Practice Home Made De rim Die..

So I went and picked up my bolts today. Took me about 6 hours of work on the lathe, got a little bit more work to do, however, I have a working prototype that I am almost happy with. Still have a few small flaws but nothing that can't be fixed. Pretty much it is the finish of the product. I need to get some better sand paper of different grits. I also need to come up with a way to polish the insides better.

These bolts werent grade 8 like I thought I had ordered which is fine. Gave me some great practice and taught me a few things to do different. Like when something works, don't think you can better it because you end up messing it up YIKES!!

I did de rim 2, screwed up 2, recovered one. The other one is in the die. I believe I am going to make a longer punch which I believe will help. I am also going to turn down the punch I have now to see if that helps. The size hole started out at .218, then with a file came out a tad bigger. The finished case is measuring .223-.224 which is bigger than I wanted. Like I said, This is a learning expierence.

So here are some pics, bare with me...

looking great Tommy!!!

Good work DW. Looks like a project that is coming along. I am looking forward to the finished product.

Fantabulous! Looking great.

Nice job. Looks awesome man

Thanks guys. While I am fiddling around trying to come up with a way to polish such a tight hole (hahaha nevermind) I went ahead and turned down the top portion of the threads to give it a shoulder and break up such a straight line. I may do the first few threads at the bottom as well....

I can say, smaller diamter punch, no no no!!! Do you know how long it takes to get jackets out of a die when one actually went up inside the other and stuck in the die??

Too darn long, thats how long. But got my die salvaged. I will get updated pics of what else I have done. I can say this, I think a man could get a few thousand jackets de rimmed before having to worry about the diameter becoming too big!!

if you drill a larger diameter with a flat bottom drill or end mill. it will strip the jacket off the punch when it goes past the step.

Reload3006 wrote:if you drill a larger diameter with a flat bottom drill or end mill. it will strip the jacket off the punch when it goes past the step.

Now that's a good idea!

I should have said from the back side LOL if it pushes the jacket over the sizer ring inside the die and it has a straight shoulder it will scrape the jacket off the punch on your return stroke. But your punch has to be long enough to push the jacket completely off the ledge if you will.

what do they mic at tommy?! are they .224?

These were and I say WERE coming out .223/.224. My goal is undersize so during the core seat it would expand the case, then move to the swage die. A 3 die set if you will....

Back to square one. I thought I had gotten all the brass out. Still kept getting brass tearing pretty bad. Now I knew that I would have bad looking jackets as I had not figured out how to lap the inside. Well, thanks to pathfinder, got that figured out. Now the lapping paper was coming out looking gold. Found that the brass had embedded making a sleeve prohibbiting the others from fully going in.

I heated the brass up, no good. Could not even scrape it out. Pulling my hair, getting ready to walk away (which I should have done) instead back to the lathe. Get a smaller size bit. Place it in the bore tool holder to be able to adjust it up and down. Ran the bit inside and lowerd it sitting on the brass jacket. My thinking was that it would chip away the brass without touching the inside of the die. Well it worked, Brass chipped away. Then I seen some silver slivers. Upon further examination, seen brass wall. Using my calipers, the entrance hole had opened up to .226. Ok, Idea, let me run one more up in the die. Yea, ummm no not so much. Now there is another whole brass stuck in the die with no way of getting it out...

I read once on another forum, a guy had shown a picture of a die he made on a lathe. Another member had asked him, man is this the interesting things that can be made on a lathe? He said nope, these are the usable things you can make on the lathe, the interesting things are those that you mess up....

So, now the extra bolt will get to make it's appearance as a die in the next few days. The wife was off from work so I did not have to keep an eye on the kids like a hawk. She goes back to work tomorrow...

Well it sounds like so more R&D is in the works.

Good luck with figuring the problem out. I know how frustrating these things can be.

I look forward to the continued discussion on the development of the dies.

Thanks. I have an idea. I also know what I am going to do different as well. First off, I am not going to use that small push through punch again!!! I think that is where the problem started...

Second, no testing untill I lap it out a bit with some wet/dry and a nifty little holder trick pathfinder shared with me. Get that inside smooth will help.

I so bad want to order my a knurling tool as well, Knurl that top portion will be sweet.

Oh well... As everyone is my witness, I will have a de rim die made and ready for playing with before Jan 1st....

As far as that other die. All is not lost. I can use that die for something else. Maybe I will make a universal de rim die out of it?? Maybe a universal expander die. Could even become a core seat die for a different caliber?? I do need to practice making that... Hmmmmm yea......

Remember you can always bore a hole bigger, but it is harder to make a hole smaller in metal.

I'd set it aside & get some more practice smoothing the internals.

But I like the idea of using it later as another die or core seater or something.

You might bugger a couple of these up but the more time you spend with your face in the lathe I am told the better you will get.

