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Thread: Simple jacket making dies and press

  1. #1
    Boolit Bub
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    Simple jacket making dies and press

    New to Cast Boolits and just starting my adventures in jacket making and swaging. My goal is to start from scratch and learn what it takes to make an accurate .264" bullet. I've built a prototype rig based on a 2 ton arbor press. I've designed the basic dies and had them CNC machined by a online prototyping company out of AISI 1018 steel which will be carburised to about 50 RHC and further polished. The punches are off the shelf HSS rods in 0.1mm increments. All I've done is grind a radius and polish an ever slight taper. The punches are held by a ER20 collet fitted to the ram. I'm using 1" blank discs from .0275" copper sheet that is fully annealed. My swage lube is a 50:50 mix of castor oil and pure lanolin. So far the results look promising. I have managed to form a complete 1.3" .262" jacket with very little effort. I'm now starting to build some measuring gear to really attack the wall thickness and concentricity control and hope to make some improvements on the set up. Eventually I will look at something that resembles the Wilson straight line dies. Slow but very accurate. Once I'm happy with the jackets I'll start looking at swaging gear. In the meantime, I'm really enjoying the process and hope to learn and share more on the forum.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails 20210528_192431.jpg   20210601_104726 (2).jpg  

  2. #2
    Boolit Master

    rancher1913's Avatar
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    wow, wish you were my neighbour, I could learn a thing or two..
    if you are ever being chased by a taxidermist, don't play dead

  3. #3
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    Impressive first post. Love it when someone thinks outside the box a bit and tries something different. Please keep us posted.
    Ron

  4. #4
    Boolit Master



    MUSTANG's Avatar
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    What are the flat iron pieces with machined notches at the bottom of picture #2 for? I can see the punch elongating the formed tube/s by driving through series of dies to reduce diameter and form jacket in steps. But I am not tracking that the "Flat Iron" pieces are for.

    P.S. Enjoying the thread.
    Mustang

    "In the beginning... the patriot is a scarce man, and brave and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." - Mark Twain.

  5. #5
    Boolit Bub
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    Hi Mustang, The "flat iron" pieces I think you refer to are the stripper forks. Once the jacket has formed, I need to strip it of the punch. The design allows me to simply push the stripper hard into the punch and then lift the ram. The jacket just falls off.

  6. #6
    Boolit Master



    MUSTANG's Avatar
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    OK - I understand. On my Corbin dies; the "Spring Back" of the Copper/Brass is what strips the in process jacket tubes off the punch. From a simplified die process/ I like the dies and means of removing the in process jacket tubes from the punch. Thanks.
    Mustang

    "In the beginning... the patriot is a scarce man, and brave and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." - Mark Twain.

  7. #7
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    garandsrus's Avatar
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    The push through dies I have made have a slightly larger diameter after the sizing has been done. This allows the edge between the larger and smaller diameter to grab the jacket and strip it off the punch when the punch is withdrawn. The next jacket pushes it out of the top or bottom, in your case, of the die.

    What do you plan to adjust to improve concentricity of the jacket, if necessary? With a round die and a round punch, I don’t see much to adjust except the diameter of the punch, but that would change jacket thickness, and length, but I am not sure how it could influence concentricity.
    Last edited by garandsrus; 06-02-2021 at 06:08 PM.

  8. #8
    Boolit Bub
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    Hi Garandsrus, You raised a good point about the edge of the larger and smaller diameter. I had a similar feature in the base of the die but it seems that the punch was still holding onto the jacket. I ended up just using a stripper as a fallback solution. The improvements I hope to make are mainly with the alignment of the punch that is solidly fixed to the ram. If the punch is not 100% aligned with the die center there will be error. I plan to float the punch laterally and have a punch guide above the die. This will hopefully get a better result.

  9. #9
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    garandsrus's Avatar
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    Thanks for the response. Corbin uses a floating punch with their swage dies so you probably are on the right track. I don’t know what they do, but J4 jackets are supposed to be about the most concentric there are at less than .0003 wall thickness variation.

  10. #10
    Boolit Buddy
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    Interesting.
    No 6.5mm boolits in Straya either?

  11. #11
    Boolit Master
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    Well done Sir, Your forming dies look very much like Drill guides and I once wondered if they may be available in the correct size for at least some dies. You have certainly thought outside the box for sure and look forward to your results. Regards Stephen

  12. #12
    Boolit Bub
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    Hi Marky123, there are 6.5mm bullets down here but at ludicrous prices. Match projectiles start around AUD$0.80 each. That includes Berger, Sierra and Lapua. Not uncommon for Sierra MK 142 grain at $1.15 each.

  13. #13
    Boolit Bub
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    Hi Stephen. Thanks for the comments. I originally looked at everything that resembles a die that could be easily tweeked, modified and adapted. However.......I did lots of reading into deep drawing tool design and realised its a bit more complex that first imagined. The internal die profile is critical firstly for reduction ratio and secondly, the ironing ratio. The copper cup is reduced in diameter by several steps of 21-22%. The elongation in each step that thins the jackets (ironing) is controlled by the punch diameter at approx 17% oversize of the internal jacket diameter. Then the each die needs a profile that will allow the copper to flow without the punch breaking through. In the end I decided to draw up all this on CAD and then have the profiles machined on a CNC machine. From the outside they look simple but there is a fair bit of working out on the inside. I was both surprised and relieved that the first jackets actually worked considering it was all very much theoretical. I'm now working on a new set that addresses a couple of issues of the prototype dies. The original die holder was not up to the job and now I've used a threaded die holder with a taper. This allows the die to pull in concentrically when tightened. Hopefully I'll have some photos when these are up and running

  14. #14
    Boolit Buddy
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    Are you annealing between draws?

  15. #15
    Boolit Bub
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    Hi Sitzme,. I am only annealing the copper strip prior to disc blanking. On all cup and draw stages there is no annealing. I originally thought I'd have to anneal by the second draw but the jackets have held together ok. I will still have to anneal prior to swaging later down the track.

  16. #16
    Boolit Master
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    If for some reason your swaged bullets are not as accurate as you want may I suggest you anneal at least after every second step as while you may still be able to form the bullets you maybe getting uneven jacket thickness due to hard spots forming in material. I was told this by an old mate who has since passed and did make some very accurate bullets. I can really appreciate how your thinking things out and look forward to you eventual success. Regards Stephen

  17. #17
    Boolit Bub
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    Hi Stephen, duly noted. I still reckon work hardening will be one issue that will need to be dealt with. I plan to run another batch soon and will try a few with a second anneal. I've also set up a dial gauge with an anvil so I can spin the jackets to measure wall thickness variations. The second batch with a few set up changes got me around 0.0008"average. A long way off J4 and sierra tolerances but keen to keep trying

  18. #18
    Boolit Buddy M.A.D's Avatar
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    What size strip are you using for blanks? I know someone who has 20 x 50 kg coils of proper 95-5 , You would get it at around scrap or cost price...

  19. #19
    Boolit Bub
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    Hi M.A.D, I'm using 30mm wide and 0.70mm thick C12200 strip fully annealed. Wow...a tonne of gilding metal. That would last me several lifetimes. I'm planning to just make bullets for my own consumption so I intend to buy in smaller quantities. If its the right size I might be tempted to buy one coil.

  20. #20
    Boolit Mold
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    Hi Andrew,
    Malcolm Bone, @ Taipan Bullets Australia has some copper gilding metal (ex Germany) in 1” wide x 0.035” & 0.70” wide x 0.025” thick, as he is no longer making bullets available for sale
    Cheers

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