8mm jackets from ".44" (.425") jackets

[gitano]

My wife is off skiing today, so I had some time to 'fiddle' with 'gun stuff' and thought I'd see if I could draw down to 8mm some of the .44 cal jackets I have.

There are two reasons:

1) The 8mm jackets I currently have are relatively short - about 0.650" AND the point forming die I have is fairly "pointy" at 8 calibers. Those two factors combined limit the final weight of light weight bullets even with a large meplat (= bad BC) because in an 8R bullet, there isn't much room left in a short jacket for bearing surface, and,

2) If I can get these .44 cal jackets to 8mm, I can obviously get them to .338 which is the caliber I want to swage next.

Voila' - New 0.322" jacket on left, "old" 0.425" jacket on right.



Not very 'pretty' but recall that this is the very first attempt, AND I was using just those 'things' I have on hand.

The 8mm jacket is 0.785" long, and the .425 jacket is 0.550" long. I would like it to have lengthened more, but I'll take what I can get.

I was surprised to find out that the .44 jacket had walls that are 0.025" thick. I was equally surprised that they didn't appreciably thicken in the drawing down process. Final thickness was about 0.028". The walls - both before and after drawing down - look much thinner than the ANVB walls that measure 0.035".

It was an interesting process. I started with a .35 Remington "trim" die. That's the die one uses to trim .35 Remington cases to length, especially if the cases are made from another longer parent case like the .308. After 'squozing down' the .425" jacket in the .35 Rem trim die, the OD of the jacket was 0.373 (VERY interesting), and the length was 0.687".

The next "thing" I had on hand I could use for sizing was a .358 cast bullet sizing die from Lee. This was the closest thing I had to 0.373". Because the ID of the jacket was now smaller (about 0.325") I thought I should use something smaller so that when the jacket was further drawn down, it wouldn't jam on the punch. I tried several from .314 to .309, but settled on the .284 because I REALLY didn't want to swage a jacket on to one of my sizing punches.

This seemed like a reasonable step (.373 to .358 = 0.015") since the first step had been a 0.052" step from 0.425 to 0.373. HOWEVER, the 'issue' was the punch AND what I believe was work-hardening of the jacket. The sharp-cornered .284 punch punched a .284" disk out of the bottom of the jacket while at the same time forming the jacket perfectly to the .358 die. :angry: After some wrestling with another punch I had, I extracted the "tube" and started over. THIS TIME, I annealed the jacket after EVERY draw.

So, once down to an OD of 0.357" and new length of 0.705", the next die I had was a 0.329" die for my 8x56 Hungarian. As I said, I annealed before running through this die. The 7mm (.284) punch was now too small to risk getting a jacket stuck on it, so I had to go down to a .22 punch. It is one j0e_bl0ggs made for me for use with the .22 RF repointing die he made.

The problem with all of these punches is that they were made to be used on the rear end of SOLID bullets. (Or in the case of the .22RF punch, the solid lead bullet's nose.) As such, they all have VERY sharp, square edges. Hardly "ideal" for pushing a jacket through a sizing die from inside. Nonetheless, working gently, and annealing, I was able to get the .357" jacket through the .329" sizer die. :) Final OD was 0.329" and length was 0.752".

Next and finally, came the .323 Lee cast bullet sizing die. Same drill as before: anneal, lube liberally, use .22RF punch, and go easy. Fortunately, this "jump" was only about 0.006". It went quite well as you can see from the picture above. HOORAY! Final OD was 0.322" and length was 0.785".

Obviously, going from 0.357-ish to 0.338 will be easier than going from 0.357-ish to 0.329". So light-for-caliber .338 bullets are in the offing. Only have to make core swaging die, core seating die, and point forming die. ONLY!:help:

No use making a jacket and stopping there. I wanted to see what the bearing surface would end up being if I made a "pointy", exposed lead, bullet. Here's what it looked like.


