Has anyone here turned their own bullets on a lathe? I don't know why it shouldn't be possible to turn a bullet out of a piece of solid copper, just asking

I've turned some for my 470NE out of 1/2" brass round bar. They turned out pretty good, but I think it would take a long time to turn out any quantity without haveing a CNC setup. I'm looking at the option of converting my manual setup though.

made some pretty cool hollow points a few times. How are ya thinking of the radius. Would you use a ground tool to do the final trim, This is the only way I think you could get them all the same.

"How are ya thinking of the radius. Would you use a ground tool to do the final trim, This is the only way I think you could get them all the same. "

Exactly, If I can work up a follower, Maybe a bearing of some sort, I could do 2 or 3 at a time. Copper is pretty easy to cut. I could do UHMW and use just the primer and shoot in the basement!

Hmmmm

I would go for 1 at a time. I got considerable flex on my 1/2" brass when turning for the 470. I cut it close to size, then wen't real slow for the final OD cut, then used a ground 1/2" bit to do the nose. I went for more of a SWC design with a fat nose though.



sitting next to Barnes 500XLC

Collin,

Welcome to the forum.

We made a few last year to hunt with in Tanzania. They worked very well.

But, the lathe we used was a small "school" CNC lathe, which is not meant for this sort of work.

In fact, it left the base of the bullet with a rather bad burr on it, so I had to finish them off on a manual lathe.

This way I controlled the weight too.



Here you see the bullets after they have been finished, just before we molly coated them.



3 shots out of our 375/404 at 100 yards.



These are all recovered from cape buffalo. All the ones shot broadside into the buffalo have gone through.

Here you can see one buffalo shot in the rear end, and where the bullet ended.





WE have made enough for our hunt later this year.

We also have placed an order for a decent CNC machine to be able to make them easier and quicker.

With the previous machine, it took about around 8 minutes to make one, and then a couple of minutes more on the manual lathe to finish.

I will report back with the results of our new mcahine once we get it and finish setting it up.

Saeed, just curious, what machine do you plan to buy? Are we talking a full blown turning center or just a cnc lathe?

Toolmaker

WE have ortdered the Emcoturn 325-II TC with a Siemens controller

Details can be seen Emcoturn 325

Hmm, seems to be a mini turning center. the Siemens controls are excellent - DMG uses the same 840 controller on their exotic machining centers, something like up to 8 drive amplifiers The spindle motor looks to be a little small, usually you see something like 20 hp on even the smallest turning center. You might want to look on ebay for a guy who sells plans for an air driven barstock feeder, just the thing for cranking 'em out! Also I would consider a two stage turning set up - roughing and finishing. Use one of the ultra postive inserts they make for machining AL. for roughing and use a PVD positive rake for finishing at the highest RPM the machine will go - you'll get an almost mirror like finish. Oh, have you considered a sizing die? This way all the bullets are the same within a couple of hundred thousandths.

Toolmaker

P.S. what alloy you plan to use?

WE have alrteady ordered an automatic feed for it.

The finish on teh bullets have not been a problem, even with our old machine. We just had to adjust the feed speed.

We did consider a sizing die, but after doing an experiment with bullets of differrent diameters, we decided it was not worth it.

The machine we have now hardly ever makes two bullets that are the same in diameter.

So, I just picked an arbitrary size to work within - for my own rifle anyway.

I miked all the bullets which were within 0.3745 to 0.3750, and used these for my hunt.

These are the ones you see used in that groupd shown above.

I'm considering making them on a commercial scale, so I did a lot of long hard thinking about how to go about it. The ideal machine for bullet making is a CNC swiss type screw machine, unfortunatly, they are rather expensive - six figures. They will produce machine turned bullets the fastest, especially stuff like hollow points because multiple tools cut at once. Second fastest are the so called "gang tooled" turning centers, they have the advantage of being the least expensive and the stiffest design. This is what I was looking at, specifically the Haas Minilathe($35K USD) The limitation is tooling - most can't have more than eight tools while the turret design commonly allows 16 plus has the VDI quick change ability. The slowest design is the the rotary turret because every time you go to the next tool, you have to wait for the turret to index (1-2.5seconds) Keep in mind that this is all relative - Any machine should be able to completely machine a bullet in less than a minute. The reason I decided that the minilathe is the way to go is a combination of things cost, speed, an available parts catcher, a barfeed option and service availablity. As for alloy I pretty much decided on Alloy 936 because it's not too hard on barrels and has excellent machinability. The really great thing about machine turned bullets is the cost of new designs is almost nonexistant - swaging requires new dies, CNC just require a new program! The only thing that's held me back is Cost/space. I just don't have the money to fool around with things when the money could be put to use for a VMC that can make me more money.

Toolmaker

Production rate is not so important to us, as we are only making them for our own use.

Like everything we do here at AR, it is basically a useful hobby.

We have a normal lathe and a normal milling machine, so adding a good CNC lathe will complete our workshop equipment.

I missed your previous question on the alloy.

WE don't have much choice here I am afraid, so we use copper rod that is used for electrical earthing.

It is supposed to be pure copper, and we had it tested for hardness. If I remember rightly, it was 6% harder than pure copper.

The bottom line, it works as we have intended.

I know GS Custom, in South Africa, are using EMCO CNC machines for making thier bullets.

Bwanna Saeed,
Do you put a radius where the flat nose blends into the shaft of the bullet?
Did you find there was a minimum taper necessary for the flat nosed solids to feed well?
Thanks,
JCN

Barnes X on the left, and our own Walterhog bullet on the right.

We were trying to determine the depth of the HP. After this one was fired, we increased the depth of the HP.

And those are the ones we hunted with, hence the flat nose after recovery.

Saeed,
You will enjoy the EMCO 325. We looked at one as well and decided to go with several used P220 machines for the same price as a 325. We have four machines by EMCO and Dad recently rebuilt the old P220 completely. This machine was built in 1987 and he bought it in 1993. Since we have owned it, it has clocked up around 57 000 hours. The factory gives excellent backup service and advice. After the rebuild, it holds plus or minus 0.002mm easily.

Gina,



Thank you for letting me know. I think we have made the right choice.



We do have another EMCO lathe, on which we do all our gunsmithing work.



It has been giving us great service so far.

Collin,

At Groove Bullets we "turn" all of our bullets. We do not use a CNC Lathe though, that would be to slow and drive costs through the roof.

All Groove Bullets are made from the purest copper available.

Don

I've done this using 3/8" brass bar to make spitzer boat tails for the .375 hh. I tried to duplicate the form of the Sierra 300 gr. Game King. I used a simple manual lathe that was fitted with a basic CNC controler and stepper motors.

To keep things simple I made the bullets in one tool pass. The tool path was such that the bullet tip would be nearest the chuck. The tool tip started in the centre of the bar end, in fact I used it as the bar stop. First cut pushed the tool in (Z axis)0.5 m.m. (.020") followed by pulling out (X axis) to true the base. Then I cut the boat tail, went along the flank to true up any out of roundness and then down the ogive to form the bullet nose. When the cutter reached the end of the bullet nose the bullet just fell off the bar. Total cutting time around 40 seconds. No more work was required on the bullets and they worked great all the way out to 1000 yards.

If you don't use a CNC lathe, what do you use, a CNC screw machine like a Citizen or a DMG? The Rpm's available on the smaller DMG's is mind boggling something like 8000 with a 12000 RPM option. In this vein, I'd like to add that I was at an auction yesterday, hoping to score on a 1995 Haas VF-3 cheep, with no such luck it went for $25K USD and they also had an immaculate SL-20T from 2002 that went for over $30K USD ... Buying new is looking better and better espcially since they changed the capital depriciation rules for tax purposes. Oh, well, guess I'll just have to keep looking ...

Toolmaker

Toolmaker,

CNC Swiss, correct.

Don

Gina,

You said: "After the rebuild, it holds plus or minus 0.002mm easily"

Can you explain what you mean by "it holds plus or minus 2 microns (80 millionths of an inch)"? Easily?

Thanks

Don

Hi Don,
The diameter of two consecutively made bullets will not differ by more than 0.002mm.

Being doubtful myself, I guess I'd have to ask how you measured this, CMM?. Just running really rough numbers you'd have to preheat the tooling to control expansion of the insert and control the heat to within 1/8th deg C during the process. If you're accurate (precise) to within 0.002mm I'm truly impressed. I also wonder what it would take to bring all of the other variables into the 0.02624% deviation range. (15 Thousanths of a grain of powder don't cha know) Like Fox Moulder would say, I want to believe.

bullets can be made on a screw machine pretty fast

Hello Gerard,

May I inquire as to what measuring instrument(s) you use to measure to 80 millionths of an inch?

Don

Don,
There are some pics here.

The two mikes shown are a Mitotoyo (yellow) and a Tesa lower down on the page. The Tesa lost the fight against coolant oil and has since been replaced with a Mitotoyo. Resolution of these mikes is + or - 0.0005mm and the display reads to one micron (0.001mm or 0.00004").

Collins,
We control the machine room temperature to remain within 20 to 25 centigrade and the bar stock is placed in the machine room several hours before it is used. We do not state that we hold + or - 0.002mm on size but that is what the equipment will do on a production run.

Our guarantee is that all bullets will be within 0.005mm of size and within 0.25% of stated weight, regardless of when it is bought. To put this in perspective, a healthy human hair is 0.064mm in diameter and 0.25% of a 150gr bullet is 0.375 of a grain. So the lightest permissable weight for a 150gr bullet is 149.6gr and the heaviest is 150.4gr, given that the Dillon digital measures to a resolution of 0.1gr.

On an HV or FN bullet the size is taken on the rear drive band and the bullet would taper forwards by a controlled amount. We also control the relationship between the diameter of the drive bands and the body of the bullet to ensure the correct difference is maintained. We do not size any of our bullets as this will destroy the above relationship.

Looking at your website reminds me of some testing I did for a glass company here in Port Elizabeth. They supply bullet resistant glass and synthetic laminates to security companies in SA. Killing several thousand Rands (or Dollars) worth of glass in a testing session was a very therapeutic experience.

Gerard,

Thanks for the reply.

I was confused when Gina said something about 80 millionths of an inch - 2 microns. The spindle "may" run within 80 millionths of an inch (2 microns) but there is no way any CNC lathe will turn copper to 2 microns, time after time. Us "Tool & Die Makers" know better then that.

I viewed the pics of the mics you are using. Sorry to say, but there aren't a pair of mics in the world accurate enough to repeatably measure to a tenth (of an inch), let alone 2 microns. As we know one has a "feel" with micrometers. The readout only makes the mic easier to read but does not make it more accurate.

I had a fellow tell me one time that the "tenths" markings on the barrel of a micrometer make it more accurate. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the "tenth" markings make it easier to read but does not make the tool more accurate.

Having been a Tool & Die Maker since 1968 I do find some claims interesting.

I hope you get your back orders filled and wish you all the luck in the world.

I wish I had known you were in Port Elizabeth as I was there 3 weeks ago. Not sure if you allow visitors though but I could of taken you out for lunch or dinner.

Don

"there is no way any CNC lathe will turn copper to 2 microns, time after time."

Recently, Gina and I attended a machine tool show with a view to see if there were any small machines available other than Emco. Two companies expressed an interest in looking at our applications and quoting on a solution until I stated that we guarantee our product to be within .005mm of spec. When I added that we turn copper bar, one representative said that I am dreaming. We invited them to come and see what we do and both arrived a couple of days later.

They watched while we ran and measured some bullets. We then measured some bullets from our overrun bins and also checked bullets that were boxed and ready to be packed for shipping. All were well within 0.005mm of spec. They left and we never heard from them again.

A month or so back a customer brought in a box of 168gr HP bullets that he wanted to use in a 308 Win with a one in 12" twist. He bought them several years ago from a dealer who had them in stock for several years (there was a white label on the box and we stopped using those more than 5 years ago). I traded him the correct HV bullets and measured about ten of the HP bullets at random while he was in the shop. All were within 0.005mm of spec. We later checked the whole box and all 50 bullets passed QA.

"Sorry to say, but there aren't a pair of mics in the world accurate enough to repeatably measure to a tenth (of an inch), let alone 2 microns."

Mitutoyo have several digital mikes that are capable of measuring to 0.001mm and they have digital heads that will go much better than that still. We have found that Tesa mikes are less robust than Mitutoyo and more prone to drifting after some use.

The simplest way of checking our claims would be to obtain a box or two of bullets and measure and weigh them. You should try them, you may like them It is what we do in order to keep tabs on what is going on in the market.

Having said all that, what standard of uniformity do you work to on size and weight?

I presume you were here on a hunt? Who did you hunt with? We always welcome visitors. A PH friend of ours had a bowhunter here last week and time ran out for him to take a black wildebeest. We loaded some 300 Win Mag ammo for him and he took the wildebeest at 200 yards a couple of hours before going back home.

Gerard i looked at your set up and i am. !

!! Impressed Beyond Word's !!

Gerard,

There is a huge difference between 80 millionths of an inch (2 microns) and .0002" (5 microns). Gina stated 2 microns. Five microns is, as we all know, 2 1/2 times greater number. In the USA we call 5 microns - 2 tenths (of .001")

With regards to the accuracy of the micrometers. Again I will say with confidence: There is not a pair of mics capable of measuring 2 micons, repeatably. The readout doesn't make the measuring device more accurate. That is a fact. As an example: I assume you know what a Bridgeport Vertical Milling machine is. I could put a .0001" (inch) DRO (digital read out) on a Bridgeport and say - This Bridgeport is accurate to .0001" (inch or 2.5 microns). We both know that would not be a fact. The readout on the mic makes it easier to read but it is not accurate to 2 microns.

We work to a spec of .00025" on diameter for the bullets we make with a variance from the norm of not more then 1/2 grain in weight. But, we do not use outside micrometers to measure the OD (outside diameter) because they simply aren't accurate enough as a measuring device. The "Feel" of every individual is different as well. We use an electronic gaging device that is calibrated and accurate to .0001" (inch). This device does not require a "feel".

