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Bullet Making
1. The Best on Bullet Making
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The Best on Bullet Making:
Making Benchrest Quality Bullets
1. What makes a bullet benchrest quality?
2. What equipment is needed to make benchrest quality bullets and where can I get the equipment?
3. What are the essential techniques for producing benchrest quality bullets?
Bryan Armatys
1. What makes a bullet benchrest quality?
The heart of bullet making is in the dies. Bart Sauter advertises the fact that he "got lucky" and got a good set of dies. He is exactly right. The dies we use are hand-made and no two are alike. It does take a bit of luck to get a die that really sings.
A benchrest quality bullet must have consistent jacket walls to keep the bullet in balance. Variations in jacket wall thickness put the bullet in an imbalance situation similar to a washing machine with too many pairs of jeans on one side. At something around 200,000 RPM, the slightest out of balance situation can cause problems. Good quality jackets, being "outsourced" items, are critical.
Consistent core weight is another factor, but not as critical as some would have you believe. For short range benchrest, bullet total weight variances of 2 or 3 tenths of a grain will not be seen on the target. We normally have control of core weight, but different lots of jackets produce bullet weights that may vary by a half grain or more. I have intentionally shot bullets from 2 different lots, that weighed a half grain apart, into the same group with no notable dispersion.
Given a good set of dies and the skill to use them, the quality of the jacket is the single most important factor in producing benchrest bullets.
2. What equipment is needed to make benchrest quality bullets and where can I get the equipment?
Carbide dies are made to last a lifetime of continuous use. Steel dies are infinitely more affordable and will last the bullet maker that makes bullets for himself nearly forever. Steel dies for commercial use have a limited lifetime.
Niemi Engineering is a good source for carbide dies. Larry Blackmon (Bullet Swaging Supply) offers steel dies and my own personal experience with his dies has been very positive. There are other die makers out there that I don't have personal experience with. Others have had fantastic results with them. Talk to the manufacturers that build the dies and make up your mind from there.
Beyond that, modified presses to accommodate the dies, tumblers to lube the jackets, micrometers, scales, etc. will be necessary. These are available thru the die maker, and in the case of micrometers, scales, etc., check the reloading supply houses.
3. What are the essential techniques for producing benchrest quality bullets?
There is really no magic, smoke & mirrors, or God given talent involved in bullet making. To the contrary, it can be tedious factory work. There is checking and more checking the dimensions of jackets, cores, bullet dimensions, etc. After it is all set, bullet making involves endless handle pulling.
Cleanliness is extremely important in bullet making. Clean the jackets in lacquer thinner or acetone to remove all traces of manufacturing oils and to remove any dust or dirt that may scratch an expensive die. The core must be free of lubricant or it will not adhere to the inside of the jacket, or voids may occur. I use a 5 gallon bucket and a carburetor dip bucket, agitate the contents, and air dry.
Dies are occasionally removed and cleaned with brake cleaner. Be sure to use extra lube on the first few jackets after cleaning to make sure they don't stick in the die.
The amount of lube has a bearing on the final bullet dimensions, so it is of paramount importance.
The "dwell time" or time spent at the pressure end of the press stroke has to be consistent. The "feel" of the press stroke can signal a light or heavy core, or the presence of a folded jacket. This feel becomes ingrained and subtle differences between bullets are readily apparent. I have a certain CD I listen to when making bullets--especially during core seating. I get a rhythm going that makes sensing the differences easy.
By all means, keep records of each lot of bullets...all pertinent dimensions etc., and always check the first few bullets you make when resuming a session at the press.
Consider how to share bullet making with reloading operations. An “L†shaped bench, with the bullet equipment on one side and reloading stuff on the other is reasonable. There will be an overlap at times, so make sure to cover the cores, jackets, presses, etc. when not in use. Spilling powder on your freshly lubed jackets will definitely bring a scowl to your face! A clean reloading area promotes safety, as we all know. It also prevents time consuming re-washing of bullet components.
BA
Guy Chism
3. What are the essential techniques for producing benchrest quality bullets?
This is how I make bullets. I pull the lead wire though a wire straightener, then cut it to short lengths. I cut 30 cal. wire to 28 inch lengths and 6mm wire to 18 inch lengths. I cut 30 cal. cores 3 grs. over weight and 6mm cores 2.5 grs. over weight. I use 2 grs. of lube per pound of cores and tumble 6 pounds of cores at a time for 5 minutes. My core lube is 4 oz. of Marvel Mystery Oil, 4 oz. of STP, plus 60 grs. of Johnson #140 stick wax.
After lubing the cores, I squirt them to size in a core forming die. I have ground the stop on the press so the handle breaks over, which helps to keep the cores uniform.
To degrease the squirted cores, I use 2 buckets and a 3 lb. coffee can with holes punched from the inside. I put the cores in the coffee can and Coleman fuel in the buckets. Wash in the first bucket, rinse in the second bucket. To dry, put the cores on a towel and GENTLY roll them back and forth 20 times.
For washing jackets, I have 2 one-gallon plastic jugs. I wash the jackets in Coleman fuel in one of the jugs and use a funnel with filter paper to drain to the other jug. Put the clean jackets on a towel to dry.
Tumble the jackets to apply the lube. I use a jacket lube consisting of 50% anhydrous lanolin and 50% castor oil by weight. Jackets will vary sometimes from lot to lot and affect how much lube you have to use. For a bucket of 800, 30 cal., 1.150 jackets, I start with 13 grs. of lube. I want the bullet to stretch to it’s maximum length with as little lube as possible when pointing up. Go up or down half a gr. at a time to find out how much lube for that lot. It also depends on whether you have carbide or steel dies and how slick they are.
Then stuff the clean cores in the jackets.
I seat the cores hard enough to expand the jacket to the size of the core seating die, from the base of the jacket to the lead line, and I stop. I don’t want to deform or get close to rupturing the jacket.
Pointing bullets up. I run bullets in the point up die to where they will not hang on the knock-out pin and stop just before they start to stove-pipe.
P.S.
It is VERY important that you weigh your lube and use the same amount each time. I have a Thumlers tumbler that I converted to use 1 gal. paint cans. It has an automatic timer, I tumble cores for 5 minutes and jackets for 15 minutes.
As I cut the cores, I weigh the second core from each length of wire so that if the wire is running bad I can adjust. Try to keep cut cores to plus or minus 3 tenths of a grain. If some cut cores are heavy and some light, you can’t make uniform cores.
When squirting cores you must squirt each one the same. You can’t squirt one fast and the next slow. When I get tired I take a break.
Guy
Don Gentner
1. What makes a bullet benchrest quality?
The quality of a bullet is a function of the quality of the bullet dies used in manufacturing. The next item would be the individual person making the bullets. A bullet maker must continuously maintain exact consistency within the manufacturing processes to ensure a high-quality product. On the other hand, I have always said that the window is wide regarding size and shape of the benchrest quality bullet.
If the bullet dies are made correctly, meaning that the center line of the base of the bullet is aligned with the center line of the point, the ogive is between 7 and 8, and the bullet is of course round, the maker is well on his way to having a quality product.
However, regardless of the dies used, at this point it is the responsibility of the bullet maker to learn how to make the bullets correctly using the proper equipment. Most of us bullet makers are constantly learning. Various components involved in the manufacture of bullets, including jacket sizes and shapes and also metallurgical composition, have changed over the years. We must always be aware of these changes, and I say as I have said many times, we all learn from our mistakes and make better bullets because of them.
2. What equipment is needed to make benchrest quality bullets and where can I get the equipment?
Niemi Engineering has been in the bullet die making business for 20 years. The combined experience of this father and son team, built upon their own expertise and from listening closely over the years to hundreds of knowledgeable bullet makers, has allowed them to manufacture the finest equipment with which we can make bullets.
Niemi Engineering can supply all of the components to make benchrest quality bullets, dies, punches, presses and everything needed to get you started in the benchrest bullet making business, either as hobby or small business.
3. What are the essential techniques for producing benchrest quality bullets?
The most important operation in making bullets is maintaining core to jacket bonding. This bonding can only be ensured with the correct preparation of the lead cores. Proper preparation includes swaging the cores, and then both cleaning and oxidizing (editor’s note – see Gary Ocock’s oxidizing procedure below). Although this two stage process is more time consuming, it is absolutely necessary to the extent that if not done, the next step, the pointing operation, will result in a poor quality bullet.
Don
Bheadboy Bob
