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  #11  
Old 03-10-2011, 02:23 AM
Stephen Perry Stephen Perry is offline
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Default Break Bullet Making up into 4 Days

When I started making bullets about 15 years ago I had 1 RCBS Rockchucker Press and no bullet trays. I started with my Simonson 6mm dies and 1 punch for each die. I felt like back then that I had to do all the steps the same day to make good bullets. Cleaning wire, cutting raw cores, lubricating cores, swaging cores, cleaning cores, drying cores, changing dies 3 times and punches, and adjusting my ejector rack for each die change. For core seating, measuring jacket/core seated below lead line and making any needed die adjustment to get jacket/core to measure where I wanted, for pointing up bullets weighing and final measurement of finished bullets. A whole lot of work for 1 day. I use to do this routine to make benchrest bullets until I set up 2 more RCBS Presses and bought my bullet boards.

Now sanity has moved into my bullet making routine. I make bullets in a 4 day schedule.

Day 1
I clean up my area. Then I get my lead wire together by deciding which roll I will pull off of. I like to make a minimum of 600 bullets, this way I stuff cores into jackets using my bullet boards, 200 per board. I cut enough lengths of wire to make at least 600 rough cores, some extras are no big deal I use them too. I use metal dykes to cut the lengths, I pull the lengths off using one side of my cube as a rough measurement for individual wire length, my cube has 30" sides. No need to be exact in pull lengths. Next I roll the wire on a bench/table to get the lengths reasonably straight, the straightening of wire lengths makes cutting rough core easier and cuts square ends. Next I spray a paper towel with light silicone spray and pull each wire length through the silicone, several towels are used. What this silicone spray does is clean the wire and leaves a light coating on the core lengths. Then I cut the cores to a pre-determined length dumping them into empty J4 buckets for later core forming, I use a couple paper towels inside the buckets to keep the cores from bouncing. I like to cut cores so they are 3 grns. heavier than the finished weight. I determine finished core weight by weighing several jackets and making cores to add up to the finished bullet weight desired. I form cores the second day.

Day 2
For the second day I start by cleaning my area again. Second day I make cores and clean cores. I have previously sprayed raw cores with silicone, silicone keeps the dry cores from tightening up in my core die. The silicone comes off in the next core cleaning operation. I use my No.1 RCBS Rockchucker Press with my core making die and core punch in place to form cores. The core making operation on the press goes quick. I weigh finished cores randomly to insure that I stay within my +/- .1 grn weight I desire. After I'm happy with my core swaging operation I place all my cores in a funnel sieve. Next I slosh my finished cores with a half bottle rubbing alcohol, small bottle, shaking the sieve this cleans any unwanted grease, grime, lead particles, and silicone spray from my lot of finished cores. Then after letting the sieve drain and being careful to remove the lead particles I transfer the cores to a extra hot kitchen pan of water with a couple good sloshes of white vinegar added and blended. Leave cores sit in pan 15-20 minutes stirring several times. The vinegar cleans more and begins the etching process on the cores which is highly desired among most bullet makers. After 15-20 minutes of vinegar/water place cores back in the collander and run water on cores in collander for at least 10 minutes. The water rinse slows the etching operation to nothing, if not stopped etching will eat some core, bad news. Next get a bath towel lay cores out and let them dry. Either outside on a sunny day or inside in a safe room, in the safe room after laying cores out on the towel fold the towel over to cover cores in case you have a dog or cat that might roam over your cores. One point here lots of bullet makers boil their cores using some kind of detergent or TSP, this is a prefered way among some but not all bullet makers, not me I prefer my method acceptable in some eyes, I will try TSP later.

Day 3
Day 3 is the core seating operation. First do a clean-up operation. By clean-up I mean keep everything organized not sweeping, less dust in the air created by sweeping the better. Dust in the air can settle in your bullet making operation and possibly end up inside your dies. A good method would be after every day of bullet making have a bag to cover each press this keeps you presses clean and your dies from collecting unwanted debris.

Core seating is the most discussed operation discussed among new bullet makers, some don't know if they doing the operation correctly. I agree.
For new bullet makers I would be making small lots of 50 to start with. Use a small lube jar for making small lots of bullets. I use a 16 oz jar, a mayonaise jar works fine. I still use mine for testing small lots of jackets during core seating and point up die checking and adjustment, a new lot of jackets might prompt making small lots. Small swipes of lube inside the jar and inside the cap to make small lots. I will get into lubing large quanities of jackets later.

Now that you have your small lot of jackets drop your finished cores into the jackets and begin to seat the cores with your core seating die and appropriate core seating punch. You will spend most of your die setting time with your core seating die. The appropriate punch is carte blanche in setting the core seating die. Don't be cheap here. Buy a 1/10 mic and practice with it, you will use your mic for several bullet making operations and possibly in some of your other handloading and gun smithing operatioms. Not suppossed to pick sides here but a Mitutoyo mic would be my choice, I have all the others. Different ideas on core seating. I pick a punch among the several I have that when the core is seated inside the jacket from a visual inspection inside the core seated jacket leaves a minute crater line at the core top all the way around evenly. One of the best bullet makers also subscribes to my description of proper core seating method and writes about it, I learned from him. The reasoning here is that because a jacket tapers from mouth to base inside enough core seating pressure has to be applied on the top of the core to completely fill the jacket void where the lead meets the jacket. Filling the void means at the bottom of the jacket leaving no air pockets anywhere and the core will expand to remove the air on the sides as well. A perfectly seated core will stay in place during the bullets flight. For benchrest bullets core stability is paramount, the core must not move inside the jacket during the trajectory of the bullets as they seek to stabilize early in the bullets flight. For hunting bullets we have all seen good bullets maintaining their cores in a good kill. The reason we don't see the effect of bad bullets on game is because there was no kill as they missed their mark.

Once the core seating die has an intial setting using your 50 samples mic some jackets with core seated and record measurements. The proper way to set up a core seating die is to expand the jacket/core in the core seating die to the max the die will take without it popping/rupturing the die, go slow here as replacing a popped die will hurt your wallet and might give you bad dreams for a long time. The punch stays in place as pressure is applied on top of the core as you screw the die in the punch stays in place and the more pressure by screw the die on top of the punch expands the core to fill the jacket and the jacket takes on the dimension of the inside of the core seating die. Ultimate pressure and beyond trys to bulge the die if ultimate pressure is exceeded die failure/rupture can occur, read a chapter on Strenghts of Materials from an engineering manual if you seek more knowledge.

Once pleased with your core seating set-up take your bucket of jackets and apportion out several hundred, I like to go with 600 at a time and have at it. I do core seating 1 day only and do as many as I can stand to make. Don't go beyond fatigue in your bullet making operation, your mind has to be clear and your muscles need to be focused to feel each core seating properly, weed out the culls when core seating as you feel them inside the die, culls come from bad technique operating the press handles, can happen in core making, core seating, or pointing up. Every bullet should be made so as to have the possibility of performing like it's cousins, give each bullet that chance to perform the same.

Let me stop here and talk jackets for a minute. Most bu;;et makers use J4/Berger jackets. I make benchrest bullets, they work fine alsoas Varmint bullets and for Range shooting. I started like most buying 1 bucket of jackets. Berger's come 2600 a bucket in 22 cal and 1800 in 6mm. My 22 cal jackets are .705 my 6mm jackets are .825. My 22 cal jackets will make 52-55 grn bullets maybe lighter maybe heavier but my range is what I stated. My 6mm jackets make 66-70 grn bullets. I use my bullets mainly for my 22 & 6 PPC benchrest guns. I have shot my 6mm bullets at 600M silohuette and done well. I also have benchrest barrels for .222, 6x47 Rem., 6 BR short, and 6x47 Lapua. Haven't checked current prices on jackets lately but they are the costly part of the bullet. I bought 50,000 of 6mm and 25,000 of 22 jackets along with several bullet gurus a time back. Once you feel comfortable with your operation buy large lots of jackets. This way once you set your core seating die and your point-up die you will be good to go for that lot of jackets, most of my jackets are 1's (.0001 run-out). This becomes very important.