Next time I am in Port Elizabeth I will be sure to look you up. As to "trying" your bullets, I already did that, several years ago.

We hunted with Africa Bushveld Safari's out of Addo. My buddy killed his 51" Kudu bull at 135 yards using our 127gr EXP Groove Bullet. The Kudu was walking broadside to him and going down a hill. All he had was the spine shot and he took it. The bullet entered the hide, busted the spine to peices and exited out the other side. Naturally it dropped. When he and his PH and tracker got up to it he put 2 more in the boiler room to put it out of its misery. All 3 shots went all the way through. No supprise there.

I used a 7mm mag and a 127gr EXP Groove Bullet to kill a Blesbok, Steenbok and Springbok. I used the 375 H&H AI and the 272gr EXP Groove Bullet to kill my zebra and bushbuck. I only used the 375 for the bushbuck because that is the rifle I had that day. Not that it was needed. I used the 375 H&H AI and the 272gr EXP on the zebra for one reason. I wanted to see what that bullet would do to a zebra. I firmly believe that the 7mm mag and 127gr EXP would of done just fine.

Like you, when I hear hunters say: 127gr in a 7mm mag for elk, no way, that's to light a bullet. I smile to myself knowing what that 127gr EXP Groove Bullet is going to do to that elk. I figure it will takes a few years for those that don't believe, to come around to using the lighter, tougher, higher penetrating, solid copper (no lead) bullets. You and I already know how effective they are.

Be Well,

Don

Don,

I have a relative who was in Precision Engineering back in the 1970's. He worked for a small company here in the UK which did work for the defence intdustry. He has talked about making the jigs that calibrate the giro's in missiles and aircraft and other such work. For a hobby, he used to build clocks from scratch!

Anyways, I was trying to pick his brains about micrometers for reading case head expansion and he went into his workshop out and brought out a couple micrometers for me to see. One in particulat had what I would describe as a "setable clutch" the idea being that as soon as the the jaws touched the item being measured they "slipped" and hence you were not reliant on "feel". I am fairly sure these measure down to .001". He offered me a set of these, but after spending a few minutes puzzling for the instructions and looking at the scale, I gave up and decided that if i truely needed a set, I would go digital just for the read out!

It amazes me what can be done by precision engineers and a lot of it was not automated but relied heavily on human skill.

Regards,

Pete

Don,
No argument from me on the effectiveness of the lighter solid copper bullets!!

No doubt your hunt with Africa Bushveld was a good one. They are a sterling outfit.

This measurement and size thing has become somewhat obfuscated. Allow me to clarify:

Our Emco equipment will hold bullet sizes to 0.002mm or less on consecutive bullets. This enables us to ensure our + or - 0.005 guarantee regardless of location or time of year. The production is measured with certified mikes made by Mitutoyo and the certification from them states that instrument accuracy is 0.002mm. This pertains to measurements taken with the instrument from a closed and zeroed position and, no doubt gives them some leeway to cover the worst one they have made or will make this year. In practise we find that, when zeroed on a standard equal to the required size, measuring an over or under condition is accurate to one micron. This is confirmed by the metrology lab we use for certification of our measuring equipment.

Pete mentioned the slip clutch he saw. The Tesa mike we had had a slip clutch and, as I mentioned, it tended to drift a little and we had to use a standard for checking it regularly. The Mitutoyo mikes are equipped with an adjustable one way ratchet and is not reliant on feel. I doubt that measurements that rely on feel could be within 0.005mm reliably. We check every bullet with four separate measurements to ensure roundness and size and two mikes are used, a primary and a backup, should the operator have any doubts. With the ratchets set up properly, the repeatability is quite amazing.

I looked on your site ...Were are the .366 Diam bullet's

for my 9.3x64 I would love some 250 or 270 FN solid's



I am tired of turning them it just takes to much time to do them right.I wind up with 2 out of 10 .And the swaged one i do are fine but i would really like to try out the one's your making but were are the? .366 Diam bullet's listed at on your site

Hi Martin,
They are right between the .358 and the 375 cals on the pages titled Bullets Available. Follow the links towards the top of the HV, FN and HP Bullets pages. I am glad you enjoy our site.
Gerard

Gerard,

I agree, The guys at Africa Bushveld Safari's are great people. We had a wonderfull time and will return to hunt with them again. The next time I will be sure to get in touch with you before we arrive. Lunch is on me

With regards to the "friction" knob on outside mics. I have yet to see a set of mics that will repeat to more then .0002" even with the "friction" knob. The Mit mics I use have a "friction" knob as well. I guess we can agree to disagree.

We use a lazer mic which is calibrated to 1 micron. We don't have to be concerned with "feel" or a "friction" knob.

In any case, I wish you luck.

Be Well,

Don