Bullet jackets

[Kali Komrade]

Here's something for you guys to wrap your minds around check this shit out... Making .223 jackets from 22lr shells... Not a cheap startup however... Think about it... 22lr shells are cheap and plentiful...

Check it out here...
http://www.shootingtimes.com/ammunition/st_223short_200711/index.html

http://www.corbins.com/rfjm.htm

Little pricey... at only $783.00

[1919_4_ME]

Interesting article.
Thanks for posting that.:beer:

[Pirate]

I looked into that years ago, it is not cheap and labor intensive. also the .22 cases are not as strong as a copper jacket so the bulets are not as good against hard targets.

[Kali Komrade]

True but what do you do when you can't get jacketed bullets anymore is running a cast lead with a molycoat enough or will it foul out things like the AR-15 and mini 14...

[rugman59]

I posted a couple of times on Corbins.You can make ANY type of bullet with their tools,
except cast bullets.Check them out.

[1919_4_ME]

Well I guess these would be the way to go for punchin paper or shooting varmits but since I never have any time to do anything I'm stuck with buying loaded ammo for now...:bow:

[Pirate]

as a last resort, I guess it is ok, but it is a lot of work if you don't have to do it. you also need to clean out all the residue from the fired cases to get a realy good bullet.

[weaponizer]

I also checked into that many years ago, and as Pirate said its a lot of work, and can get expensive, especially with lead prices, you have to buy Corbins lead, so you can't scronge any...Besides i can make lead really hard, between water dropping, and oven baking, i can't smash it with a hammer....(You have to learn something after 35 years of reloading)...:green:

[Phalanx]

In shooting Cannons i found what works :green: For years i had cast lead bullets from Tire Weights ,any tire shop will give them to you and they are hard enough they make great bullets . I use them in my 45/70 & 90 . I made 30 cal bullets and they worked good but i could only shoot them in an H&K.

Then i was on a Cannon site telling a guy how i made my balls for my cannon. He told me to try Zinc ,it worked great ,it melts like lead with more heat ,except it was harder .like copper. Then i got these cheap 9mm rounds made in Spain , they were lead flashed with zinc ,,,Brain Fart . I got out the smallest 308 mold i had ,made some bullets , and let them cool off real good. Then i made this little flat spoon at a 33 deg. angle ,put a bullet on it standing up and dipped it in the hot zinc .Ta Da , nice smooth jacket , the over run would just break off when i bent over the bullet to get it off the spoon ,and when the spoon became hot enough that wasn't a problem ,because the lead was cold,the spoon hot and it would run off. i let them cool again and dipped the bases to cover them there also. I ran them through the resizer die ,they were a little stiff but i sprayed it with silicone spray then no problem . weighed them and they all were so close to 165 gr it hurt . i made 50 and i loaded them up ,and fired them in a bolt action first .no different than copper ,no barrel fouling , no change in MOA.

My buddy had one of those cheap Russian 308 AK hunting rifles , we tried them in it ,no problems . Things to remember ,the zinc i was using has tin in it ,they are being used as the new PC wheel weights. I don't believe real zinc would work for long.
Zinc and lead do not like each other ,if you melt zinc in the same thing you melt your lead in ,you will never be able to melt lead in it again . Zinc is a coating material ,like a low heat plating . I tried this on 223 , using pure straight zinc tire weights because the bullets are to small to mess with like this .the bullets were lighter than they should be ,on a 65 gr lead it came out 47grs ,in the 65 gr size .it worked ok loaded for 50 gr varmint but accuracy sucked. i was talking to an old man on a forum one night telling him this , he said he had heard of people doing that , and to bring their bullet weight up useing powdered lead ,they don't mix to make any kind of alloy ,but the zinc would hold the lead in suspension and all i had to do is cast the mix .,and keep it stirred . I haven't tried that yet ,but i know if they ban bullets even that isnt going to stop me .And we have made primers before that worked.

[Phalanx]

Weaponizer , I have tried that with wheel weight also ,with them you are starting out with hard lead , I can add more tin but it gets to hard to resise. The best thing i ever did was start with the small mold again , and i borrowed a metalizer gun from a machine shop .I used Copper in the gun and sprayed the bullets .This worked also but the jacket wasn't as smooth as i liked. Some guys have shot pure wheel weights in their AKs with no problems but i haven't tried that yet.

[Slick]

I too had read up on this some time ago. The "problem" is thaT .22LR shells the had symetrical head-stamp were required. A non-symetrical headstamp like "F" or "CCI" created bullets that were not accurate.

.223 bullets can still be had for a fairly decent price. I just picked up 6K Hornady .223 55gr bullets for 6.86-cents each (from Midsouth Shooter's)...

For .308's - I've been going with the Nosler "custom competition" factory 2nd's for 15.7 cents each.. Hornady's 150gr FMJ's go for 13.52-cents a piece in bulk from the same place.

[secretbard]

I too had read up on this some time ago. The "problem" is thaT .22LR shells the had symetrical head-stamp were required. A non-symetrical headstamp like "F" or "CCI" created bullets that were not accurate.



Now that I did not know. I was looking into buying the Corbin setup before I read this. You almost have to buy their lead and their jackets to make it worth your while... and buying the jackets will raise the price of each bullet whereas it really wouldn't be worth your time and energy. Now I may just eat those words a year or two down the road when the price of bullets becomes as much as the finished product today. :shock1:

[rugman59]

Metal strip rolls and lead wire spools can be purchased through places like .Metal Supermaket and others.I don't believe Corbins has a corner on the metal market.They have to buy from somewhere too,don't they??:wink:
Look into how the Israeli's smuggled an entire ammo factory in and used it unders the Brit's noses beneath a laundry.
They made their own brass too.All it boils down to is a series of forming cutting and swaging dies,with some metallurgy skills.I.E annealing and such.
One guy on here completely automated his loading operation by himself!
I have no doubt that between Tom T,panacea.,and no small few other guys on this board could put together an entire ammo plant in short order!
God I love this place!:saluteflag:

[Kali Komrade]

Funny that you mention that Rugman I believe not to long ago the equipment you were talking about was up for sale not to long ago... The nice thing about it was the equipment was small and didn't take up a huge foot print...

I'm still thinking about getting that equipment... Accuracy may not be an issue that stuff would be more for pray and spray... Course they make claims that it can be accurate... I think it has to do more with the consistency and scale of use...

[dewat]

I read this thread a couple of weeks ago, been thinking about it since, I have cast lead bullets and I used to commercially reload so while I'm not a novice I'm sure as hell not an expert either :big:, anyway I'm sure everyone if familiar with CCI/Speer's TMJ - Total Metal Jacket , instead of making a core and jacket , they just copper plate the core. The closest I've come to plating is I anodized a piece of AL once just to see if I could do it and parkerizing but that's not really the same.

So some Googling turned up these patents

http://www.google.com/patents?id=swYaAAAAEBAJ&dq=3,431,612

http://www.google.com/patents?id=zWk5AAAAEBAJ&dq=4387492

http://www.google.com/patents?id=D8caAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=4734179&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0_0#PPA2,M1

More patents are listed on this document

http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/4387492.html

My thinking is it might be a lot easier to form lead cores and plate them than to make the jackets, as to the plating part of it from what I've picked up here and there to get the correct final diameter it should be just a matter of experimenting with the amount of current and the time.



But then as I said I don't know what I'm talking about, so just food for thought . :big: