Time to make the donuts....
- Thread starter AlNyhus
- Start date
Nice work Al.Like the old Dunkin' Donuts commercial....time to make the bullets.
A colander full of washed cores, rinsed and ready to dry:
Then rolled on a big slurp up towel:
Spread out to dry on a beach towel. Tomorrow, they'll get stuffed into jackets.
Good shootin'-Al
jackieschmidt
Gold $$ Contributor
Al, are you making your cores or getting them from Hood?
Thanks for posting Al, more pics tomorrow please, would love to learn how y’all do this.
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AlNyhus
Silver $$ Contributor
Jackie, I've been getting them from Charlie Hood. I do make my own cores for trying different bullet weights and percentage of jacket fill. -Al
jelenko
Gold $$ Contributor
Do the cores stay cylindrical as the jackets are put on?Like the old Dunkin' Donuts commercial....time to make the bullets.
A colander full of washed cores, rinsed and ready to dry:
Then rolled on a big slurp up towel:
Spread out to dry on a beach towel. Tomorrow, they'll get stuffed into jackets.
Good shootin'
AlNyhus
Silver $$ Contributor
The inside of the jackets are tapered from top to bottom. The jacket is held in a die and a punch forces the core to the bottom of the jacket. The force of the punch also pushes the lead to the sides of the jacket. In other words, the cores end up conforming to the inside of the jacket...which isn't exactly a straight cylinder.
jackieschmidt
Gold $$ Contributor
We made up 1500 112’s about a week ago. I have 10,000 cores on order from Charlie Hood, probably get them around March.
I have a core squirt die, but for some reason, it will not make as good of a core as I can get from Charlie. What do you lube your cores with?
I have a core squirt die, but for some reason, it will not make as good of a core as I can get from Charlie. What do you lube your cores with?
P1ZombieKiller
Gold $$ Contributor
I DO NOT miss those days!!!!
JoeDuke
Gold $$ Contributor
Sez the one who turns necks for fun and relaxation!
AlNyhus
Silver $$ Contributor
Jackets are lubed in a rotational tumbler. For lube, I use the original recipe Randy Robinett gave me when he encouraged me to try bullet making and offered to mentor me. It's a blend of anhydrous lanolin and pure neats foot oil. Randy continues to be a great resource to this day. 
My dies are Blackmon tool steel so the lube requirements are more than with carbide dies. For lubing jackets prior to core seating, .8 gr./100 ( 4.0 gr. per 500) jackets works well in these dies. A big glass pickle jar is used for lubing. A 2" square of waxed paper is weighed, lube is applied to the waxed paper and it's reweighed and lube added/subtracted until it's dead on. Then the waxed paper is put in the jar and starting from the bottom, an even smear of lube is applied to the jar as the waxed paper is brought to the top. I load the clean jackets in the jar with the lubed portion of the jar at 12:00 so the open end of the jackets can't 'scoop' any lube and get it inside the jacket.
I lube 500 at a time for 30 minutes, then put two batches of 500 into the jar and tumble again for 10 minutes to even out the lube on each jacket. Probably overkill but it works for me. One thing I feel is very important is to completely clean the inside of the jar of any trace of lube prior to relubing. Acetone and 91% alchohol both work well as cleaners. This will prevent any unintentional 'drift' of the amount of lube on each jacket. You can get away with this on core seating but it's really important when pointing up with steel dies. These tool steel dies run around 62-64 Rc so while theyr'e pretty hard, you still have to be a clean nazi with them. There's a lot of these Sterlite tubs used and I keep them strictly segregated. For example, core tubs only ever get cores in them. Ditto for lubed jackets and core seated jackets.
1,000 lubed and ready to get stuffed.
My dies are Blackmon tool steel so the lube requirements are more than with carbide dies. For lubing jackets prior to core seating, .8 gr./100 ( 4.0 gr. per 500) jackets works well in these dies. A big glass pickle jar is used for lubing. A 2" square of waxed paper is weighed, lube is applied to the waxed paper and it's reweighed and lube added/subtracted until it's dead on. Then the waxed paper is put in the jar and starting from the bottom, an even smear of lube is applied to the jar as the waxed paper is brought to the top. I load the clean jackets in the jar with the lubed portion of the jar at 12:00 so the open end of the jackets can't 'scoop' any lube and get it inside the jacket.
I lube 500 at a time for 30 minutes, then put two batches of 500 into the jar and tumble again for 10 minutes to even out the lube on each jacket. Probably overkill but it works for me. One thing I feel is very important is to completely clean the inside of the jar of any trace of lube prior to relubing. Acetone and 91% alchohol both work well as cleaners. This will prevent any unintentional 'drift' of the amount of lube on each jacket. You can get away with this on core seating but it's really important when pointing up with steel dies. These tool steel dies run around 62-64 Rc so while theyr'e pretty hard, you still have to be a clean nazi with them. There's a lot of these Sterlite tubs used and I keep them strictly segregated. For example, core tubs only ever get cores in them. Ditto for lubed jackets and core seated jackets.
1,000 lubed and ready to get stuffed.
P1ZombieKiller
Gold $$ Contributor
I am a little off center.
AlNyhus
Silver $$ Contributor
Joe, I've only tried and used .5%, 1% and 2%. Honestly, I've never seen any on target differences with any of them. I've never used any pure lead so can't comment on those. -Al
jackieschmidt
Gold $$ Contributor
Al, the four rolls I got were from Ronnie Cheek‘s estate. I really do not know.
my problem is the weights are varying as much as 5 tenths of a grain. I have tried different length blanks, it doesn’t seem to make a difference.
AlNyhus
Silver $$ Contributor
Jackie, with my setup, there's three bleed holes for the 'squirt off'. If I don't start with a cut core about 3 gr. more than what the finished core should weigh, the weights will vary. But it sounds like you've tried that. I wonder if it would be worth while to try some other wire...maybe there's something wonky in the material or the antimony mix ratio?
I have several spools of Crown Metal .251" .30 cal. core wire. I'd be happy to send you some to try it and see what shakes.
I have several spools of Crown Metal .251" .30 cal. core wire. I'd be happy to send you some to try it and see what shakes.
Is there any age hardening going on with the antimony in the wire?
D Coots
Silver $$ Contributor
Bullet making is similar to shooting. You talk to 10 guys and get 10 answers. All the answers are probably correct for their setups, just different ways to skin the cat. Who cares how you do it as long as you end up with a naked cat.
Some don't wash cores, just use them out of Hoods box. Some wash...Some don't wash jackets either, just lube them, some do...
Different strokes and today l learned steel dies need more lube than carbide.
Later
Dave
Some don't wash cores, just use them out of Hoods box. Some wash...Some don't wash jackets either, just lube them, some do...
Different strokes and today l learned steel dies need more lube than carbide.
Later
Dave
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