Homemade jacketed .224 bullets

M

meplat

New member
49in222.JPG


I'll try the picture again. Sorry. In the meantime, I was curious if anyone here made their own bullets from 22RF cases. The bullets above are 49 grainers. I shoot them from my 222 and 223.

A few years ago I bought the kit from Corbins.

Steve /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
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There was a guy on ar15.com some time back talking about making his own. He has a step-by-step thread showing how he was swaging, etc. It was a really cool thread. What kind of consistency are you getting making your own? If reloading components keep going up, I can see more people trying this.
 
I got all the information on the Corbon system and even helped a fella out making bullets with his. Got to say for the work involved bullets are going to have to go up a bunch. Some 22 cases work, some don't. Cleaning the cases and keeping them clean is a must to make good bullets. This is precision equipment and it is expensive. I was impressed with how well the equipment was made it should last several lifetimes.
 
Meplat, welcome to the site. One of our members, BayouCityBoy, swages his on bullets. He will probably check in. How do those shoot accuracy wise?
 
What does it take in term of time and cost to swage a bullet out of .22 RF case?

The bullet in the pictures have some dimples on it. How accurate does it shoot with that imperfection?

Does the 22 RF jacket leave more or less copper fouling in bore than factory made counterpart?

The inquiring mind wants to know... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Thanks for the welcome.

The bullets shoot as well as the store bought ones. They are finicky about which powder works, like any other bullet. The cost is about on par with Remington bulk - about .06 to .08 each.

I get the cases from an indoor range and so they're not as dirty as picking them off the ground, There are fewer headstamps to sort and the consistency is great. Lots of Lapua and Eley match stuff.

For best accuracy, I sort them by headstamp. After they're swaged, I sort them by weight. It really doesn't take very much time at all. The variance is less than 1 grain. I guess I don't really have to sort them by weight but do anyway.

The dimples don't affect anything. All commercial bullets have them too but they are polished out.

Here is a target shot with homemade bullets. 52 grains. it is a 25 shot group from a T3 - 222 Rem.

image3HT.JPG
 
I might be interested in this. I have a question for you: can you use a larger lead core and form soft nose bullets? If so, how good of a job does the Corbin punch do on nose forming? Post a pic of one, if you have it handy, please.

Also, where does the excess lead go, do they have a "bleed hole" in the nose to extrude the extra lead?
 
I hand swage 20 caliber bullets with Corbin swaging dies using commercial .224" bullet jackets drawn down to ~0.196" and then swaged back up to .204" in the core seating and nose forming dies.

I don't know abut the Corbin dies or process for converting 22LR cases to bullet jackets, but the dimples are a new thing to me. Both from the bullets I swage and from having never bought any factory bullets with dimples.

Are you sure they are part of the process or could they be a result of how you are lubing the jackets in the point forming die? Or maybe a result of the more brittle 22LR jackets not forming uniformily?

EL: The excess weight of bullet lead is bled off through bleed holes in the core forming die. You adjust it to how much you want the core to weigh (+ the jacket weight) for the final bullet weight and add a couple of grains extra of core wire to bleed off to insure a well made core.

After the core is formed in the core bleeder die, its seated in the bullet jacket in a separate process.

It takes an extra lead tipped point forming die to make lead tipped bullets. Corbin sells these dies extra as not everyone wants to make a lead tipped bullet. I bought one with my die purchase and played with it, but settled on making HP bullets most of the time.

Here's a link to some more information with some pictures I and others posted a few months ago on Saubier. There's a "Bullet Making" section there and its under a thread titled "Beginning bullet swaging". There's quite bit of other info. there also on bullet making.

http://www.saubier.com/forum.html

Also, visit Corbin's web site as it contains volumes of reading on bullet swaging.

http://www.corbins.com/

HTH - BCB
 
The dimples aren't an imperfection. They form because of the material and how pointy you make the tip. You are folding the material into a smaller space. If you annealed the cases, it wouldn't be as noticeable. When I use J4 jackets this doesn't happen, except for a VLD bullet in .313.

Many commercial bullets have this but because the jacket is softer, the dimpling is not as pronounced. They polish it away. You can detect remnants sometimes if you look at commercial bullets with a magnifying glass.

When squeezing the lead core into a cylinder, there are bleed holes to allow the excess to vent.

Steve /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

After putting the core into the jacket, any excess lead extrudes out the nose of the jacket upon forming. You then use what is called a point forming die to shape the excess lead into a point.
 
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The dimples aren't an imperfection. They form because of the material and how pointy you make the tip. You are folding the material into a smaller space. If you annealed the cases, it wouldn't be as noticeable. When I use J4 jackets this doesn't happen, except for a VLD bullet in .313.




That is pretty much what I speculated on in my previous post. It definitely sounds like they are the result of the more brittle jacket material (22LR cases) that you are using for the bullet jackets. J-4 and other jackets I have used (Sierra and Corbin) don't cause that issue even when I've formed bullets with comletely closed tips.

Some factory bullets do show evidence of jacket crimping in the larger calibers, but it is in the form of longitudinal "fracture lines" in the bullet point area ahead of the bearing surface and not actual dimples in the bullets.

-BCB
 
BCB,

I just visited the link you listed.

You are my hero, your reloading room looks so nice and clean....more like a model home than a work place...:))

Did you build that reloading bench yourself too? It looks awesome. My other half would not mind reloading activity in the house if I have something like that and be able to keep it clean. I just do not see myself being able to do all that until retirement day.
 
Hey, Randy....things are going so-so. No change on the lower back situation... Still doing therapy and hoping to stay away from the knife again for a few years more. Twice is enough...

I am getting tired of the clouds and the rain the last week or so....I'm ready for some sunshine and dry weather to go do a little shooting at least...

Take care - Hal

Howard.... I bought the oak table and had the steel leg reinforcements and the bottom steel reinforcing plate cut to fit. I attached the reinforcement braces and the steel plate under the table top myself.

And.....its definitely not always that well organized looking... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 


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