Some thoughts on bullet making.

jackie schmidt

jackie schmidt

New member
One of the byproducts of the Tomball Gun Club being shut down for renovation and matches being canceled because of Covid is we all have time to sit around and REALLY confuse our minds with ideas and experiments.

One I have been playing around with is bullet core seating.

It is understood that when core seating, you want to arrive and the proper diameter of the cored jacket, the proper amount of core pressure, and the “just right” amount of lead bleed by at the punch.

The last one really bugs me. Ideally, it would seem that the least amount of bleed by while getting the first two right would be ideal.

Here is what I am running into. I open a new lot of jackets, and through trial and error, arrive at the correct punch size and core seating pressure. You start seating cores, and then jackets start staying on the punch. You check for lead buildup on the punch. None. With a magnifier, you look in the jacket to see uneven lead bleed by and on some, evidence that the punch is too tight. You try a .0005 smaller punch. The bleed by is excessive. You go back to the othe punch, and find that 2/3 of the core seated jackets are perfect, but 1/3 are terrible. Sticking to the punch, uneven lead bleed by, etc.

What he heck is going on.

The answer. Inconsistent jacket wall thickness. So I made a little rig with a “tenth” indicator to see if I could accurately ascertain the wall thickness variations in a bucket of jackets. This is no easy task considering the taper inside the jacket.

What I found is disturbing. The best jackets are running .0002 or better in wall thickness variation. But at least 1/3 of those tested are showing as much as .0004 to .0005 variation.

When test coring these up, these are the ones getting irregular bleed by and sticking to the punch.

We are trying to make top quality Benchrest quality bullets. It all starts with the jacket.

I am a little disappointed in the quality of the 15,000 I have on hand. I guess the next step is to physically check every jacket for wall consistency.

Or just say to heck with it.

My thoughts on this are any irregular lead bleed by in the core seated jacket will be very detrimental to the balance of the spinning bullet, and of course, accuracy.
 
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Interesting Jackie. I suspect you are right about the imbalance being a problem. The cost of jackets is already fairly high without discarding a third of them. But, in lieu of sorting the jackets, can you tell enough about them sticking on the punch to be able to separate them into batches as you seat cores? If so, you should be able to determine fairly quickly whether they shot different or not. Or how much different they shot.
Can you post a picture of your fixture that you are using to measure them?

Joe
 
Food for though.

[QUOTE WHEN I FIRST DID 22S I USED RCBS BLT. DIES TO CORE SEAT I ONLY HAD ONE PUNCH BUT HADNEW DETCH PT. DIE
BLEED BY WAS TERRIBLE I MADE 100 WENT TO MATCH ON SUNDAY AT 200YD' 1ST. GROUP .210 OTHER 4 WERE GOOD
WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT BLEED BY DR. MARETZO XRAYED 30 BULLET MAKERS AND BLEED BY WAS TRRIBLE AND THESE WERE TOP WINNERS. WHO KNOWS.=jackie schmidt;842259]One of the byproducts of the Tomball Gun Club being shut down for renovation and matches being canceled because of Covid is we all have time to sit around and REALLY confuse our minds with ideas and experiments.

One I have been playing around with is bullet core seating.

It is understood that when core seating, you want to arrive and the proper diameter of the cored jacket, the proper amount of core pressure, and the “just right” amount of lead bleed by at the punch.

The last one really bugs me. Ideally, it would seem that the least amount of bleed by while getting the first two right would be ideal.

Here is what I am running into. I open a new lot of jackets, and through trial and error, arrive at the correct punch size and core seating pressure. You start seating cores, and then jackets start staying on the punch. You check for lead buildup on the punch. None. With a magnifier, you look in the jacket to see uneven lead bleed by and on some, evidence that the punch is too tight. You try a .0005 smaller punch. The bleed by is excessive. You go back to the othe punch, and find that 2/3 of the core seated jackets are perfect, but 1/3 are terrible. Sticking to the punch, uneven lead bleed by, etc.

What he heck is going on.

The answer. Inconsistent jacket wall thickness. So I made a little rig with a “tenth” indicator to see if I could accurately ascertain the wall thickness variations in a bucket of jackets. This is no easy task considering the taper inside the jacket.

What I found is disturbing. The best jackets are running .0002 or better in wall thickness variation. But at least 1/3 of those tested are showing as much as .0004 to .0005 variation.

When test coring these up, these are the ones getting irregular bleed by and sticking to the punch.

We are trying to make top quality Benchrest quality bullets. It all starts with the jacket.

I am a little disappointed in the quality of the 15,000 I have on hand. I guess the next step is to physically check every jacket for wall consistency.

Or just say to heck with it.

