What kind of trouble am I going to get into if I use 3/8" bronze, brass, or copper rod to make 375 caliber bullets? My biggest worry is pressure problems, because I don't know how hard an alloy can be safely shot in a rifled bore (I assume tungsten carbide would get as far as the leade and just sit there and be a bore obstruction, an illegal bore obstruction at that. Soft copper probably wouldn't be any worse than an X-bullet, pressure-wise. Somewhere in there, I am guessing there is a hardness of alloy that is going to give me pressure problems.) My second biggest worry is barrel wear. My third biggest worry is that the expense and time tooling up and actually making the bullets would be better spent buying and shooting Barnes bullets, respectively.

H. C.

Henry - The first question which springs to mind is - Why on earth would you want to do this? The next is - Are you just wanting to save a few bucks or are you interested in becoming an amateur ballistics pioneer?

I would leave the manufacturing of bullets to the experts. Your gun and eyesight might last a little longer this way.

[ 08-28-2002, 19:11: Message edited by: Zero Drift ]

Are you thinking of using swage dies? The brothers Richard and David Corbin each own a company that makes serious swage presses and die sets for such an undertaking. Swaging brass and copper requires stronger dies and greater pressure than does smooshing lead into a jacket. The presses & dies aren't cheap, but that's the cost of experimenting in this arena.

Don't be discouraged, but be very careful. The new NorthFork bullets that are being spoken of quite highly are the result of a man on a mission to create a better bullet.

Tell us some more of how you intend to go about bullet making.

BigIron

My concern would be that 3/8" rod isn't going to be perfectly round and .375" in dia, so to make a decent projectile, you'll likely need to start with 1/2" dia.

I would machine in driving bands similar to what GS custom and Norfolk do. I'd also use an Oehler PBL w/ the strain gauge to make sure that pressures are at a safe level.

To your third concern, you will be able to buy lots of commercial bullets for the cost of getting the equipment, and coming up with a successful design. I would consider a CNC lathe a must, as you'll likely go nuts making them manually, and unless you're a skilled machinist, will have difficulty making them to tight enough tollerances to be accurate enough to be worth the trouble.

Here'e a site that might have some answers: http://www.swage.com/index.htm

I have been thinking about doing the same thing. Years ago I picked uo the book, Elementary Metallurgy And Metallography, by Arthur M. Shrager.It has a section on copper alloys. On page 224 it lists gilding metal, the stuff used in jackets as being 95% copper and 5% zink. If you can get a hold of one of these books, it will be of great help.

I guess I could buy a lifetime supply of bullets from North Fork, GS, or Barnes for the price of the CNC equipment. Not that I would mind having one of these beasts in my basement. The heavy duty swaging dies and presses would be a lot of fun, but not very flexible (one die, one bullet type). I would probably want to turn out a few on the lathe and arrive at exactly what I want before ordering a very expensive die. By the time I had made a few on the lathe and shot them, I would probably have satisfied my curiosity well enough not to pay for tooling up. I'd probably take the money I "saved" (thanks for the logic Bill Clinton) and buy a pile of premium bullets that have been already proven on thousands of head of game.

H. C.