Short of ordering a kit from Corbin & cloning it, I do not know of another way to go about making dies such as this.

Yea I don't see myself ordering a kit from corbins to copy LOL. Heck, I don't think we have that much time to wait!!

The design I am going after is that of the CH4D design to be honest. I have an idea for the point form die. I have the bits and stuff and the grinder to modify the bit. I was hoping to use the second bolt for that but hey, it's all good. Nothing was made right the first time from no plans.

Tomorrow, I am going to open the size of that hole up so that I can practice lapping the inside out. That way, when the wife is home again to watch the kids, mainly make sure they don't burn the house down, I will take that second bolt, which is grade 5 from what I learned. A step down from grade 8 so it is still pretty tough and as we all know brass is softer than steel.

Oh well, I will go Monday and order 2 more bolts. Man, these bolts can get expensive. And the 3.5, I may actually go a bit smaller, that 3.5 is really long.....I actually had to cut it down in size...

I've worked with a lot of Grade 8 fasteners as our Strykers used those all over the place. We snapped plenty of them almost daily so I am somewhat familiar with the hardiness of the bolts.

For the final product have you considered some of the other metals like nickel-cobalt?

You could always try some of the softer metals until you get all the R&D done & then switch to the more expensive metals for the final product.

My wife comes back tomorrow from Kalifornia, so I will have to clean the house a bit & put the shotguns away. It was nice having her & the kids gone as I could go on a weekend snow goose hunting trip without her worrying about me sleeping in the blind or driving to the other side of the state.

Of course she is going to give me hell when she learns I spent most of the weekend on the east side in the Pot Holes.

I can sympathize with you about trying to get some things done while the wife & kids are out of your hair.

Ok Tommy if you are going to lap out your die you will want to get a piece of cast iron and turn it down to about .217 +/-.001 for a .219 finish bore. then go to the auto parts store and get a couple cans of lapping compound. and Honestly you will need a better measuring instrument than your dial calipers. they are only accurate to +/-.001 with an experienced machinist using them. To make bullets you need to be able to measure in the .0001 ten-thousandths range. you can find them fairly cheap on Ebay or swap meets. or for that matter go to a local machine shop supply store. they are there you just have to look to find them. You can find some fairly cheap but you will need one. you can also Get Diamond lapping compound to lap in hardened steel. save your emery paper for O.D. work. you can use steel for a lapping mandrel as well but it isn't as effective as Cast Iron. This is what I have done for a living for the Last 30+ years trust me I do know what I am talking about here. you will want to give your punch and wall thickness of your rim fire jackets room so mike several and find out the average thickness of the 22 rim fire case and then give a couple thousandths clearance this will keep the punch from galling the case to the die and also jamming things up. for example if the cases average .010 thick and you want to make a .219 Outside Diameter jacket then your punch needs to be .219 -.010 -.010-.004 so your punch should be about .195 in diameter, also don't forget to radius the end of the punch or you will tear the end out of your cases as you push them through. on the back side of your die you will need to back bore it so that it is slightly larger than the jackets you are wanting to make. and it should have a sharp square shoulder so that when you push your rim-fire jacket through the die it will catch the mouth of the jacket and strip it off the punch. I hope this helps and if you dont want my advise on it just say so and i will shut up.

Because I have been doing this for several years and know what all is involved in making your own. I didn't find RCE and Larry blackmon Bullet swaging supply inc to be to out of line on their prices. If you count your time as free and dont mind losing money on tooling costs then i suppose you could make your own for cheap. "DanRicard" I hope i havent butchered his user name. makes stuff that is amazing with next to nothing and I applaud him for it I really am amazed. but if he is honest with you he will tell you of HOURS he has spend doing what he has done. I know what I am doing with machine tools its how I have made my living. and I can tell you most people can make everything with an engine lathe that they need as far as rim fire jacket die. core swage die. core seat die as they are all straight through affairs. But let me tell you when it comes to point form dies you will end up with a lot more in special tooling than what your dies are worth. If you are Like DW and plan to sell them maybe you will recoup your tooling costs. I really hope it works out for him. But I do know what is involved in making a point form die and that is why i have bought die sets from Larry Blackmon and Richard Corbin. I agree Corbin mfg. Is insanely expensive and no higher quality but Richard is reasonable and Larry Blackmon is very reasonable. To do a point form die in lets say a 6s spitzer you will need to step drill the bore then ream it with a special reamer that you will have to have made for you unless you already own a fairly robust machine shop and can do heat treating yourself. the reamer will cost you almost as much if not more than you can just buy a point form die for. Then you will have to make form mandrels to diamond lap the point in. If you plan to make several thousand dies then you will recover your money. I don't mean to be discouraging as I truly do hope you succeed I just hope you have your eyes open for what lies ahead.