The little ring you see at the base of the exposed lead tip is due to having to fiddle with the amount of lead used as a core. Because there was too much to start with, once the point was formed and I cut some off and then reformed the point, that little extrusion is the result.

The final weight ended up being right at 150 grains. Purely serendipitous. The 'good news' is that the bearing surface is 0.345", or about 107% of a caliber.:)

Of course I'm not interested in 150-grain 8mm bullets. There are a couple of "factory" offerings in that weight that would suit me just fine. What I AM interested in is making an ANVB-type bullet with a "pointier" nose (smaller meplat) that has a lighter weight AND a good bearing surface. This should do it.

That said, the REALLY good news is that I can get .338 jackets from these '.44 caliber' jackets that I have on hand. I will probably be facing the same bearing surface issue with the .338s that I am with the 8mm jackets that I already have on hand. We'll see. It's no small matter - doable, but labor intensive - to make the necessary .338 swaging dies. Oh yeah... I'm also going to have to get a Lee .338 cast bullet sizing die...

Paul

[22hornet]

Well done.

I really don't see all of this as "labour intensive", it may be a labour of love (and sometimes hate) but the process is fantastic. So now it basically drawing down a couple of standard size jackets to make whatever diametre you want? With the right tooling, easy as.


Remember it is much easier to just buy factory loads and put up with whatever they are churning out. But to not have to rely on even the projectile manufacturers making what you want, it's a big step forward.

Have you got a name for your projectile production company yet Paul?

[drinksgin (deceased)]

22h, some of us are not that energetic, but do produce our own bullets,but cast and not as cute.
Often cheaper, too.
What does a .45 or .50 cal. cf cartridge bullet, capable of 2200+ fps, cost in OZ?
I make them for about 7c, with the gc.
Color me both lazy and cheap!
Paul is energetic and , naw, can't say cheap, not with the amount of money he must have spent by now.
:angel:

[gitano]

"Cheap" is not the correct adjective to describe swaging one's own bullets. While the "ROI" (return on investment) is fairly short for casting lead bullets, I'm not sure the ROI on swaging jacketed bullets EVER gets out of the 'red' if one doesn't go into business. Going into business usually takes ALL of the fun out of doing something.

Swaging one's own bullets really has only two legitimate justifications:

1) Start a business, or
2) Get what the manufacturers WON'T make and what custom bullet makers charge INSULTING prices for.

Of course there is the 'learning' part too. That's a very big part of why I do MOST of what I do. I have a hunger for learning and turning what I learn into something REAL. I spent a LOT of time in post-secondary education. Among what I learned was that the VAST majority of "highly educated" people actually produce NOTHING. They do a lot of talking and theorizing and pontificating, but when it gets right down to it, they do pretty darn little that is actually productive. That's precisely why I couldn't stay in academia. It is for the most part, a giant circle jerk.

A business being discussed is making "kits" for 'regular Joes' (and Nigels, ) to have. I am apoplectic over the costs and mythology associated with swaging bullets. j0e_bl0ggs and I are working out the gory details of what is involved in putting something together that a serious reloader can get into without have to wait 'til they have grandchildren AND have to get a second mortgage on their house to buy.

The big costs are the press and the dies. Right now, there are two guys making presses and dies. They are the Corbin brothers, and they have separate businesses I am told because Richard Corbin can't tolerate the INCOMPREHENSIBLE delivery times that David Corbin puts on delivery of his dies. Two years is 'normal'. That's just plain STUPID. The only reason he can get away with it is because he makes dies for the big bullet manufacturers and DOD. The "little guys" can wait at the end of the line, and get moved to the end of the line REPEATEDLY as soon as one of the BIG boys places an order.

There are a few "garage operations" out there, but their delivery times aren't too much better at 6 to 12 months, and they get greedy REAL fast. Meaning that they set their prices not on a reasonable profit, but on what Corbin gets for his. Classic 'gauging'. Greed prevails.

