Hot-Cor Jacketed Bullet Casting, Anyone?

[FishHunter357]

Has anyone cast their own Hot-Cor jacketed or bonded jacket bullets? It sounds possible and interesting to me. I'm sure there are many reasons to just use cast boolits instead of adding steps and cost but it seems like something that someone on here should have tried.

[rancher1913]

tried it, not worth my time. if you shoot competitive it might be worth the effort but for what I do its a waste

[Mk42gunner]

I've thought about it, the only thing holding me back is the cost of getting into swaging jacketed bullets.

Robert

[FishHunter357]

I've thought about it, the only thing holding me back is the cost of getting into swaging jacketed bullets.

Robert

I was picturing being able to drop jackets into a mold and cast lead into them or something along those lines. Hoping someone may have some inexpensive tricks or techniques for us!

[DDriller]

I make .400 bonded core bullets for my 10mm. Cast the bullet, cover with resin, put the coated lead in copper jackets, put the components in a kiln to melt, and then tumble the bullets. After bonding you have to swage the bullets, I use BT Snipers dies. Very time consuming but I don't have much to do anyway. Makes an XTP look alike.

[megasupermagnum]

The Speer Hot Cor isn't that good. I don't know why you would want to copy that.

Swaging bullets isn't that terribly hard, and it makes a lot more sense. There is a section on swaging below. I have seen pictures of electroplated bullets (copper plated), but in every case the result is the same. They aren't better than a cast bullet. Paper patch is better if you are willing to take the time.

Swaging is what you want for extreme accuracy.

[rancher1913]

I was picturing being able to drop jackets into a mold and cast lead into them or something along those lines. Hoping someone may have some inexpensive tricks or techniques for us!

wow, just wow.

there are no inexpensive tricks to swagging or everybody would do it, this will sound harsh but i mean it in a good way, learn to use the search function and do a lot of reading, not just for swagging but for casting and reloading.

[Forrest r]

I make .400 bonded core bullets for my 10mm. Cast the bullet, cover with resin, put the coated lead in copper jackets, put the components in a kiln to melt, and then tumble the bullets. After bonding you have to swage the bullets, I use BT Snipers dies. Very time consuming but I don't have much to do anyway. Makes an XTP look alike.

This^^^^^

You really don't need a kiln to do this. I've bonded cores using nothing more then a propane bbq grill. Same process, coat the core with plumbers flux & drop it in the jacket. Set everything in a cast iron skillet and set in the bbq grill. Turn the grill on high and come back in +/- 15 minutes. When the cores melt shut the grill off and let air cool.

[Sasquatch-1]

Swaging is a Rabbit Hole you do not want to go down, unless, you have a lot of disposable income. I was lucky and found a Corbin "S" Press and a couple sets of dies and was able to get started for around $1000.00, 12 years ago.

If you do decide to get involved, do a lot of research. There is a YOUTUBER called AmmoSmith who has some very good videos. The Hillbilly Angler also had some good ones I watched when first getting started.

[gwpercle]

Has anyone cast their own Hot-Cor jacketed or bonded jacket bullets? It sounds possible and interesting to me. I'm sure there are many reasons to just use cast boolits instead of adding steps and cost but it seems like something that someone on here should have tried.

These aren't cast ... the jacket and core are swaged . I looked into swaging before I started casting and the prices of the equiptment , press , forming dies and other equipment were much more expensive than a iron pot and two cavity mould . I was in high school and didn't have a regular job .
I now understand why swaging is more expensive but like most I don't need swaged jacketed bullets .
I shoot handguns mostly so cast boolits do me just fine ... even in 30-30 , 7.5 Swiss, 303 british and 30-06 I can get by with gas checked cast rifle boolits just fine and they are far cheaper than swaged jacketed .
Gary

[DonHowe]

Seems to me that pouring hot alloy into a jacket would require the jacket to be preheated in order to get complete fill out. Possible but likely more aggravation than it would be worth.

[blackthorn]

How about taking the appropriate case, annealing it, sizing it and then pouring it full of lead i.e. sort of a double ended wad cutter?

[FishHunter357]

I think the jacket would heat up pretty quickly in a mold or you could use the standard practice for heating your mold once the jackets are in it - might slow it down a little.

Blackthorn - are you talking about using a case for a jacket like how some people use 40 s&w for 44 mag jackets or using the case like a mold?

Because I searched this forum and didn't find the results I was looking for, I turned to the Google. I found some people that put copper "tubes" or tube sections in their molds either between lube rings or in the straighter sections if no lube rings of their molds. Thought that was somewhat interesting too.

[Sasquatch-1]

I have melted the lead in the brass case. I place the lead core in the case and then use a torch to heat the case until the lead melts. some people will use a kiln for this operation. The case needs to be heated anyway to anneal it. The lead still has to be forced into the case to expand the case to the proper dimensions. I prefer to just anneal the brass separately and then seat the core cold. In pistol bullets, at magnum velocities, I have never had a problem.

[blackthorn]

"Blackthorn - are you talking about using a case for a jacket like how some people use 40 s&w for 44 mag jackets or using the case like a mold?"

Using the case as a jacket.

[yeahbub]

I once looked into this and the closest I found to what the OP describes is a method of oven-soldering core segments in jackets internally anointed with a dab of liquid soldering flux. Richard Corbin wrote about that, IIRC. It was when I was hot to start swaging my own varmint bullets using de-rimmed .22 RF cases. They still need to be swaged to finish their shape, but the advantage is that you'll never have core-jacket separation. It was my intention to apply this to swaging for the 6.5 Swede, since I got noticeably better accuracy from the Speer 140gr Hot-core SP's than from others. I attributed this to the stresses imparted to the jackets by the twisty 6.5mm barrels causing some degree of jacket/core distortion. Then I looked at how much other stuff was going on in my life and realized I didn't have the time for all that, and probably never would. Oh well, it was interesting to find out about it anyway.