No man I appreciate any help one can receive. I have been thinking about making dies since way before I purchased the lathe. I have been in talks with MCS (I believe that is right) with their laps and have different sizes that I am going to be getting. Bill Arrington, member here, lives close by. He has been successful in making dies himself and have been great help and a wealth of knowledge as well.

I just want people to know that what I am currently making is in no way the actual product. These are just test and practice dies. Before I ever start making the actual deal, I want to mess up all the low stuff that way I gain all the expierence I can. Yesterday was the most time spent on a lathe my entire life and coming from a background of using butter knifes as a flat head screwdriver, I can say I have learned a few things just working with the lathe hands on. I have descovered some tricks, now if the tricks I learned is right or wrong I don't know but I know they worked. I still have other things to learn as well as far as lathe time.

I do know that the 6-7 hours I spent on the lathe doing what I am doing, that the hours of primative way of doing things has to be trippled.

The one tool that I have, that works, is faith. I have the faith and the will to be successful at this. Discouragement is something that I refuse to let take over. For the most part of my life, I have had ups and downs. This is going to be the one time that the downs is going away. Yea right now the one die that I made is somewhat of no use for a de rim, however, that one die has taught me more last night than my mind has taught me since I started this adventure. I needed that die last night and I needed to mess up on that die. Now I can disect it, re read the notes that I had taken while making it. I can then, set that die to one side and it will become something else.

So with that, I thank you for your input. It helps to amplify more of what I need to succeed.

Anyhow, I am going to turn the other bolt down, reading my notes and see how I have improved upon it...

Thanks again...

Not being a machinist, it is nice to hear from one about what is entailed in making these dies.

I hope DW is not discouraged but forwarned so that he can decide on his course of action.

I did not realize there was so much involved in making these dies. Gives me new appreciation of the art in making these & makes the price not quite so uncomfortable.

Don't get me wrong, I really would like to own a Corbin .22 LR one of these days just for something to use at the bench for my own pleasure. I do not intend to sell the bullets although I pass a few on to friends that also reload. I am still waiting for my .44 #101 & #105 CH4D dies to arrive in the mail.

Being seriously disabled from my injuries with limited mobility, I find sitting at my loading bench very peaceful & rewarding.

I appreciate guys like Ammosmith (through whom I discovered DW) who show what is all required to set up a Corbin rig & what comes in the box when you order the whole set.

If you are trying to start a small business & like .30-06 said count your time as "free," you still have many hurdles to clear.

While I could count my time as "free" since I am 100% DAV, any side money I make is extra in the bank that I could slide towards my shooting budget. Making a few bucks on the side is nice, but I like my hobby to remain as a past time.

I was at the range yesterday looking at all the .40 S&W shells littering the floor imagining swaging them into heavy soft point or SWC .430 bullets.

It is going to take time, patience & discipline to get these dies working. Maybe DW will only be able to get the rim removing die made & then we can buy the swaging dies from other makers with the tooling to make ogive-forming dies.

While I do not mind spending hours sitting on my bench pulling that effing handle, I believe that for a chance to become financialy solvent in this enterprize you would need to automate.

I think it was Speer who started making bullets from .22 LR shells but then had to go automated to keep up with demand & reduce costs.

Northwest Custom Projectile in Montana has the full Corbin set up that fills a large metal building & I bet they invested probably a mil or better $ getting started with all of that automated machinery & the stuff to support it.

Enterprising guys like DW & DanRickhard (if I buggered your name I apologize) I appreciate as I enjoy making things for my hobby. I have enjoyed this process, for someone who is not a machinist to see what it takes to make these dies.

This has given me new understanding & appreciation for the machinist's skills.

Great work so far DW!! I can't wait to see the final product It is always rewarding to use something that you have spent hours or even longer to make.

I'm just curious though... The basic operation of the die, you just push the case into the die and tap it back out?

The de rim die, you place the 22 rf onto the push through punch. Then you push it u into the die. The next case pushes that case on through and so forth until it comes out of the top of the die.

The other dies, core seat and swage, will have an ejector rod coming down from the top that you can tap on to push the bullets back out of the bottom of the die.

Its going to take some work. Right now I want to start on the de rim die and get it perfected. I am hoping that the knowledge I obtain from working with the de rim die will help me with all other dies in the future. One thing I am thinking of doing differently is shortining the sizing portion in the de rim die. I am researching now to see just how long the sizing portion has to be or is required..

If you can shorten the sizing die, then perhaps you can make the punch long enough so that you can push the case straight threw so that you can literally take the case off the punch from the top side. With that you shouldn't have any problems with cases going into each other?

I have been in talks with MCS (I believe that is right) with their laps and have different sizes that I am going to be getting.


you should also check out a company called SUNNEN hones they have equipment to help you produce a very accurate polished hole.
http://www.sunnen.com/

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....