The "garage" presses - like mine - are WAY 'over-built' and need some serious redesign by someone that understand mechanical engineering. The way they are currently built is the "Soviet way" which is: "If I don't know how strong something should be and don't have the skill to find out, I'll just add more steel."

Also, ALL the die makers are catering to the benchrest crowd. That's OK from a business point of view because benchrest competitors are willing to pay stupid prices for imagined precision. Unfortunately, the profit realized by making dies for people that will pay "whatever you charge" keeps 'regular Joes' out of the game.

It is akin to the difference between the likes of Redding and Wilson versus LEE with respect to reloading dies, and Saeco and RCBS versus LEE with respect to casting molds. J0e_bl0ggs and I are contemplating becoming the "LEE" of bullet swaging; providing GOOD presses and dies for guys that want to make their own bullets to hunt with, not necessarily shoot competitively with.

Jacket making is another rip-off. "Buy my .30 caliber or .22 rifle jackets or .357 or .44 cal pistol jackets, or go away and whine somewhere else."  

In the end, I have no idea how 'the business' will turn out, but we are finding out what is involved.

Paul

[drinksgin (deceased)]

Entirely too much fun!

[gitano]

Also, one needs an "Ammunition Manufacturing" federal firearms license to sell bullets. I'm not "into" FFLs that allow the BATFE and FBI to search the address on the FFL at ANY time of ANY day  WITHOUT NOTICE OR WARRANT.

Paul

[22hornet]

22h, some of us are not that energetic, but do produce our own bullets,but cast and not as cute.
Often cheaper, too.
What does a .45 or .50 cal. cf cartridge bullet, capable of 2200+ fps, cost in OZ?
I make them for about 7c, with the gc.
Color me both lazy and cheap!
Paul is energetic and , naw, can't say cheap, not with the amount of money he must have spent by now.
:angel:

I love using cast Don. Jacketing a projectile is the easy way to stop it from leading. Paper patching does the same thing.
.45 cal projectiles are expensive probably about about $1 each and up. I know alot of guys are using factory cast in their .45-70's to keep cost down but also because they will do the same job as expensive $1 a shot jacketed projectiles.

[gitano]

J0e_bl0ggs found some relatively inexpensive 3-D printers (that also use ABS media , that look promising for producing tips for the ANVB. However, what has me really jacked up is that I would be able to produce sabots of ANY caliber with ANY caliber cavity. YEEHAA! NOW WE'RE TALKIN'!

I have sent the file used by j0e_bl0gg's brother to produce the tips you have seen, to the manufacturers of the inexpensive, ABS, 3-D printer to make sure that their printer can produce that point. If it can, I will probably be getting said printer. It's about the MSRP of a mass-produced, over the counter rifle. :) And spools of ABS are only $43 each, which I calculate would make thousands of tips and sabots.

Stay tuned.

Paul

[22hornet]

I have sent the file used by j0e_bl0gg's brother to produce the tips you have seen, to the manufacturers of the inexpensive, ABS, 3-D printer to make sure that their printer can produce that point. If it can, I will probably be getting said printer. It's about the MSRP of a mass-produced, over the counter rifle. :)
Paul

Seriously? Wow that opens up so many more options now.

[gitano]

Yes... It REALLY does.

Imagine owning for example a .338 Marlin or Hornady (essentially .338-08s). With sabots, you could shoot bullets from .338 down to .17 from what is essentially a .308 Win case. If, like some I know, you would prefer the '06 case, you could get even more 'oomph' behind those smaller caliber bullets than the .308 case provides. Talk about the "one gun" person's "pleasant dream"!

HOWEVER... for those that can and do shoot through suppressors, there would either have to be some 'accommodation' or you couldn't use the suppressor. I know exactly how to accomplish those 'accommodations'. :)

Paul

[drinksgin (deceased)]

For a while, there were .30-30 cases with a .22 bullet in a sabot, I think they were doing about 3500 fps.

