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View Full Version : 17 caliber swaging. Price of admission?


trevj
04-05-2009, 03:22 PM
Been getting more interested in going small, as well as looking at getting started swaging.

Wondering what the price of admission is. Dies from the Corbins are pretty clearly priced, but I see other folks mentioned, but have not found much other info when I search the names at the time.

What's a set of dies, suitable for use in a decent reloading press, gonna cost a guy?
And who are the options besides the Corbins, that are still in business?

Cheers
Trev

iiranger
04-06-2009, 07:33 PM
Actually making dies is routine work for any machine shop. It is the specifications that you want to order -???-... "the rub" that is overcome by ordering "off the rack" from one of the "names." Yes, Mr. Dave Corbin is the "big noise" and has the most books and advice, magazine articles, Gun Digest articles, etc... at a price. Corbins.com or swage.com or ??? He also works on computers so there is no telling. Sharp man. His brother is less talkative and in the same line of work. Richard Corbin, rceco.com. I believe it is the Nemii brothers that make dies and convert reloading presses to use same. And C. Deutsch (sp?). You hang at sites like benchrest.com and they come up with contact info. Another is Mr. Larry Blackmon, of Louisana. These are home craftsmen that you cannot hurry. They do it right or not at all. Mr. Blackmon has a snail mail address in the Back of Gun Digest Annuals. Ones I have. From there, others come and go. And you might get a less than perfect set of dies from any of these. Most will "make it right." Custom, hand work, craftsmanship... Nothing from China, CHEEP, not yet anyway... luck.

iiranger
04-06-2009, 07:34 PM
Mr. Dave Corbin has sales. Once you buy something, if what you want goes on sale, you save... "business relationship" sort of thing.

trevj
04-07-2009, 04:18 AM
Thanks fer the Nickels worth iiranger,

Trying to rationalize the cost (and the wait) for a set of Corbin Dies isn't going very well in my head. That $800 or more, that a full set of dies is listed at, could buy me a whole large pile of little bitty bullets.

On the other end of things, there has been a lot of information handed out on a platter on the Corbin site.

Gonna have to look hard at the cost of a DIY effort, I suppose, and see how that compares. Probably enough to make a guy ante up his lunch money and just pay the man!:D

Seen enough passing references to different folks that were suppliers, that did not appear to exist, as far as the interweeb was concerned, that I was sorta starting to wonder what was up with that, and I suppose it boils down to a cottage industry that is a) swamped already and don't need to advertise, and b) populated by a bunch of folk that have got along just fine without the www, thanks anyway, if you know what I mean.

Kinda tantalizing to read mention made of Carbide dies and the like, but a bit frustrating to read that the maker isn't any more, or to read that the maker has passed, without filling all the orders outstanding, etc.

Oh well. Watch and learn, I suppose.

Cheers
Trev

ray h
04-07-2009, 12:51 PM
Trev, I've been thinking about a 17 cal set of dies myself. The one thing that bothers me is the fact more companies are coming out with Green bullets and what the Park Service tried to do banding lead bullets. I'm not sure a home bullet maker can make a Green bullet with whats available to us. Does anyone know? Good dies are expensive!

trevj
04-07-2009, 02:41 PM
Re: "green" bullets. Corbins sells a powdered tungsten mix that they use to make lead free bullets. If they can get it, it's gotta be available from somewhere else as well, though the cost of buying a minimum qty may preclude doing so.

I read somewhere (maybe here) of someone using corn starch to make some quite effective short range bullets for ground squirrels and the like. Copper solids have been used for some time, too.

There's always a way...

Cheers
Trev

iiranger
04-08-2009, 03:56 PM
"Swaging" is one route. I think it was Richard Corbin that did the article on "pound dies." Two big hunks of metal. One has "male." The other "female." You drop lead into the hole and litterly pound with a mallet. Big for front loading, lead bullets.

The other, especially with the "tiny" bullets is the lathe. You buy wire or welding rod or ??? and finish it to size with precision tools. None of this is cheap. Unless you are serious... expensive hobby. But if you are willing or want the very, very best [take a box of any factory bullets and weigh each one. Variation may surprise you.]... or, as Mr. Dave Corbin expounds, a retirement hobby... Your bucks, you callllllll.... luck.

PS You are correct. Cottage industry. Gun Digest Annuals have sources in directory going back before inet. Carbide dies are great for commercial use but when first I inquired, one set of dies, NO PRESS OR ANYTHING ELSE, cost as much as a Volkswagen car... which would have been much more useful to me... as said, luck...

trevj
04-09-2009, 03:19 AM
Funny you should mention "lathe".

I missed a CNC lathe that would have been a pretty good candidate for this sort of work, by about an hour, last month... Oh well. It was pretty nearly local, too.

The "Pound" dies have two issues that I can see clearly. One is the sheer physical labor in making one bullet at a time by swinging a hammer. The other is that there is a ready supply of cheap and available molds around, for casting bullets of a size where thumping one out with two hammer hittable die halves becomes a practical proposition.

Inappropriate uses of technology, for the end required.

There are fewer alternatives to come up with a decent usin' bullet for the sub-calibers. Swaging, and machined from solid, seems about it.
Manual machining is a slow way to starve yourself to death, chewing holes in your lips over trying to keep the tolerances on a batch of bullets from driving you up the wall...

Cheers
Trev

MIBULLETS
04-09-2009, 02:00 PM
In Dave Corbin's early writings I saw where he discussed making 17 cal bullets from solid copper wire. Same stuff you wire your house with, whatever guage fits closest in the die. They wouldn't expand much but cheap to make and shoot, once you have the dies anyway.

gunhaus
04-11-2009, 05:36 PM
Actually the solid copper wire bullets are bit trickier than that. We cut a correct length piece, swage it up to nearly bullet diameter, then you need to drill a hole in the end to help the point "flow around" and form. Depending on the hole you drill they can be quite violent. But, they are time consuming to make, and a bit tricky to make really precisly. AND, they don't form worth a hoot in the hand press dies. Too much pressure required. We use our hydrualic presses to work with these. We are working on our lathe set up, and a couple of dies right now, that should speed the proccess and precision. It's a fun facet of bullet making though!

-John

Al Nyhus
04-11-2009, 08:52 PM
Been getting more interested in going small, as well as looking at getting started swaging.

Wondering what the price of admission is. Dies from the Corbins are pretty clearly priced, but I see other folks mentioned, but have not found much other info when I search the names at the time.

What's a set of dies, suitable for use in a decent reloading press, gonna cost a guy?
And who are the options besides the Corbins, that are still in business?

Cheers
Trev


Trev: Are you interested in simply making bullets or in making BR accuracy grade bullets?

Some dies make bullets. And some dies really make bullets. Big difference when you're thinking about whose dies to buy......

trevj
04-13-2009, 04:12 AM
I'm interested in making bullets, to start out. Decent ones is a pretty reasonable aim. Benchrest. Not my game.

I'm pretty sure most of the bench rest guys throw away barrels that shoot better than I can.:D
(I need to find some of those guys to scrounge barrels off!)

I've flung my share of cheap ammo at gophers and starlings, and they never knew they were hit off from where I aimed by just a little bit, if you know what I mean.
Bugholes are a nice hobby, for them that wish to pursue that particular pursuit, but I'm more interested in adequate accuracy for the ranges I will be shooting at, and a level of self sustenance in the ammo dept.


Cheers
Trev

harrens@adelphia.net
04-13-2009, 10:43 AM
Having spent a good deal of money in bullet making equipment and materials, I would not recommend getting into making my own so-so bullets. If you are not really concerned with extreme accuracy, then factory 2nd's and blems are the alternative. You can buy a heck of a lot of factory bullets with the dough it takes to set up and make your own! Plus you'll have more time to shoot. Bullet making is tedious and time consuming.

trevj
04-13-2009, 03:24 PM
The factory blems and seconds would be a wonderful source of bullets, if they were readily available this side of the US/Canada border.

At best, we seem to get stuck paying full retail, at worst, gouged. I look at the deals that show on Midway's site at times and almost drool.

Not enough market up here to support a local volume manufacturer, and a bushel basket of paperwork to import bullets, thanks to the US State Dept, and the good folks of Homeland Security.

Met a fellow this weekend that was selling his 22 caliber home-rolled's at a gun show. He said he was using a set of Corbin dies, bought many years back, when prices and availability were both pretty reasonable.
Saw some old Herters swaging dies at the same show, missing some parts. Didn't even ask price, as they were large calibers, not what I am after.

As to tedious and time consuming. Maybe. I've got all winter to do such things though, and I find that a stretch at the bench doing something that requires a little concentration, to be a vacation from anything else I might be doing. We all have different ideas of fun, eh?

Cheers
Trev

LC Smith
04-13-2009, 07:23 PM
Trev,
PM sent.

MIBULLETS
04-13-2009, 10:51 PM
gunhaus,

Was that for 17 cal bullets or larger? Not as much effort on the handle for the smaller bullets.

gunhaus
04-14-2009, 02:09 PM
It's not a matter of being able to generate enough pressure with the hand press, but too much. You can indeed form solid copper bullets with hand dies and presses, but it's playing with fire. It would take only a fairly tiny mistake to burst a die under the pressure required to form up solid copper to final diameter. Most hand press dies are either 5/8 or 7/8 diameter, as compared to the 1.5" diameter of the hydraulic press dies. Some years ago, I split a 17 cal core seat die with a very heavy drawn jacket, and a tiny little lead core that was bonded in. If you can break one with copper and lead . . .

On our hydraulic presses we do solid copper/hp 23 calibers all the time without problems. The internal punches are big enough to with stand a good deal of pressure without folding. When we first experiemented with the 204's we followed the same proceedure we used with the 23's: We cut sections of wire that were just under diameter (.201") then we weighed them to keep the samples as uniform as possible. Then they go into a core seat die with a punch that just fits the internal diameter of the die (These have to be very close) With carefull adjustment we then bring this copper billet up to a diameter just below finished diameter (Around .20385") we then use a type of center drill to put in the HP, and to create a taper/camfer at the mouth so the ogive will form into a good radius, and the meplat will form reasonably square and clean. Then we point up like normal.

