Practice Home Made De rim Die..

I'd say you need at least the length of the jacket plus about 1/2 more for your resizing length. double the length of the 22rf jacket would prolly be as long as I would go.

Daywalker wrote:Blade: Shortening the die is on my to do list. I would like to be able to push each case straight through so that the next case isn't pushing up on the one in front of it. I am going to be practicing making punches to fit in the ram. Should not be a problem. I have a couple excellent teachers close at hand always giving me pointers and both makes punches for their rams... Thanks for the idea. Glad to see this has people coming together and thinking how things can be done. R&D doesn't always happen with just one......

Reload3006: Thanks for the link. I will defintaly check them out....

It's always good to have a phew minds giving advice, not necessarily good or use full advice, but from that it could steer you in the right direction.

There's another upside from doing it one by one... You should have a lot of ease deriming the cases, because then there's only one in the die at a time, which is also a lot less tension on your press.

From what I've seen and heard, the case gets immediately derimed when pushed up the die, so i think it will be possible to make a very short one. Then you should be capable of pushing a case in and out the top in one stroke.

oh i was going to suggest that the die you have made for .224 would probably be close to good for .243 if you want i can make a drawing of what I believe you to need to be able to make rim fire jackets. ? let me know

Just an odd thought.....but if you rented a chamber finish reamer for say a .19 caliber....it would have a built in taper (normally for cutting the shoulder)and most .19 have very close to .224 neck diameter...some a little less or a .17 caliber reamer( a little over .200)...then hone it to spec.

It might be worth looking into....search for chamber reamer rental.

Reload3006 wrote:oh i was going to suggest that the die you have made for .224 would probably be close to good for .243 if you want i can make a drawing of what I believe you to need to be able to make rim fire jackets. ? let me know

I was toying with the idea for a .243 for when I got the rifle for my boy. If you want, you can send me the drawings to allthingsguns@comcast.net Thanks

Hi, i am new here, i stumbled upon this site from Daywalker's Youtube vids.

I was looking into making my own .223 bullets, after seeing the Corbin setup. Then after picking myself off the floor from seeing the price, i thought their has to be a lower cost way.

Daywalker has done a fantastic job so far!!!

So... not to jump the gun, but what about the point forming? I haven't seen anything about point forming. Or have i missed it? And if so, can someone give me a link

Thanx!

I have not even attempted the point form die yet. I am still working on the new de rim die. The lee just de rims the cases a bit too big. So I am working on one from scrap using a bolt to practice on.

It may still be a bit however, I am confident I will have a working prototype very soon..

Welcome to the forum! Glad to see the vids help you out and brought you to the forum!!

hawcer wrote:Just an odd thought.....but if you rented a chamber finish reamer for say a .19 caliber....it would have a built in taper (normally for cutting the shoulder)and most .19 have very close to .224 neck diameter...some a little less or a .17 caliber reamer( a little over .200)...then hone it to spec.

It might be worth looking into....search for chamber reamer rental.

I have been looking at reamers and thinking on those as well. Thanks for reminding me. I was talking with a guy at pacific tool and guage. I had ordered from them 4 blank 22 caliber pilot hole dies. This was before thanksgiving. I called them because they had not sent a bill to me yet to pay for delivery, the lady said she would have the person call me to finalize the order. Never called so I sent another email. He then sent me a smart a@@ email back saying his desk was full and he would get me the next day. Now this was after thanksgiving and my email was polite asking if they had a chance to review my order. So I left it at that. You know, to this day, they have never contacted me about the dies I ordered!! So Pacific Tool and Gauge has lost me as a potential customer..

try this make your punch about .199-.200 in diameter and make it about 1.25 inches long this should make a jacket that is .220 - .221 in diameter

Cool deal. I will study this up and give it a try. Right now, I have to get my lathe belts retightened and then I will be back in busness hopefully...

Thanks

I've read most of the posts, but not all. One thing that stuck out in my mind that I don't know if anybody mentioned was the "Cherry" that mold makers use while making molds. This is the actual profile of the bullet they want to produce and 1 cherry is used to cut the entire run so they will all be exactly the same. The Cherry is like the seed that grows an entire family of molds, if the Cherry is destroyed then the family is dead........sounds kinda dramatic doesn't it? It's somewhat true though, the cherry is the most important part of the entire process.

Now to make my point...........isn't a Cherry what die makers use instead of reaming with a buch of different reamers and step drills to make the profile of a bullet swaging die??
Maybe I'm not getting it, but wouldn't a Cherry be more effective at cutting the final shape of the inside of the die to make the profile of the bullet you want?

I'm no machinest, but I have had a couple of courses at a Vocational school and I've played around with lathes quite a bit. Although I've never tried making anything as complicated as a bullet die, swaging die, or anything like Tommy is trying to tackle.

I applaud him for his efforts and hope that he gets it all worked out. I'm anxious to see him succeed and look forward to a finished product!
Hey Tommy..........No pressure Right?
Yeah I guess there kinda is with the whole site here watching and reading your progress, but don't let that get in your way.
I'm just amazed with what you've done so far and patiently waiting for the next update.
Good Luck!

The only thing that you would need special for would be the point form die. and you are sort of on the right track with the "Cherry" idea a Cherry is a form milling cutter that a machinist uses on an N.C. machine. and he programs a circular path for the machine to follow and the cherry cuts the form in a set of molds.
When making a point forming die. a machinist would use a point form reamer which would be kind of like a cherry. but it would leave the hole under size so that it could be brought up to size by lapping because the finish has to be almost mirror smooth so the bullets will release from them. Other wise the bullets would form and then weld themselves to the die. or gall up in there. then the final bullet shape would be turned in a lapping mandrel and the finish shape and size is lapped into the die using lapping compound and finally diamond lapping compound. to produce a finished size. all these tools will cost you as much or more than the point forming die its self. you can if you make a lot of dies and sell them recover your tooling costs. That is why I have opted to by my die sets my self rather than make them.
the core swage die the core seat die are all straight through affairs anyone with a lathe and basic turning skills should be able to make them. again the bore of the die has to have a mirror finish to prevent the object being formed from adhering to the die.
the same thing is going on with the rim fire draw die and punch in the forcing cone area the 45 deg angle and the .220 diameter has to be mirror smooth other wise it will tear the jacket and gall up in the die. or weld itself to the punch.
another thing that is sort of difficult even for a seasoned machinist is the tolerances that are involved. they have to be very close in tolerance we are talking a couple of ten-thousandths of an inch. and better a couple "tenths" too large than too small.
The fitting of the punches to the dies have to be very tight so as to prevent lead from flashing past the die and punch so the punch needs to be no more than 2 ten thousandths smaller than the die. or the lead can flow past the punch and gall things up.
I am not telling anyone this to be a smart A$%$ but as I have said in the past I am a tool maker. I do know what I am talking about here ive been doing it for over 30 years. Tommy can do it. It really isn't that complicated. but it is exacting. and he may find its not worth his while to make a point form die. but if he can knock all the others out and sell them for a reasonable price it could save you a lot of money on the whole set as all you would have to buy is the point form die.

Thanks Mo....

There are a couple ways that people are doing it. Talking with Dave at ch4d, I had asked him if he was using reamers or what have you for his wage dies, he sent me an email back and told me he may have some of the old reamers laying around in a cabinet or something he would have to check, he would not mind selling them to me as they stopped using them. He had told me it was more cost effective for them to bore the dies out as they were breaking reamers or something to that effect. Kinda hard to believe a reamer would break in a 12L14 metal that cuts like butter before the Carbon Nitrated process. I guess this is why they do not off the 22 caliber dies. Such a tiny hole to bore and get it right.

Then there are those that creates D-Reamers that pretty much they make a mock bullet on the end of a rod, cut it in half and sharpen the sides. The end product in theroy should be the bullet profile.

I have some bits that I had bought that have a nice bullet profile already. They are just a bit big so I have to do some grinding on them. I plan to pilot drill a little smaller than this bit and then run this bit through the die, still staying just a tad under for the polishing part with some laps that I am looking at getting...

Hope that helps out a bit...

LOL, Seems Reload and myself was answering at the same time...

I would seriously not recommend using 12L14 steel its what we call in the trade Lead alloy. the only thing you can do for it as far as heat treat is case harden it. For use as die steel it should not even be considered. I would recommend A6 ad D2 they have the tensile strength to stand up to the pressures and will produce a very hard die you should shoot for about a 49 to 52 Rockwell C scale hardness. as harder than this the die and punches will be brittle softer they will bend to easily and wear to readily.

No, I wasn't saying I was going to use 12L14. CH4D is using 12L14 for all of their swaging dies. Then they have them Carbon Nitrated to 60 RC. I can say tho for 12L14 that CH4D is using, my swage dies have stood up to alot of swaging that is for sure......

I have some other steel that I am looking into getting and using...

@Daywalker....

You mentioned that the Lees sizing die was not making the right size cups you wanted.

So what if you used the modified Lee Die, made the cups, put the lead in, point formed it. Then run the newly formed bullet through a second Lee sizing .224 die. Basically resizing the completed bullet to the exact size you need.

Just a thought

That could work. That would have you special ordering a lee sizing die still. Now, one of the things I am going to order and try out, which might help everyone out, is ordering a lee sizer die to de rim the cases to form the cups smaller. Then you can place the lead in the cup and seat it expaning the case. Then run that through the point form die. It would only add one smaller step. Now, a Person might be able to to get it close to the size and be able to seat and point form in one step like you can with the 40 or 44's....

Well that sounds good, I do not mind an extra step but others might.

I am not concerned about mass production or near-match grade bullets either.

My hope is some cheap recycled bullets using range reclaimed lead & used .22 LR cases.

While you can bet I am going to be shooting 'yotes & other vermin with them just because, I am mostly looking for cheap informal plinking bullets. I have been shooting a lot of mil surp pulled M193 ball 55 gr.

Here is an update on my progress. The following pictures is of the unfinished die. All of these are just cosmetics as I am still working out on how I am going to do the internals but I wanted to do some more practice turning. Practice on the outside then start on the inside. Right now, I am pretty happy with the way the outside looks. Now I won't be getting fancy on the other dies that I make. This is my die so I wanted to try different techniques. I will show this compared to the first home made die so that you can see how far I have came along learning to use my lathe....

Like I said, this is merely cosmetic work..I still have not polished it up any form the turning tool. Once I get it all ready, I will post the new pics hopefully with a mirror finish....

Enjoy.....

Just a reminder, the bolt I started out with



My first die attempt, the New Die attempt... All cosmetics at this point

Looking good Tommy, keep up the good work
Tripples

man i missed this thread.... it is pretty awesome in here....

looks awesome tommy....