[gitano]

The Remington Accelerators in .30-30, .308 and .3006.

Most, including myself, got very poor precision from them. I learned a lot handloading .30/.22 sabots. Among those things was how to make duplex and triplex loads. With those, I got the .308 case to push 35-grain .22 bullets over 4500 f/s out of a 24" barrel, but precision was dismal. 3" at best most of the time. 5" almost as often. They made a God-awful blast! People at the range would come over and say, "What ARE you shooting?"

Anyway, I feel, though I have never been able to test it, that the poor precision was due to two primary factors:

1) The sabot "differentially" releasing from the bullets, and
2) The large difference between the .30 cal bore and the .22 cal bullet.

I hope to be able to test those assumptions before too long. I'm liking the idea of 115 ANVBs out of the .338-08, and .257 90-grainers out of an 8x57. :D

Paul

[j0e_bl0ggs (deceased)]

Still have a handful of '06 accelerators, can only remember them producing a pattern!

[gitano]

I thought I already posted this, but I can't find it, so forgive me if this is a repeat.

The 3-d printer will not work for making the bullet points. This "consumer-grade" printer is an "extruder". In other words, it works like squeezing toothpaste from a tube. That extrusion is then built up in layers. The horizontal positioning is quite precise, but due to the nozzle's is 0.4 mm diameter, any vertical angles will show the "jaggies" you see in the image below. This was a test I asked the printer manufacturer to make before I bought it.



I don't know if it is going to work for the sabots. I will have to do some design work to see if I can eliminate any vertical angles. I think it can be done, but I'll have samples printed up before I make any decisions.

At least for now, injection molding and the 18,000 British Sterling printer looks like the only options.

A bit disappointing, but I suspect that the 3-d printer technology is advancing so fast that this might not be an issue in a year. And, it might work for sabots as is.

Paul

[22hornet]

On the question of sabots... Why can a sabot projectile fired from say a tank, be so much more accurate than that from a rifle? I've seen tank rounds hit practically the same spot time again at 1000 metres. That is really precision shooting.

[gitano]

First, I don't KNOW the answer to that question, but what do you mean by "practically the same spot"? Hitting a vehicle at 1000 yards is impressive, but .50 Cal BMGs can put 10 rounds in a 5-inch circle at 1000 m. Hitting a 5-foot circle at 1000 m with a tank is, again, impressive, but it isn't terribly precise in a relative sense.

All of that said, the "bullets" that are used with sabots in cannons aren't bullets. They are more like little rockets. While not self-propelled, they are finned. Also, I suspect the military has spent A LOT MORE money working on sabot/projectile separation. More speculation on my part, but I'm quite sure the Dept. of Defense spent more than Remington did when Remington came out with their "Accelerators".

Paul

[Paul Hoskins]

Paul, I realize this is an old thread but just wanted to say the best to you & your endeavor. I haven't bought any bullet jackets in a long time. Really don't know where to look for them any more unless possibly Corbin. I think the only jackets I have on hand now would be 17 & 22 calibers. ......I started making my own bullets around 30 or 40 years ago. Like you, I can't handle Corbins prices or delivery time & made my own hand press. It's quiet similar to the Corbin Mighty Mite but considerably bigger & stronger. I started out using a Herters bullet making press. Later I bought another one & modified it considerably before making my own. I made all my forming,drawing, jacket trimming & swaging dies. Die making is labor intensive & time consuming. It doesn't require a masters degree to make all this but common sense & some knowledge of metallurgy comes in handy along with basic knowledge of geometry & mechanical applications. It also helps if you're up to date on new cuss words. You'll even invent your own in time. Persistence & patience are the biggest assets. .....In drawing down jackets, I try not to draw down more than about double jacket thickness at a time. It seems to be much better & easier but when drawing down larger diameter cups, one can sometimes draw down as much as .060 - .080 inch without difficulty depending on the metal hardness or brittleness. .....Good luck, pal. .....Paul H