads listed for it.

[Colt .45]

Thanks for all the responses. I guess I will look into some swaging dies at some point.

Kawalekm, I was going to use the pulled bullets to reload in the x54 so I wouldent have problems with cast rounds, but I was expecting there to be differences in the burn rate hence my hesitation. Of course I could also use cast rounds which could be anywhere up to 200 grain slugs ( probably ~155 ).


EDIT:

Althoug I should add that if cast boolits do not foul gas systems, then my desire to fire jacked rounds is really unfounded...

[mroliver77]

Colt.45,
Go to the Military Rifle section of this forum and read the sticky by Bruce B on shooting cast in the M14 (a gas operated rifle) It is a good read that touches on many points associated with loading for gas guns.
I have taken apart 7.62X25 rounds that misfired and loaded the powder and bullets into 30-06, 30-30 and similer cases and they shot well. I have done this with and without filler. I have also done same with the 7.62X39 rounds using the powder and bullet from 1 round in a larger .30 case. The bullet is .002 larger but made no noticeable difference. I use enough dacron on top of powder to compress a bit with the bullet and keep powder in the bottom of case. I was not going to post this as one can get beat up when advocating using fillers. This is how I do it and I do not advise anybody to use MY technique.Most all X39 is loaded with a powder in the 1680, 2200 range so like you if I had a pile of it I would assume it to be the fastest of powders used in the X39 and work up loads accordingly or just use the charge from one case.
Jay

[a.squibload]

In light 44 mag rounds I have used the stuff from pill bottles as filler.
How to tell if it's dacron or cotton? In pistol rounds I guess it doesn't matter,
but I'm thinking of reloading 30 cal some day, understand there may be a difference in "burn rate" for dacron?
Maybe stick it in a flame and see what happens?
Wifey takes a lot of pills, vitamins, etc. and saves the stuff for me.

[Colt .45]

Colt.45,
Go to the Military Rifle section of this forum and read the sticky by Bruce B on shooting cast in the M14 (a gas operated rifle) It is a good read that touches on many points associated with loading for gas guns.
I have taken apart 7.62X25 rounds that misfired and loaded the powder and bullets into 30-06, 30-30 and similer cases and they shot well. I have done this with and without filler. I have also done same with the 7.62X39 rounds using the powder and bullet from 1 round in a larger .30 case. The bullet is .002 larger but made no noticeable difference. I use enough dacron on top of powder to compress a bit with the bullet and keep powder in the bottom of case. I was not going to post this as one can get beat up when advocating using fillers. This is how I do it and I do not advise anybody to use MY technique.Most all X39 is loaded with a powder in the 1680, 2200 range so like you if I had a pile of it I would assume it to be the fastest of powders used in the X39 and work up loads accordingly or just use the charge from one case.
Jay


Will do, and thank you very much sir.

Just bought a Lee two cavity 90361 .312 160 grain mold off ebay yesterday. (soon starts the molding!)


No further need to respond on this one guys, i've got a pile of info; thanks to all who responded. (Admin can lock if desired)