Saeed has graciously allowed me to post this question on his site.
I have been turning my own bullets for a few years now and am curious to know if there is any interest among the visitors here in having bullets turned from a solid copper bar. This is very much in line with what others are currently doing. My question is to see if there is any real interest in a US source for these types of bullets? The bullets themselves could be of whatever design the user would want (provided they would be safe) flat nose, spitzer, boat tail, etc. Once a program is written it is a simple matter to run off ten or ten thousand of the identical bullet.
I am just doing some research on the matter and would welcome any thoughts, good and bad, on the subject.
Thanks in advance for your comments and to Saeed for hosting this site.
John

I would be very interested in bullets like the GS Custom or Norbert's super penetrator. Thanks.

I'm having a guy in FL make some .585" bullets of my own design right now. He's got a CNC machine and is looking to 'keep it running (making some money)' instead of sitting between jobs. I will be using .585" bullets from turned bar-stock and possibly some .500" (50 AE). Who knows, I might even want a 220gr super duper aerodynamic magic wonder bullet for some long range play. I also know a guy that was looking for some aerodynamic 300gr bullets for his .338 Lapua that didn't cost an arm & leg.

There is a market in LARGE & specialty bullets, it just depends on the price.

I would also be ineterested.

I may be intrested in some lathe turned jackets. I am considering a building a jacketed LBT style flat nose bullet with either a bonded hard cast lead core or if I can find a source a swaged in tungsten core for my 450/110 lever gun.

What would it cost for you to produce some jackets for me?

Sounds very interesting!

A super penetrator from bronze, like Norbert is working on, starting with .375 to .458.

A VLD design of .458 caliber for long range target work would be interesting. As long and heavy as could be stabilized by the common 14" twist. Maybe a 600 grain needle nose bronze for the 460 Weatherby and 458 WinMag/Lott/etc. Something that would stay supersonic past 1000 yards.

Anything like the GSC FN in copper, in any caliber from .375 on up.

I really would like a 300 grain .375 FN monometal copper design. GSC never would offer one. 270 grains is the heaviest FN in .375 from GSC. I believe Gerard was once on the verge of making one but I never heard the final outcome of this.

The 300 grain FN would be shorter than a 300 grain Barnes X, and we all know the X Bullet flies true. I think the expansion of the FN nose flattening on impact would help in shortening the length and keeping it on a straight course after impact as well, even for 300 grainers. That is the max weight for the .375 I want.

Any patent problems with just copying the GSC bullets? I dunno. Norbert's design? Harlow AAA semi-bore-rider but in .458 caliber? The Barnes 50 BMG bullets scaled down to .458 caliber?

It would be nice to have a reliable source of such bullets.

You ought to start your own line. Build it and they will come.

fritz454,

Apart from being expanding bullets, I do think the solid copper bullet (or if bottom half is solid) needs to have driving band construction or if it is like like Barnes X style with no driving bands, then it should be about .001" oversize so as to get accuracy across a wide range of barrels.

Mike

Dagga,

I can find no GS Custom or Gerard Schultz patents in the U.S. patent office database. And there is no U.S. patent number on the product boxes. So it looks like there is no U.S. patent for the bullet design.

But Mr. Carter had a patent for the Trophy Bonded Bearclaw bullet design. I suppose Speer owns that patent now.

drive band design is better

less hard for the barrel and the barrel groove

less pression in chamber

less fouling in the barrel

But design as LRB or BARNES is more easy to do than drive band .

I do my own too in Europe to avoid cost of shipping and Custom tax cost .

Good shooting

DAN TEC

Gerard's bullet boxes show an SA patent #, but no US patent.

I don't know the legalities of all that anyway, but I don't like the idea of stealing someone else's design and profiting by it. Maybe someone with the technology should be approaching Gerard and seeing if he'd like a US manufacturer? Given all the costs and hassles shipping to the US, it probably wouldn't take much of a royalty to make it an attractive option.

FWIW, Canuck

Fritz,

If you can provide a good big-bore bullet at a good price AND at reasonable rate of delivery, then yes, I too would be interested.

George

I'd be interested in an expanding .375 caliber 350 grain boat tail spitzer for the 378 Weatherby,assuming it'd be reasonably priced.

Thanks to all,

First off my intention is not to steel anyone's designs but to offer a suitable alternative to hard to get and custom bullets i.e. a 350 gr .375 cal and other large bore hard to find bullets. I want to be able to run small lots of bullets but keep the costs down. This way there doesn't need to be a bunch of guys getting together to get some special production run to meet minimums. The cost on some of these is staggering and I think I can do it at a reasonable cost, with realistic deliveries. As I stated in the above post, I have been turning my own (of my own design) for a while now. The big unknown is what the market is. To set up, buy a minimum of 5000 lbs of material and to deal with the liabilities of this project there needs to be a suitable market.

Personally, I feel the best feature of what I am considering is to be able to offer different bullet shapes and weights, deliver in a reasonable time at competitive prices. I am in a very early stage of getting a plan together to see if it could be viable. Time will tell.

John

500grains,

I am just talking about giving credit where credit is due. Speaking specifically about GS Custom, it is obvious from his website that Gerard put a lot of thought and time into his very unique design (particularly the HV's), and due to the fact that he has put a SA patent on it leads me to believe that he didn't intend for his design to be in the public domain. Maybe I am wrong...we could check that I suppose.

The point I was really trying to make is that it probably wouldn't take much of a royalty to make it worth Gerard's while to have a US manufacturer, and sell them here as GS Custom bullets.

The option of course would be to copy it directly or change the width of one of the driving bands, and sell it under a new name. Lord knows that's been done a billion times. Personally I wouldn't copy anyone else's work, for profit, without their consent. Guess that's why I'm poor.

Canuck

[ 08-26-2002, 23:43: Message edited by: Canuck ]

Canuck,

I understand your desire to respect the rights of others in their inventions, and I commend you for it.

Do you think that Swift pays a royalty to Nosler for the partition concept and for the polycarbonate tip concept? Does Hornday pay a royalty to Nosler for the polycarbonate tip concept? Probably not, if those designs were not patented.

I have no interest in knock of products or "stealing" a design or anything else. But if an invention is not patented, then it passes into the public doman. End of story. U.S. law will not enforce a South African patent, and vice versa.

Canuck,

The driving band system on a solid shank was used on the Nosler Zipedo bullets and of course is also present on the Northfork bullets. It has also been around for a long time with artillery and naval guns.

Mike

I hope this project gets off the ground!

Good Hunting,

My interest is peaked! I subscribe to the school of thought that a solid should homogenous in construction. Right now I am looking at a 400 gr. .416 LBT LFN mould I own and would love to have this bullet duplicated in solid copper. Of course slight modifications would have to be made to the bullet, such as driving bands and a bore riding nose but the basic LBT shape is a proven quantity. The shape/profile is similar(but distinctly LBT) to that of the Trophey bonded sledgehammer and or Speer AGS solid. If anyone else is interested in this shape I would happily cast a few up an foward them to fritz454 for his examination and feedback. It would be so cool to have a bullet like this for my not to distant first African safari!

Dantec, I just started doing my bullets. I got a automatic lathe a few weeks ago. I am interested to learn what kind of brass do you use? I am using Ms58, but have no field experience.
Bongo

DavidReed,

Some who have performed penetration experiments found better results with a pure frusto-conical design (straight conical with a flat point and wide meplat) than with an ogive followed by a flat point. Norbert wrote an excellent article about solid bullet penetration that was published in the Hatari Times magazine. I think he made the same conclusion, although he found that a disc protruding beyond the edge of the conical section enhances penetration further.

I have heard of solids being made from solid copper, MS72 copper, brass and bronze.

Another forumla from U.S. Patent No. 4,811,666 is 61.5% of copper, approximately 35% of zinc, approximately 3% of lead and approximately 0.5% of tin. That is the patented TCCI solid bullet available from Huntingtons and which used to be in A-Square ammunition. I suspect that the Barnes solid formula may be similar.

Ok, let's clarify. MS72 is brass made of 72% copper plus 28% zinc, right? Norbert thinks this is good stuff for the superpenetrator design, right?

Copper alloyed with zinc is brass.

Copper alloyed with 11% or less tin is bronze.

So the TCCI alloy 500grains mentioned:
61.5% copper
35.0% zinc
3.0% lead
0.5% tin
Is this bronze or brass?

What is the best alloy for a solid bullet, of brass or bronze or copper, and why? Of course the answer will hinge on "it depends." Sumbuddy who know?

Dagga,

I think that the alloy recipe I cited must be brass. At least the bullets look like brass.

Have you tried TCCI solids from Huntingtons? They are a hemispherical round nose with a cutting shoulder. They were the old A-Square solids. I like them better than Barnes, as the quality control of TCCI is far better, and the cutting shoulder is better.