Day 4
Day 4 on point-up, lube, and packaging bullets is in the Thread titled Day 4.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

Last edited by Stephen Perry; 02-04-2012 at 12:44 PM.
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  #12  
Old 03-10-2011, 11:34 PM
MIBULLETS MIBULLETS is offline
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Default bullet boards

I have seen reference to these bullet boards and I understand how they work, but where can I get them?

My process for making bullets is similar to Stephen Perry's, but I use one Corbin S press and dies set. I use acetone for cleaning cores and do not etch them. It takes forever to put cores into jackets though. That's why I'm interested in hearing more about the bullet boards.
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  #13  
Old 03-11-2011, 01:07 AM
Stephen Perry Stephen Perry is offline
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Default Bullet Boards

The one's I hear about making bullet boards are Good Grouper on BRC, Speedy Gonzalez, Wendell Coye's son, probably others. Not hard to make if you have a mill some make them out of acetate some out of aluminum. Call Bob White he's a long time bullet maker along with Lester Bruno, Charley Hood, and Niemi.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

Last edited by Stephen Perry; 03-19-2011 at 10:28 PM.
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  #14  
Old 03-11-2011, 08:02 AM
rickiesrevenge rickiesrevenge is offline
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How much is the tooling that is needed to get started swaging bullets?
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  #15  
Old 03-11-2011, 02:41 PM
Mntngoat Mntngoat is offline
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Cam I think you are better off with a dedicated press for each of the three operations. A Lee Cast or Rockchucker is cheap in comparison and that way you don't have to keep pulling dies from the press.

ML
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  #16  
Old 03-12-2011, 02:13 AM
MIBULLETS MIBULLETS is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen Perry View Post
The one's I hear about making bullet boards are Good Grouper on BRC, Speedy Gonzalez, Wendell Croye's son, probably others. Not hard to make if you have a mill some make them out of acetate some out of aluminum. Call Bob White he's a long time bullet maker along with Lester Bruno, Charley Hood, and Nemi.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR
Do you have any contact info for any of these guys?

Thanks,
Dan
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  #17  
Old 03-12-2011, 10:37 AM
Eddie Harren Eddie Harren is offline
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Default bullet boards

JERRELMM@aol.com
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  #18  
Old 03-12-2011, 10:43 AM
Al Nyhus Al Nyhus is offline
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Thanks, Eddie. -Al
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  #19  
Old 03-12-2011, 11:43 AM
Stephen Perry Stephen Perry is offline
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Default Nice To See You Al on 'the ole bullet making thread'

Al, now if we can get Gerry M and George Ulrich on this Thread we can get the old team back from last years bullet making Thread. New guys over here some have already displayed good knowledge on bullet making. My aim on Small Caliber is to bring a concise approach to bullet making on an open forum that goes worldwide that 1st and 2nd year bullet makers can read like a cook book and produce bullets for their needs. You are one the newer bullet makers, I think now 3 years for you, that uses Blackmon gear, more affordable for most and you have tweeked your bullet making operation to match your gear. Welcome Al.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR
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  #20  
Old 03-12-2011, 12:52 PM
Stephen Perry Stephen Perry is offline
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Default Mauritz 45

Bullet making dies are obtained several ways. The current manufacturers that I know are George Ulrich, Bill Niemi, Detsch, Corbin, Blackmon, and Speedy Gonzalez. There are other die makers out there I just know these.

Allot of good bullet making equipment can be found in estate sales or from long term bullet makers that are selling off some of their stock. Before buying any bullet making gear find a bullet maker that will be willing to mentor you in getting you set up in bullet making. A forum like Small Caliber is a good place to get ideas on starting and continuing in bullet making,

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

Last edited by Stephen Perry; 07-03-2011 at 02:49 AM.
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