That was a fantastic series - stayed up *way* too late at night watching them all. It was fascinating to see what went into it and how to use the various tools to get the desired result.
One trick I learned for reaming holes that avoids any chance of a conical, or bell shaped, hole is to feed fairly fast, about twice the rate you are showing, stop the spindle then retract the reamer. This generally doesn't leave any drag marks, and creates a very precision hole, leaving less work for the honing step. Big fan of your videos!
All I can say is well done, I watched the whole series before commenting. Now...all you need to do is make a set of dies for 223 and 7.62 and give me a price.
Two days ago I bought an OBI 5 Ton press for doing this exact operation. Thank you for the series. Your channel is awesome. Those are cylindrical plug gages, not "pin" gages. You can use two plug gages together to measure holes up to .999 with your .250-.500 plug gage set. Also, the "snap" gages you are using are telescoping gages not snap gages. Snap gages are something entirely different. Snap gages are fixed Go/NoGo gages for measuring OD's and such. Fine work, thank you for the time and effort John.
Learning along the way from things others have learned even from their mistakes along the way some times we learn more from our mistakes lol once again loving the info
Honing leaves a lot of crud behind, and it will remove material faster than you think. I always flooded with honing oil if I could to keep the stones clean and cutting accurate. The small ball hones do a great job too. The way you honed will leave a slight taper. Passing completely through a bore and pulling it back out is best. It is a learned skill. You will need to hone, measure, rinse repeat for awhile to get the knack. It's a pretty easy process. Pretty fancy stuff you got there.
Rather than using the tailstock crank, you can loosen the tailstock enough for it to move freely and push it in with your hand. OK for small enough reamers, gives almost as much feel as a drill press. Materials make a big difference, aluminum I would definitely stop the spindle. Like others have mentioned, I too, am grateful for you taking the time to document your approach to making things!
Absolutey more John, I have to say even though I not a shooter anymore I now understand much better what I would need to accomplish my pet project, Thank you. and may I just add you have excellent teaching abilitys, I would call it "Gifted +" dude, and thats no smoke...
please can you make the videos of how to make the dies to draw it out to the 9mm jacket? adn the rest of the accociated dies like the most important one the one that forms the bullet tip. Awsome video you have helped me emmencly. "ran out of words to say"
I don't even know how to operate this machines, but it is awesome series, making real stuff is really cool. I'm a programmer, but man I found metalworking extremely entertaining :) this is crazy, I know:) keep it up.
If that ball honer is like the ones we use on engine cylinders they're made to spin. The spinning extends the balls on the tool applying perfect pressure to the work.
After drilling the hole, it is good practice to use a boring bar to true bore the hole before reaming this assures best concentricity with the O.D. The only true hole is a bored hole.
Super video thanks for posting, I just subscribed looking forward to more great videos. Cheers from Canada. P.S. I knew there had to be away to do this at home.
Lets keep going. I have nothing but time!!! lol Great series and will be very interesting to see this series go all the way to the gun range!!! a big "Like"
After this, I am no longer complaining about the $2-$3 difference between bullets. That's a hell of a lot of work just to draw some copper. And to think I send these little works of art into clots of dirt for fun... I feel guilty :(
WOW ... you realy did a great job! The cup looks awesome! And of course I would love to see all the other steps to the finish bullet jacket, but I would also understand you if you don't film everything because setting up the camera and moving it and mostly editing takes a very long time ... so yeah =) Thank you!
Normally on a cupping press the die is a pass through and the jackets are stripped when the punch retracts. I highly recommend downloading or buying a copy of "Cartridge Manufacture" by Hamilton. It is now in the public domain.
Well then... toss my comment out! I don't have a hone that fine. I am sure with a microscope there is a taper, but I can't see a 600 doing that much work that fast. I don't know. I'm glad I commented. Have a good week, Caleb.
Yes, I'd love to see the series on making the jacket drawing dies! I'm really sorry that my comments are about two years too late. If you have the series up, can you provide a link to them? I have liked the Facebook Page as well, if the series has been posted over there?
really like the videos. great explanations of everything. Are you going to make a hand press that would be quicker than the shop hydrolic press to use?
17:41 I realized a critical error You need some googly eyes on that thing Seriously though, I'd love to see the rest of this project - amazing work so far!
brush research has videos on how to use the dingle ball hone. i was noticing your stroke speed is pretty slow. whatever gives you the finish you desire is "right" but typically you would stroke the thing about 4x faster than you are going. and dont worry about being "square" to the bore. because of hte suspension on teh balls, it doesnt matter. its typically much better to hold the work and spin the brush in a hand drill. you can NEVER have too much lube when honing.
Nooooo I watched all these only to not finish the bullet !!!! Lol Please make a video with the finished product please. I’d be so interested. BTW. I’m from Long Island but I’m now in the free America zone GEORGIA 👍. Never going back.
Amazing.I'm very impressed.I wish I had the Lathe & equipment that you have.There's not a whole lot of PPL out there that have & run Machine Shops anymore.No one wants to take the time to do this work.They would rather replace the whole thing than to fix the issue.Say someone locked up a 5HP Briggs Motor.It cost more to rebuild it than it is to buy one new.What's your opinion on that in general?
Firstly, amazing work. Question: Did you ever end up finishing this project? Can't seem to find any videos for the final steps of forming the projectile nose. Looking at making something similar for myself to turn out a jacket at .318 with a final weight of about 120gr.
Probably gave up. I don't understand why would you make 9mm jackets when cast or plated bullets work just fine and are really cheap. Now if he made a little bit bigger for .357 magnum that would be a different story or 30 caliber even better.
i think you need a good strong valve spring (or two) to return your plunger once it's passed the counter-bore. tool steel is the stuff you want to make a finished product with. how much pressure is required to form it? i'd make a short stroke large bore pneumatic cylinder to drive it down faster.
also, i would O.D.-thread the punch pin and screw that into a base plate. then if you got the extractor to work the cups would just fall out the bottom.
I've been swaging my own .222 bullet jackets from .22 Rimfire jackets, but I'm stuck on how to trim them to the various lengths I need for different weights, this is the only stage left, after this I can make my own .222 Bullets, been over to the castboolits forum but couldn't find anything to help, bare in mind that I have nothing more complicated than a Drill press & chop/drop/cut off saw, so anything I make has to be done with only those tools, any ideas?
I'm loading for a very rare .222 Rimmed rifle, the cases are tough to get so I don't run any projectiles lager than 50gr because the cases tend to split with a larger charge & higher projectile weight , this is why I need to trim my .22 jackets to a shorter length.
John NYCCNC Pre-cut discs of that size weighing 48 grains are readily available and affordable. They only need to be annealed. But they are twice the thickness of the stock with which you are working and the LMC to MMC is greater as well. So it appears that the space between punch and die would need to be greater for the initial draw. The question is whether a disc of that thickness would draw or tear. Your rig is well on its way to producing tolerances better than needed for National Match competition. It would be nice to see a version for the econo-loader. I suspect a working proof of concept for the 0.750Ø x 0.060 would earn a machinist instant entry into the diy/shtf/prepper/wrol hall of fame.
I say chopsticks instead of dowels because they seem to have more flex than your common dowel stock which seems like it should be better for polishing.
LOL, ok smoke it is, puff whoosh!!, your the best machinest in the whole damn world, and the back of you head puts Fenner ugly mug to shame and mr pete, he only dreams of having your lathe.
This was awesome I too am trying to learn how to make my own bullets for personal use. But I can not find anything about how to draw your own .223 cases or any machines you can buy that will do it. Can you help point me in the right direction? The machining world can get pretty over whelming.
