Good stuff Thor, I have ben wondering what to do with a heap of 22 cases! Corbin stuff is a bit hard and expensive to get hold of but after seeing the dies and reading your tutorial I reckon I can make up some dies and give it a go. Many Thanks!!!
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Good stuff Thor, I have ben wondering what to do with a heap of 22 cases! Corbin stuff is a bit hard and expensive to get hold of but after seeing the dies and reading your tutorial I reckon I can make up some dies and give it a go. Many Thanks!!!
Too cool! Keep the pics coming!!! What type of accuracy is achieved by these bullets? I am very interested in all aspects of this process.
Um, Frankly I have to admit that I have not taken any of my homemades to the range so I can't tell you group size. My dad made bullets on this stuff years ago and we just load the 22 cal stuff for shooting "gophers" (Montana Richardson Ground Squirrels) They are about the same size as your grey squirrels so you want something that shoots fairly well. We have no problem hitting what we aim at and the results with the brass jackets are very dramatic.
Now that I am making my own bullets I have some loads set up but the weather here is -8 degrees and there is a blizzard outside so I won't know for sure how my stuff compares till later in the spring.
Just for Info sake, I measured my jacket forming dies and the set I use most has a die hole of .223 and a punch size of .200. That is the set with yellow paint shown above. I have others with smaller punches and smaller holes. I have not made a set for the 243 cause I did not have a rifle in that caliber. Now that I have a set of forming dies I went out and bought two 243 guns so I have a reason to make bullets.:mrgreen:
MightyThor, what part of Montana are you in. I've been looking for someplace to shoot the Richardson's here. I have been going into Alberta for varminting, but wouldn't mind somewhere closer to home. They are very thick up there, but crossing the border can be a pain in the butt at times.
Ric, Did you drag anything noteworthy up? I have been on small trout on my trips out [-16"] Gianni
Are you kidding, with the wind that was blowing here on Saturday he probably had to send an Anchor down just to stay on the ice.
Mighty Thor,
I am just outside of Great Falls, your set-up for making jacketed boolits is interesting.
We may have to get together for a up of coffee.
Jerry
Reading a while back in PS magazine somebody was making full dies that were said to be good up to 150,000 cases if I remember right and cost about $160....Now I just have to sort through 20 years of magazines to find that issue again (was a recent issue though rest assured) :Fire:
Thor: man, those are great pics, and the size's I've been trying to learn for a long time.
Thank you guys for posting all this good stuff.
Thor: pm coming shortly.
Wonderwolf, that info would be greatly appreciated. I wanted to get a set of dies for RF bullets from Sport-Flite, but can't find them. Anyone know what became of them anf if their dies are still available?
I'll try and drag up that issue, I think its towards the top of the stack as I wanted to keep it close.
I'm seriously thinking about getting into this hardcore. I have a great source for soft lead and unlimited jackets (trash cans full). I have nice big clumps of down time that I can use for making bullets instead of reloading my 5 gal bucket of .44mag all the time :Fire:
I would like to attempt making my own dies first. Hard part would be the bullet shape. As you could run the case through a lee push through to true it up if its just oversized.
My big Q is does it matter what manufactures of case you use. Say federal bulk pack, wolf match and some winchester wildcat? Is there a significant differance in these?
Frankly if you are just doing what I am (making bullets to throw down range) you don't really need to worry about what case you have. If you want to make Bench Rest bullets you probably want to sort stuff. I have found the cases to be fairly consistent or at least not particularly inconsistent between batches and brands. Once and a while I will get a long jacket or some other sort of anomaly and since you are doing this all by hand you just end up pulling that one out along with some sort of plan to "test" it later. You can "size" your bullets after pointing them but I would rather not have to so I went looking for a new die that made them dead on and am very satisfied with the Corbin and non corbin I ended up with. I have two different kind of Herter's sizers and they do tend to change the tip of the bullet while sizing. this is sometimes a good thing. A push through die would do as well I imagine.
Has anybody run into problems with firing pin strikes swagging out to cracks in the Jacket?
Yes, If the case was struck by the firing pin very hard when fired the jackets seem to develop cracks sometimes or all the time depending on the batch of cases.
-Yarro
With jacketed bullets you want to avoid sizing down. When you swage bullets you only size up. Only sizing up keeps the jacket pressed tightly against the core. If you size down the jacket and core will sometimes sepperate due to spring back of the jacket. That bit of sepperation between jacket and core does nothing good for accuracy.
I think the only way to avoid sepperation is to bond the core to the jacket.
BIC/BS
Bullshop:
Will that happen even with annealed jackets first?
seems if they're dead soft, they wouldn't spring back any.
I've wondered about putting a drop of something sticky in first. Then it would
squirt up along side and glue the core and jackets. Not sure what to use though.
Maybe long setting time epoxy. Can't be much of it or it'd make a mess in the pointing
die. Be worth playing with though just to learn what it might do.
Some yrs ago I got a batch from a maker in MT. MHG I think it was, recently got a few hundred from an old shooting buddy that died in Nov that he got from the same source. They're all brands of jackets. Smooth/slick jackets and well polished.
I do like the ring on Thor's sample's though. Don't matter to me in a NEF. Once they're made, will polish 'em some anyway.
Has anyone tried this sort of thing??