But I prefer a wide meplat frusto-conical design for now. If I get a chance to try Norbert's super penetrator, that could be my favorite bullet too.

Don't forget--once a patent runs out, the design is in the public market for everyone. Think about generic drugs--they were all under patent protection for a period of time but no longer. The patent protection term used to be 17 years, but I think it is 20 years now.

I'm no patent lawyer (and thankfully not a lawyer at all ), but the US and SA are both parties to a Patent Cooperation Treaty that made provide GS some protection in the US.

Most bullets are really not anything new.
Flat nose bullets have been around for a long time.
Driving bands have been around for a long time.
Monolithics have been around for a long time.
Core bonding has been around for a long time. And so on, so I don't know how strong the GS patent really is.

Steve

The whole idea of a patent is to put technology in the public domain. As a reward for teaching everyone else how to do something, the government gives you a 17 year right to exclude others from using your technology. After that, it's not stealing; it's using the patent the way it was intended.

H. C.

The patent term was changed in 1999. It is 20 years from the date of filing. Previously it was 17 years from the day the patent issued. Their is little pratical difference in the two as it normally takes several years for a filed patent to issue.

In order for a foriegn inventor to have patent protection in the USA he must file for a patent in the USA. The patent treaty mentioned above does not make foriegn patents effective in the USA but only creates a standardized mechanism for inventors international patent rights. The inventor still must file a patent in each country he wants protection in, only now he can file in the international patent office and use one set of procedures worldwide.

The treaty also provides some international enforcment mechanisms to prevent foriegn operators from producing infringing items to be imported into counries where there is patent protection. For example it allows us to stop Chinese factories from producing infringing items to be imported into the USA. It would not prevent them from selling those same items in China unless the inventor has recieved a Chinese patent.

Assuming Gerard has not patented his bullets in The USA it is not illegal to copy them. If you want to use the name "GS Custom" or any other of Gerards trademarks however you will need to get a license from Gerard for his trademark. It does not matter if Gerard has filed for trademark or not because trademark rights arise out of use of the mark in commerce. Registration does not create the right but instead makes the penalties for infringment greater.

Just my thouthts,
Jeff Collins

By the way this is not legal advise just an off the cuff opinion. Before acting you should consult your own attorney and have him research the issue thoroughly.

[ 08-29-2002, 22:17: Message edited by: jnc91 ]

yes!!!!!
US shipping, instead of SA?

Quality products?

DO IT!!!!
S

500grains,
I have not tried the TCCI solids. Sounds like they must be pretty good. I always thought they were so similar to Barnes Solids, why bother? Surely the previous association with A-Square ammo does not detract from them in anyway.

Any licensing agreements would take a lot of pomp and ceremony to bring to fruition, for I am sure GSC would have to evaluate the product before lending their name to a US made bullet. I think fritz454 should come up with his own design for a monometal copper frustoconical bullet with driving bands, and a similar bullet with the superpenetrator disc made of monometal brass (MS72) and compare them for accuracy and penetration (on water cans and plywood). Maybe a 450 grain .458, a 380 grain .416, and a 300 grain .375?

Anybody know the specific gravity of MS72 brass compared to the pure copper?

You can copy Gerards design if it is not patented in the USA you just can't use his name without his permission. Same goes for an expired U.S. patent.

Thanks, Norbert!

dagga,

The TCCI has a cutting shoulder just ahead of the cannelure so that it makes a nice cookie cutter hole in game for good bleeding. Barnes just has a cannelure.

Another difference is that on TCCI the cannelure is in the same place on every bullet. Not so with Barnes, at least in .585 caliber.

What is sadly humorous is all this permutational reasoning, correct or flawed, in an attempt to convince yourselves you are absolved of any guilt, deserved or not, from this endeavor.

I think some readers of this post have mistaken the word custom for copied in the topic line. I have no intention of directly copping anyone’s design with out his or her permission to do so. The monolithic solid, monolithic expanding solid has been around for quite some time. There are improvements to be made on all of the designs I have seen. Not the least of which is what I am thinking of offering and that is the opportunity to the shooter to request whatever bullet shape and weight they want. It could be a VLD or a SWC or more traditional spitzer. The bullets I have been turning for myself are very similar to the GS bullet but there are some differences, which I believe, make them a bit better.
All of that aside, I am not interested in getting into a legal debate, or a moral one for that matter, since it is not applicable to what I am suggesting.
John