The thing is, a "cull" billet somehow wandered into the good pile, and when it went into the coreseat die and cycled it simply folded up the internal punch and actually created a slight "bulge" inside the die. This rouge billet weighed
.4 more than the good billets. Now if this had been in a hand press what might the outcome have been? Sure, you may have felt the increased pressure. . . But maybe not. It was an expensive lesson. (Incidently, we try to hold out tolerances to .05 gr + or - for a total of .1gr or less) We've been working on a new die/internal punch/external punch combo that should give us some "forgiveness" in the system. As we move down in caliber to .172" the internal parts are obviously even small and the potential for breakage is obviously higher.

The real fly in the solid bullet, is making a very precise and uniform copper billet, in a reasonably fast manner, with equipment that is affordable for the small shop. We can make solid/hp copper bullets right now with very good precision, with our current lathe and saw set ups. . . But they are tediously slow to make, and would have to sell for far more than most guys are going to be willing to pay.

There are also some details involving the depth of the hole. Not deep enough and the bullet gets to be very difficult to form. Too deep, and the ogive will collapse around the hole from lack of support.

None of this is insurmountable, and in fact we think we are pretty close right now
-John

trevj
04-14-2009, 07:54 PM
I was very close to buying a CNC lathe that would have been a shoo-in for that sort of operation, one of many that occurred to me that it would work for. Sadly, it did not happen.

I have been looking at the rotary broaches and wondering if they are available (and still durable enough) in sizes small enough to form a hex or octagonal recess in the bullet blank to allow for expansion in a controlled manner, a-la the Barnes copper slugs, and wondering if that is the approach they used, or if they just swaged the recess before point forming, to develop the petals. I sort of suspect the latter.

Cheers
Trev

Al Nyhus
04-14-2009, 09:00 PM
trev: One 'must' for any aspiring bullet maker is to educate themselves on the 'expand up' principle of bullet making pioneered by Biehler and Astles.

Two great articles are in the Benchrest Shooting Primer. Required reading, in my opinion. Once you grasp the why's of how the expand up prinicple works, you'll understand why this process makes the best bullets. Forget about the lathe turned stuff. There is much, much more to a bullets performance than external dimensions. :)

I really sympathize with the situation Canadians find themselves in re: U.S. export policy post 9-11. One thing to check with....even though jackets aren't in effect 'completed' bullets, is there any issue with importing them? A quick call to Berger/J4 would be in order. If they can ship jackets to Canada with no issues, your problems are solved! All you need is a reliable source of core material and a great set of dies and you're in business.

Larry Blackmon makes killer tool steel dies. For less than $1,000 you can be in business. George Ulrich makes great dies and equipment and posts here..not sure if he does .17 cal. dies or if George's dies are exclusively carbide? Neimi Engineering is another great source of dies, presses..everything you need. I know that Dave Detsch is continuing the die making his father did for many years. So there are several choices when it come to quality dies. These are all quality people/companies that will supply good products and help you through the process after the sale.

It takes the same effort and $ to make good bullets as it does to make bad ones.;) Stick with the die mfgs. that turn out quality products. ;)

Not hard to connect the dots.....if you know what I mean? :D

trevj
04-14-2009, 09:25 PM
Oh, I do know what you mean!

Been reading through the B&A stuff that I can find online, and the Corbin's stuff on both their respective sites.

As far as the lathe goes, I draw your attention to the factual price that the 50 cal guys are paying up here, thanks to the aforementioned agencies, for good quality bullets at retail. A box of 20 , with 20 primers included, is retailing for $89. .408 projectiles are going for slightly less. A box of suitable primers is retailing at the same source, for about $65. Used pulled bullets of no particular pedigree are running the range from $1.50 on up.

That was really where I was eyeing up when I was dealing on the lathe. Selling to guys used to those prices, would allow me to not worry too much about the cost or availability of the small stuff. Stuff like copper solids was something I was looking at for interests sake, though if it panned out into something of use... That deal did not go, though, so ...

As to the makers of dies. Thanks for the good word. I am a bit surprised how many folk have gone to the trouble of waving me away from considering bullet making. :D

Cheers
Trev

Al Nyhus
04-16-2009, 01:28 AM
I am a bit surprised how many folk have gone to the trouble of waving me away from considering bullet making. :D
Cheers
Trev

Trev, I'm not waving you away from bullet making. But it's not something anyone should jump into w/o a thorough knowledge of what's required and the 'why's' of the process. A successful bullet maker as a mentor can save a lot of time, effort, anguish and money for the newcomer.

Best of luck whatvever you decide to do. :) -Al

trevj
04-16-2009, 02:19 AM
It turns into a chicken/egg thing, unfortunately.

If I wait until I have direct access to an experienced mentor, I could never get started.
Right now I am gathering together information. Still a cheap hobby! :D

Cheers
Trev