nice work glad to see our overseas friends making it happen. good luck and keep up the good work.
nice work glad to see our overseas friends making it happen. good luck and keep up the good work.
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Very nice. Too bad you are forced to go through that to get jackets. Hopefully we won’t need to do the same over here.
Cris do not you know somebody else who is producing dies which performance as good as yours do?
By the way, I am from EU as well
Found today a nice way to polish the jackets, this will speed up things a lot. I do not have to wait for heat treating "favours" anymore. I can use my standard furnace.
Look at this (some bullets went into the cicle too).
The two jackets shown are before and after
The brighter jacket on the top pic has the same color as the others, it is just a matter of light.
Those things are a thing of beauty. How did you clean them? Curious minds want to know.
Stainless steel media? Rock tumbler?
Looks good. Keep it up!
BT
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Stainless steel media, rotary tumbler, a shot of soap for dishwashers and a pinch of citric acid. The acid makes the difference. Yesterday I tumbled for one hour without adding the powder and had almost no change. I added half a washer of citric (I know, washers are not a volume measure, but yesterday my wife seized all kitchen spoons that somehow landed in my hobby room) and had excellent results.
I have one of those and just got done cleaning the 22 lr brass to get them ready for derimming. Never occurred to me that I could shine them up afterwards with it.
I really have to wake up more before I swage.
Cris you should make a post on this subject on Benchrest.com.
I am sure that many there would be interested in hearing about your match grade jackets etc.
And you never know who might read your post and have a few new ideas.
A good friend Al Mirdoch in Calgary made benchrest bullets for many years.
Many nights were spent in Al's shop talking and watching him make bullets.
I always regret not making a few thousand 6 mm bullets for myself with his stuff but I learned a lot.
There was many funny stories from this time.
We had winter matches in Calgary Alberta fired from plywood covered benches with two BIG heaters running .
The coldest day that I remember shooting my 6 PPC was -25 degrees F ..............
You fired thru a 2 ft square window -be carefull of mirage.
Shooters Choice would freeze if left on the cleaning bench too long.
Glenn
Last edited by Stonewall; 11-23-2012 at 09:33 AM.
I don’t know if benchrest.com would be the right place to talk about my project, yet. The jacket pros are active on that forum, and I am not sure about reactions.
Very few people swage here in Italy and most of them make 6mm bullets for bench rest. I know for sure that two guys swage .30 cal too, but they were not prone to share experience. In fact they tried to persuade me that swaging is too expensive, difficult etc. and I should give up the idea. Later I discovered that they sell their bullets and feared a competitor.
Maybe I will open a topic in BR but do not expect much helpful infos…
Had a chance to shoot your new jackets yet? I would love to know how your 168gr bullets fair compared to the commercial ones
The first shots went downrange, but the results were not astonishing. Honestly, I did not expect very much, because there were several flaws in my assembly routine. I put too much lube on the jackets (I hate stuck bullets in my PF die) and worked the amount of lube backwards, but the first to fly weren’t top even on the mic (and were the ones with too much lube). Diameter wasn’t too regular after core seating and ogive height suffered too. I used an excess of lube because I had some troubles while I sought after the correct annealing temperature. This data is set now (temperature), but the controlled atmosphere (CA) furnace has been busy with work for almost two weeks now. I made some test using a standard furnace and managed to remove all the scale from the outer surface, but did not find a good way to clean the inner yet, and this affects accuracy by far (in my opinion) . I have been waiting for the first run out of the CA furnace at the correct temperature for 10 days now. Today I cleaned ad pickled 30 Jackets manually (after annealing) and swaged them as I do with J4s. The final dimension was almost perfect, 2 microns difference on the diameter and clean ogives. Even the feeling while swaging was good, this time. There are still some oxidation spots inside the jacket, but I expect this run to perform better.
Shooting will have to wait till coming week end..
Wonderful work Cris, very impressive job mate.
If I am not mistaken, in your imageshack pics it looks as if you have cleaned up some 6.5x68 RWS cases?
Excellent caliber, my favourite jacketed shooting rifle is chambered in this. OT a little, however, do you have any load data to share for this calibre? Data is thin on the ground for this speed demon, I have been using AR 2213 sc (ADI Powder) under 100gn Barnes TTSX lit with a Fed 215M primer. Brass I am using is RWS, at USD 5.25 a case.
Mike
Yes 6,5x68, RWS and some old HP cases. Haven't reloaded this caliber for almost 4 years now, I should look into my records, but first I have to find them... New RWS brass is 37,5 Euros/20 down here. These guys here gathered some data from reloading manuals, perhaps you might find something useful in it.
http://www.grurifrasca.net/Sito/Rica...li/6,5x68.html
Bullet weight is on top of each table.
Second run on the target...
My pickling and washing routine is getting better every day. The last few days the results were very good. I swaged a small lot two days ago, measured the bullets on the ICC and rejected a few pieces. The other (25) flew all into the 10 of our standard hunting target at 300m (40mm in diameter). That’s about 0,46 MOA. Enough to win a match in the hunter class with a 308 Win. These jackets were not treated in a controlled atmosphere furnace. The CA jackets will be shot next week, I expect better consistency on all bullets.
[smiling here]
good on ya....
make a cup with your palm,that's a table spoon.
about 2mm deep is a teaspoon.
Cris,would like to contact you for more info about your jackets,you should have a private message,Remy
Cris I sent you a pm. I need your help with a die question.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |