I'm seriously considering giving this a try, I have experience running the machines and have found a few different miniature metal lathes but it's hard to find info on the process. For example, the company that makes the .408 CheyTac bullets, I doubt they would give out their secrets.

Anyone have any resources concerning this? I'm waiting to hear back from Varmint Al.

Schmidt-Rubin,

What is your goal, to make the bullet projectile, or to turn out casings? If it is to turn out casings, forget it. The use of smokeless powder in turned cases will almost always cause case head blow outs and or other forms of case failure. Cartridge brass at 70/30 that is swaged, extruded, or "forged" is the only material suitable for cartridge casings to be used with smokeless powders, with the exception of steel such as is used in Wolf ammo.

If you are going to make projos, use free cutting brass and turn solids. Use three or four clearance rings for material displacement on the bullet's rider surfaces. You can also use copper alloy's for turning bullets, but better watch the alloy. If you want to try a new design, buy some large caliber solids for the BMG 50 from Barnes and turn them down.

If you make any bullets you should most certainly try them out in a rifle with a barrel not pristine. Here is a partial list of materials from which I have attempted to make bullets. This is projo only.

Lead
Steel
Pure Tin
Copper
Brass
Bismuth
Various plastics
Various bakelites
Carbon rod
Various woods

Have fun experimenting and ALWAYS wear a heavy leather glove on your support hand, a solid face mask and even a helmet if you like. Bare minimum is good safety goggles. Use low to moderate loads and try to use a relatively low PSI cartridge.

After each firing check the bore for possible debris and plating. Some materials will not hold together and will fragment a few feet from the muzzle so no bystanders.

Luck and enjoy,

HB

I was thinking about a nickle/copper alloy or maybe solid copper. I ran a lathe in the Navy for a little while, pretty nice one all computerized. I was considering this model. http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?M...roduct&ID=82710

or maybe one of these, http://www.grizzly.com/products/items-list...0000&sort=price

I wouldn't even try to make brass cases.

Cordin industies, make dies for bullets. You may want to check with them and see if you could get some blueprints of bullets being made. The tolerences you will have to hold, you will need a mechine with CNC to say the least.

Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

flea

Here's some CNC conversion plans and kits for mini lathes, not as expensive as I thought it would be.
http://www.mini-lathe.com/CNCmlrs.htm

Hi Again,

There are a huge number of manufacturers of top notch bullets today. You can visit the url below and click on bullets to obtain a link page to over 25 or so of them.

http://www.benchrest.com/

Now, if you are considering making production runs of bullets, then invest away in equipment. I improperly assumed you wanted to only make "experimental" type bullets to see if various theories of design would work.

Today, nearly all bullets are swaged rather than turned. A-Square still turns a large number of solids for big and dangerous game. Many of these solids will have a pilot frontal section. This is the frontal section of the bullet has a diameter equal to the land to land dimension of the barrel, and then there is a ring which is of diameter of groove to groove. After that comes the caliber diameter of the bullet such as .308.

Like Flea requested, Please do keep us posted as to your endeavours and results.

Good Luck,
HB

I looked in to making 30 cal. bullets a few years back after I got hurt. Until I found it was going to take about $10,000 worth of dies and equipment.
Bruce Baer sold his dies, jackets and lead only for $7,000. I heard from a pretty good source that Jimmy Knox is selling his operation. JLK custom bullets. If someone had the money and time to get this worked out, they could make some great bullets. Jimmy could train you to build them. He's making everything from 22 cal to 30 cal.

He has been in poor health for quite awhile now.

flea

I won't be getting into making bullets with lead cores. Solid stock mostly.

Hey Brother,
I think you should start with .408 caliber, and stay in the 380 to 420 grain range. Just an idea ...
Respectfully,
Harry

Hmmmm .408? I wonder why he's interested in those...

I'll make them a little cheaper than your current source, but I can't guarantee the prototypes won't fly in circles.

I think Lost River Ballistics makes CNC lathe turned bullets. They are extravagantly expensive, about $20 for 20 ,308 caliber 168 gr bullts. In other words about what 100 SMK's cost. I have no experience with the Lost River Ballistics bullets, but they seem to get mixed reviews. They are very long, for any given weight and apparently hard to stabilize. I would be curious to know what your results are.

James

Just wondering about what design program you are using for this? I have made sabots for a 20mm with good results. Took us a couple of years to master the design but lots of fun. And those CNC conversion plans actually work and is alot less trouble than it looks.

Take care.