Rather than hijack the other thread, I'll start this one. Please be patient with me, I have been gravely ill this past two months, starting with a dead gall bladder and going through two different bowel resections. I am slowly regaining my strength, but for an old guy, I don't bounce back as quickly as I did when I was young. Depending on how I feel, I may or may not check into this daily for a while. I am in the Tuttle/Bridgecreek area and belong to the Tri-City Gun Club. One of my shooting partners works with me on these to make it somewhat easier and we have considered doing a show and tell at one of the TCGC meetings to demonstrate it. We could possibly do that at some other venue if there was enough interest. Again, health issues come first. Blitzfike
Making 223 bullets from fired 22 rimfire cases.
I use the Corbin die set for the grunt work, and their core mold to cast the cores.
I start by washing the fired brass to remove any dirt and grit as well as make any remaining priming compound inert. After the brass has been cleaned, I anneal each piece by putting it on the end of a piece of welding rod and heating it with a torch until the brass changes color.
Once I have a quantity of the cases prepared to this point, I set the first die in the press to remove the rim from the case. (I use a RCBS Rock Chucker for the swaging operations. The dies are all standard 7/8X14tpi and fit standard presses. The swaging punch that moves the brass into the die fits the ram in place of a standard shell holder.) It is very critical that you use a high quality swaging lube for each operation. I have the Corbin lube, but prefer imperial sizing die wax for my use. I place the case down over the punch, and adjust the die so that the actual heavy work is done as the press ram just cams over. That gives you maximum pressure with minimum handle force. The case enters die one and when you extract it, you are left with a hollow tube closed on one end.
The next step is to put die#2 in the press and change the punch to match it. Each jacket formed previously is now ready to be formed to the correct diameter by running it into the second die.
Next, I place a lead core into the formed jacket and hand press the core to the bottom of the jacket. Die three is now used to form the bullet nose and finish the bullet.
I found that just casting cores even though the mold is adjustable isnt adequate for good accurate bullets, so I machined a die to run each cast core into to make each one exactly the same size by bleeding off excess lead as it is swaged in the die.
This is a much simplified sequence, but it captures the main essence of the process. I spent many hours perfecting the technique and can now get good bullets without much effort. Ive found that my home made bullets give me better accuracy from the bench in my bolt action Savage 223 than the generic 55 grain fmj stuff I was using to load for the ar-15 family. I can tailor the bullet weight to anywhere from 40 to 70 grains pretty easily just by adjusting the core. Several of the guys here on OSA have experimented with them and they all seem to like them. It is way too labor intensive to try to do it for sale unless you are charging a very large price to the target shooting crowd. If I did that, it wouldnt be fun anymore.. Blitzfike
Making 223 bullets from fired 22 rimfire cases.
I use the Corbin die set for the grunt work, and their core mold to cast the cores.
I start by washing the fired brass to remove any dirt and grit as well as make any remaining priming compound inert. After the brass has been cleaned, I anneal each piece by putting it on the end of a piece of welding rod and heating it with a torch until the brass changes color.
Once I have a quantity of the cases prepared to this point, I set the first die in the press to remove the rim from the case. (I use a RCBS Rock Chucker for the swaging operations. The dies are all standard 7/8X14tpi and fit standard presses. The swaging punch that moves the brass into the die fits the ram in place of a standard shell holder.) It is very critical that you use a high quality swaging lube for each operation. I have the Corbin lube, but prefer imperial sizing die wax for my use. I place the case down over the punch, and adjust the die so that the actual heavy work is done as the press ram just cams over. That gives you maximum pressure with minimum handle force. The case enters die one and when you extract it, you are left with a hollow tube closed on one end.
The next step is to put die#2 in the press and change the punch to match it. Each jacket formed previously is now ready to be formed to the correct diameter by running it into the second die.
Next, I place a lead core into the formed jacket and hand press the core to the bottom of the jacket. Die three is now used to form the bullet nose and finish the bullet.
I found that just casting cores even though the mold is adjustable isnt adequate for good accurate bullets, so I machined a die to run each cast core into to make each one exactly the same size by bleeding off excess lead as it is swaged in the die.
This is a much simplified sequence, but it captures the main essence of the process. I spent many hours perfecting the technique and can now get good bullets without much effort. Ive found that my home made bullets give me better accuracy from the bench in my bolt action Savage 223 than the generic 55 grain fmj stuff I was using to load for the ar-15 family. I can tailor the bullet weight to anywhere from 40 to 70 grains pretty easily just by adjusting the core. Several of the guys here on OSA have experimented with them and they all seem to like them. It is way too labor intensive to try to do it for sale unless you are charging a very large price to the target shooting crowd. If I did that, it wouldnt be fun anymore.. Blitzfike
