Casting pure lead directly into 22lr for 224 jacketed?

Please tell if this is or isn't a possibility:

Cast pure lead straight into de-rimmed, sized 22lr brass and fill it up as if it were a cup, then mash it upwards into a tip swaging die. Seems if you had the depth right, it should take the form you wanted, or if you had too much lead in the cup and a leak hole, extra lead would get vented out...? You'd only need one uberexpensive mashing die and one modified affordable Lee 224 sizing die...?

I saw someone that had a youtube video about placing the cups right into a specialty mold for making 223 projectiles that got me thinking about this...

Thanks!

I don't see why not, except for the difficulty in doing so without it going all over the place.. I'm sure there are likely machines that do this but not one I can afford.

You would need to have the de-rimed case almost to the perfect (.224) diameter, probably just under to begin with. The 22 point forming dies don't take much pressure to form a bullet so the bullet won't expand very much. If you could make the die like a closed end die, then you could put pressure on it and expand the bullet, but you need a way to push the bullet back out.

Biggest problem I can see with this approach might be getting a uniform weight core as different cases might hold slightly different amounts of lead. If you don't mind weighing the finished products and sorting, I can't see why this couldn't be done.

Here is the youtube you might be referring to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkAU5...eature=related

I tried this approach with the 44 cals from 40 S&W brass. I tried dipping the case and pouring the lead into the case. I could not keep the weight variation within 10 grains as I remember.

Maybe a mold of sorts could be made to hold the case with a spure cutter of sorts over the top to control the amount of lead for best chance at uniform weights but then you are stuck with a %100 lead filled jacket which would make a SP type bullet. To make a mold like this would require you to drill a hole and if you have to bore a hole it might as well be in a custom core mold to fit the case shouldn't it? Dealing with hot moltent lead in an attempt to fill such a small case seems like a bit of a challenge to me but then agian I have been known to say anything is possible. Me? I would drill holes in the back side of a standard lee mold instead.

BT

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Originally Posted by ccook23

Here is the youtube you might be referring to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkAU5...eature=related

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Yep, that's the one.

I'd love to shoot more 223, but the cost of projectiles (and powder...) is killin' me, now that I can make a thousand rounds of 9mm for next to free.

Honestly bulk bullets at less than $100 perK would be more attractive than those bullets in the video.

Hitting a freon tank half the time as proof of performance gives me some serious reservations

The shooter was not far from the tank, In a couple instances you could see the smoke from barrel just outside the picture frame.

That video was just the jumping point for the thought process, not the end goal. My concept combined the 'cast directly into the jacket' concept with the preciseness of swaging.

What if you used a butter knife to 'sprue' off the excess lead off the top of the jacket? Could that get you a more uniform fill? Hold the jacket with a pair of pliers or the like, cast into it, scrape it smooth, and then let it cool (or even water drop it?) -- then swage it in a tip forming die? You could even do a little

I have done this by melting a measured core in my casting ladle and pouring it into a jacket. The experiment was to see if we could get a bond between core and jacket by fluxing the jacket and pouring the Core. The bullets were then pointed and they were exactly the same size as the bullets that had seated cores. They shot the same and were impossible to locate just as the other bullets were. Final analysis: Waste of time for plinkers.

The issue to make this productive would be to get a uniform cast and I did that by melting a small ingot (one core) and pouring the whole ingot each time. another method would be to have some sort of shutter that would cut off or interrupt the pour at a regular interval, sort of like a powder measure for molten lead.

A different approach would be to do it like they make lead shot. A uniform drip that would give a consistent fill on each jacket. Something like 4 drops and move on to the next jacket.

I can see that there might be issues if your jacket was undersized and your setup relied on the core seating stage to bring the jacket up to .224, but my dies are set up so that the jackets are so close to final size that the core seating doesn't bump them much bigger.

Thor, I am confused as to how your dies make a jacket that is close to finished .224 size. Care to share that with me? Thanks,
Jay

I assume he has a special de-rimming die that sizes the brass cases that way from the begining.