A friend of the family wants a special project that I've agreed to help. Their deceased son loved the .223, so they want his cremation ashes loaded into some specially engraved .223 casings (they are getting the casings) and have the ashes loaded, topped with a bullet, but made into a pendant. As the project is in it's inception, I am trying to plan out a path.
The shell casings should be already de-primed as they are new from a LGS before being engraved.
Using a single-stage Hornady press to be careful with the shell casings and not scratch or mar the newly-engraved cases. I have an assortment of .223 bullets, so no issue there. My plan is to not touch the casing or bullet in trying to make into a pendant.
Am thinking I should drill out the primer socket, to allow the ashes to be loaded with a funnel, because.... I think I will epoxy a craftstore chain coupling into the primer socket to allow a neck chain to be used. I think I need to load the bullet before the pendant item is epoxied into the primer hole, because once that is in the primer socket, am unsure if it will fit into a standard shell holder to press the bullet in on top of the ashes.
It would be easier to load the ashes from the case-mouth instead of the (enlarged) primer hole, but the whole seating/shell-holder issue has me over-thinking this.
Anybody ever do a project like this?
Thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.