Herters 9 Ton Press

[Reg]

I could use a little help with this one. A few years back I made up one of the swedging presss shown in Vickery’s book Advanced Gunsmithing. I used it to make .22 cal.bullets out of 22 RF cases and it works fine. A little awkward to operate but it makes very nice bullets. Later I picked up a Herter 9 ton press as I was reading it was capable of making these type bullets. It came with 30 caliber dies.
My question is do these press have to be modified to make the. 22 bullets? I made a set of die’s along the line of the Herter dies and there is no way they can be adjusted that they will work.
Has anyone used one of these presss for the above if so how in the heck did you do it??

[Bent Ramrod]

There’s an old 9-Ton Press thread on this site that I commented in; my memory was better back then, so maybe you could look for that thread.

But the 9-Ton used simple, cylindrical, unhardened dies and punches that made only half-jacket bullets using Herter’s (and likely Sierra’s) half jackets. The bullet was made in one pass, with the lead-cored half jacket in the cylindrical die in the ram and the point former in the upper portion of the press.

This setup would be too fragile to make bullets with the longer jackets (or .22 RF cases) that go over the ogive to the tip of the bullet. You would need to make a point-forming die (and ejector) that fits in the ram of the press, and a hardened flat punch for the base screwed into the front end. Another hardened, squared-off flat punch (of slightly reduced diameter to fit inside the jacket) could be made to screw into the front of the press and a die set and ejector similar to the Herter’s set could go into the ram for separate core seating in the .22 RF shells.

I believe the 9-Ton press would be plenty strong enough for such operations, as it seemed (when I had one) to be as strong as the Mity-Mite press that Ted Smith was offering at the same time, back in the 70s and 80s. But a real point-forming die is a tricky item to manufacture, and a custom one, with the hardened wire punch needed to eject the bullet from the point, would be a custom item and even more expensive than standard point-forming dies offered commercially.

But it wouldn’t hurt to ask the diemakers that do such work for an estimate.

[Ajax111]

Watching.

[elk hunter]

I’ll try to describe how I converted my Herters nine-ton press to make jacketed 22 caliber bullets and still be able to use the original type dies.
I removed the ram from the press body and chucked it in my lathe and drilled the original .250 diameter ejection pin hole in the top of the ram, where the die fits, to .375 diameter to depth of .275 . I them made a bushing to just fit the drilled hole and sit flush with the bottom of the die cavity. The bushing is .750 in length, the bottom part, below the .375 diameter part, is .248 diameter to be a slip fit in the original ejection pin hole. The bushing was drilled thru lengthwise for a .056 diameter ejection pin. The pin is made from spring steel wire i.e., piano wire. The pin was fixed in a .249 diameter rod .550 long. The ejection pin projects from the rod 1.970”.
The base of the ejection pin rides in the original .250 ejection pin hole in the ram and when the ram is lowered it bottoms out on the cross pin that traverses the ram and ejects the bullet. The pin itself is guided by the hole thru the bushing.
Core seating is straight forward, insert the core in the jacket place the jacket and core in the die base down and lightly compress the core. The jacket with core seated is ejected when the ram is lowered.
The point forming die is made with the pointed end down so the ejection pin pushes the completed bullet out by pressing on the bullet nose.
I'll not describe how to make the dies and punches other than they are made with the outside dimensions the same as the original Herters dies.

Hope this makes sense and is helpful.

[Reg]

Experimenting with making dies to use in a non modified 9 Ton press and starting to have some luck. Have the first couple bullets made and they look good but stopped as I need to get some soft lead for the cores and make up more jackets. Am using a separate C frame press for core seating but it could also be done in the 9 ton, just trying to set up a smooth operation. So far it appears the little 9 press has more than ample power and has taken little effort to produce a finished bullet. As soon as I am sure this is going to work will try to post pictures and dimensions.

[Ajax111]

elk hunter, do you have any pictures of your modified press?

[elk hunter]

elk hunter, do you have any pictures of your modified press?

Posting pictures on the site is a struggle for me.

The only modification to the press was the opening up of the original .250 ejection pin hole thru the ram for a short distance, for the new ejection pin, as described above. If you would like a picture of the dies and ejection pin send me an e-mail and I can send the picture to you.

[Ajax111]

Private Message sent.

[farmbif]

not to get sidetracked here but until reading this I never heard of herters 9 ton press. so I googled up an image and cant imagine how it produces 9 tons.
I have a greenerd #3 1/2 ratcheting arbor press and its a monster and only produces 5 tons of pressure.
but this making dies to swag with is very motivating for me to get busy this winter putting my shop together, pouring concrete floor and setting my lathes back up.

[Reg]

I think I have a system figured out how to make this little press work on making 22 cal jacketed bullets with no modifications to the press itself and am currently making 40 grain jacketed bullets that look good. Have a drawing of dimensions and a couple pictures but for the life of me I can’t figure out how to post them.

[Ajax111]

Good morning, I am interested but I don't know how to post pictures either.

[Bent Ramrod]

Go to shrinkpictures.com and follow the instructions. If you do them one at a time it's free. I set mine to "650" and "Best," rename it, download it, move it to my desktop, and select and put it in according to the "manage attachments" instructions here.

Some people mail it to themselves. The mail server gives them the option of full sizes or smaller. They pick a smaller size and when they get it, they load it as above.

[Reg]

OK. Found attachments on my CP but don’t see how to manage attachments. I can shrink the pictures but don’t see how to bring them over

[Bent Ramrod]

When I hit “Manage Attachments” it calls up all the stuff I’ve already posted with a button that says “Add Files.” I hit that and there’s a list of Desktop and other files on my hard drive. I usually have the file to use on the Desktop. I click on the file descriptor and the pic shows up in the Downloads and there’s a thing that says “Insert In Line.” I hit that and one of those “ATT085697” numbers shows up on the text box. I hit “Preview” and it’s there.

You can’t just go on adding files; eventually you run out of space. I don’t use Photobucket or those other storage sites so every now&then I have to cull some pics out of old threads to make space for new ones.

This is really rich—me giving someone Computer instructions. Me&Steve Jobs; Together At Last!

[Reg]

OK, finding everything up to Managing Attachments. I hit it and it says You have no attachments which would be correct. What I cannot find is the add files button. It might be right in front of me no doubt but I have looked the page over and have yet to see it. Have reduced pictures ready to go on my desk top and a page of drawings showing how I made the dies. Also am starting to make up a set of. 25. Caliber dies for this press.

I really appreciate you help on getting me up to speed on this. Years ago when I was here it seems that adding pictures was a little easier to do but I think either the program has changed or I got older and surely it couldn’t be because I got older!

[Bent Ramrod]

My "Add Files" is an oblong in the upper right corner with a green circle with a "+" sign on it. When I click it, it opens a menu of the stuff I have on the computer. Whatever I click on shows up as a Download and then I hit "Insert In Line." I have a Mac; if yours is different I don't know what might be going on.

[Reg]

My "Add Files" is an oblong in the upper right corner with a green circle with a "+" sign on it. When I click it, it opens a menu of the stuff I have on the computer. Whatever I click on shows up as a Download and then I hit "Insert In Line." I have a Mac; if yours is different I don't know what might be going on.

I looked all over the whole page and the add button is just not there. My grandkids can’t even find it. I sent a message to admin, there must be something wrong with my CP.
We will get this figured out!!