Silly person! The lathe is to make dies that will put a neck in the brass. EXACTLY the way you want it! And $700 is cheap for a lathe! Besides, once you have one, you will find many other things you can do with it.
You can make brass that no one makes, and no existing examples remain if you have a lathe. You can make anything cylindrical, and any length you can get to fit in your lathe. And they make lathes that are 120' long. Not that you could get one of those for $700, but it's principle of the thing. ,)Need a washer exactly .0005" thick? Sure, you can buy them. Or you can take one that's not exactly what you want, and make it so it is. Need one that's .0782" thick and with a .875" inside diameter to set a die in your press exactly right for a cartridge you load a lot of, and don't want to fiddle with the setup every time you need to make more? You can do it. Broke the firing pin on your 1903 Springfield the day before hunting season starts, and you need one RIGHT FREAKING NOW!? You can make one. There are several threads on this board right now with people wanting to put a neck in cartridges. You can do it in a lathe, or use the lathe to make the tooling to do it in your press. Need to thin the neck for a cartridge you're reforming? Likewise.
Currently, I need a Lyman 450 sizing & lubing die for .316 boolits for my 91/30. Shoots fine with boolits sized correctly for the bore. Factory ammo for it won't hit the paper of a full size silhouette at 50 yards. I can order a die custom-made, and wait for it. Or I can make my own.
Bill
You don't need anything more than some 8 shot and some gaschecks, and elmers glue. You will get better patterns without a shot cup. I loaded .38 special with a fast powder, inverted gas check over the powder, filled it close to the top with shot and crimped another inverted gascheck, and covered the end with elmers glue. You can push the gas check over the powder with a dowel. The snakes I shot with this didn't twich. I shot the first one twice because he never moved. I loaded for velocity, rather than amount of shot, and you aren't going to be shooting more than a few feet.
Hi bill, I have been interested in a bench lathe for a while....I have a few business plans not related to firearms at all actually but being able to spool up a sizing die or various parts sure would be nice.
Been looking at lathes from little machine shop...their 7x16 or 8.5x20. not sure if anyone here has any experience with the machines they sell or not. Pros/cons over a H.F? Obviously cost is a difference but not sure where the sweet spot lies for my expected use being pretty frequently (2-3 hours per weekend) and maybe an additional 2-4 hours through the week...and bells and whistles are ok but I'd never get the chance to use them until I get a couple years on the machine and learn the fundamentals really well...alot like reloading starting on a single stage and then seeing the advantage of a progressive.
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HF buys what you could call "mill run" lathes. LMS buys lathes built to their specifications, and backs them. If a part or a whole lathe turns out to be bad, they'll repair or replace it. Mostly that's not a problem anymore. If you can afford LMS, I'd go ahead and buy it. Better fit and finish, upgraded components, and excellent support. I have bought chucks and some small stuff from them. Grizzly does much the same with theirs. When I got mine, it was $369 from HF, with a 20% off coupon. They no longer allow that for lathes. There is a support group for all the various brands of 7x lathes, https://groups.io/g/7x12MiniLathe. Bunch of good folks there, a few not so good. Lots of help available. My Harbor Freight 93212 7x10 is currently priced at $669, the 7x12 big brother to it is $600, and both of those are plus shipping, though they may have a 7x10 in stock. If you go HF, get the 7x12. I absolutely couldn't afford anything larger, or anything else when I got mine. In lathes, larger is almost always better. From all I've read, but not personal experience, I'd skip the 8" lathes, and go to at least a 9" lathe. Grizzly has some 10" lathes that aren't all that much more than the LMS 7x lathes. They also have lathes specifically intended for gunsmiths, but they're pretty proud of them! First, I'd join the 7x12 group, and while you're at Groups.io, I'd look at some of their other metalworking groups. Fair warning, I own a couple of the others. Look at the comments on the various types and brands of lathes, and figure out what you want to do, and what it takes to do it. Here's a link to some things you can do with a mini-lathe: http://www.packratworkshop.com/pdf/m...e%20rifles.pdf Go to his home page, and look at the firearms section, and this file is there, with some other useful stuff, too.
A lot of the metalworking groups that were at Yahoo are now at group.io.
HTH!
Bill
PS the 4-screw chuck that is mentioned in the mini-lathe rifles.pdf document is also that firearms section. You don't have to buy all your tooling. Some (quite a bit) you can make.
Last edited by Scrounge; 07-05-2020 at 03:43 PM. Reason: added a bit:
Trimming the 357 brass would be a waste. Just trim to cylinder length or barely under.
The idea is to form the brass into a smaller sized cylinder that fits inside the area of the cylinder in front of the usual case mouth area. These rounds would look sort of like these examples -
https://www.outdoorhub.com/how-to/20...ooting-snakes/ (On the rightmost shells, autoloaders need that ogive for auto-loading, revolvers / single shots don't though)
You use a smaller die to reduce the diameter of the case up front to fit inside the cylinder, best to only reduce it JUST past where it's needed as the pressure of firing it can rework it, making more case cracks is unwise?
If needed could go longer with a 357 max even, if the cylinder's THAT long.
The whole idea in using a longer casing for a revolver or single-shot shot shell is to get more shot en route to the target, when you squeeze the trigger.
.38 Special is a nice long size for a shotshell anyways, nice long case at 1.155 in (29.3 mm); 357 Mag at 1.29 in (33 mm), 357 max at 1.605 in (40.8 mm) so you can see that the extra 0.315" gives you a bit more shot volume.
I have used a steel washer placed over a hole in a board.
Get a washer with a hole smaller than the case.
diplomacy is being able to say, "nice doggie" until you find a big rock.....
The best thing to do is hunt up some no.12 shot.
Find some 12 ga.RIO shotshells with no.12 and disassemble those to get the shot.
Then, no matter your caliber, the homemade shotshells will shred your target satisfactory.
NO.¹2 SHOT is best.
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 |