My thoughts on this are any irregular lead bleed by in the core seated jacket will be very detrimental to the balance of the spinning bullet, and of course, accuracy.[/QUOTE]
 
[QUOTE CHAMPHER END OF PUNCH SLIGHTLY WHEN YOU GET THAT RIGHT YOU WILL BE OK. =BillBrawand;842272][QUOTE WHEN I FIRST DID 22S I USED RCBS BLT. DIES TO CORE SEAT I ONLY HAD ONE PUNCH BUT HADNEW DETCH PT. DIE
BLEED BY WAS TERRIBLE I MADE 100 WENT TO MATCH ON SUNDAY AT 200YD' 1ST. GROUP .210 OTHER 4 WERE GOOD
WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT BLEED BY DR. MARETZO XRAYED 30 BULLET MAKERS AND BLEED BY WAS TRRIBLE AND THESE WERE TOP WINNERS. WHO KNOWS.=jackie schmidt;842259]One of the byproducts of the Tomball Gun Club being shut down for renovation and matches being canceled because of Covid is we all have time to sit around and REALLY confuse our minds with ideas and experiments.

One I have been playing around with is bullet core seating.

It is understood that when core seating, you want to arrive and the proper diameter of the cored jacket, the proper amount of core pressure, and the “just right” amount of lead bleed by at the punch.

The last one really bugs me. Ideally, it would seem that the least amount of bleed by while getting the first two right would be ideal.

Here is what I am running into. I open a new lot of jackets, and through trial and error, arrive at the correct punch size and core seating pressure. You start seating cores, and then jackets start staying on the punch. You check for lead buildup on the punch. None. With a magnifier, you look in the jacket to see uneven lead bleed by and on some, evidence that the punch is too tight. You try a .0005 smaller punch. The bleed by is excessive. You go back to the othe punch, and find that 2/3 of the core seated jackets are perfect, but 1/3 are terrible. Sticking to the punch, uneven lead bleed by, etc.

What he heck is going on.

The answer. Inconsistent jacket wall thickness. So I made a little rig with a “tenth” indicator to see if I could accurately ascertain the wall thickness variations in a bucket of jackets. This is no easy task considering the taper inside the jacket.

What I found is disturbing. The best jackets are running .0002 or better in wall thickness variation. But at least 1/3 of those tested are showing as much as .0004 to .0005 variation.

When test coring these up, these are the ones getting irregular bleed by and sticking to the punch.

We are trying to make top quality Benchrest quality bullets. It all starts with the jacket.

I am a little disappointed in the quality of the 15,000 I have on hand. I guess the next step is to physically check every jacket for wall consistency.

Or just say to heck with it.

My thoughts on this are any irregular lead bleed by in the core seated jacket will be very detrimental to the balance of the spinning bullet, and of course, accuracy.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
 
Joe Duke said:
Interesting Jackie. I suspect you are right about the imbalance being a problem. The cost of jackets is already fairly high without discarding a third of them. But, in lieu of sorting the jackets, can you tell enough about them sticking on the punch to be able to separate them into batches as you seat cores? If so, you should be able to determine fairly quickly whether they shot different or not. Or how much different they shot.
Can you post a picture of your fixture that you are using to measure them?

Joe
Click to expand...

Joe, it’s at my shop. I take a pic.

Maybe I am being too anal.
 
jackie schmidt said:
Joe, it’s at my shop. I take a pic.

Maybe I am being too anal.
Click to expand...

I suspect you can be a little bit lax and make good bullets. I think you have to have the best jackets and do everything right to make great bullets.

I have a set of dies (Leon Gass' dies) and have made a bunch of bullets with them. I used the Hines jackets and a few Sierra jackets. They shoot good but I would never tell you that I was a great bullet maker or that I knew all the tricks.
I did get a bucket of .900" jackets and made some 80 grain bullets. They shoot well at longer distances; til the wind comes up.

Joe
 
Jackie,
are you making 6's or 30's ?
I don't know anything about making 30's but generally speaking, you are probably using too much lube for core seating. Too much lube on the jackets complicates the core seating process. For 6mm .825's I use next to nothing for lube (0.5 of a grain of Lanolin based lube per 1000 )
Joel
 
Nader said:
Jackie,
are you making 6's or 30's ?
I don't know anything about making 30's but generally speaking, you are probably using too much lube for core seating. Too much lube on the jackets complicates the core seating process. For 6mm .825's I use next to nothing for lube (0.5 of a grain of Lanolin based lube per 1000 )
Joel
Click to expand...

I do use a little more than that.
To get the correct seat pressure, I first measure the length of the 30 caliber jacket, which will be .925. I then seat a core and measure the length and OD. The ideal diameter coming out of the die is .3082. At this diameter, the jacket will shrink in length to around .905.

I then add core seat pressure untill the core seated jacket grows about .002 inch in length

I do see your point about the lube. A jacket that is too slick will release in the die too easily and come down with the punch. However, having cored jackets stick because of a higher irregular wall thickness does identify jackets that are possibly sub standard.

Since all of my punches are exactly the same length, I can then ascertain the correct punch diameter to control lead bleed by, or avoid scraping the jacket’s ID.

After core seating, I relube the seated cores for pointing up to where the shank of the finished bullet measures .3082 with a .3077 gas ring. This is where they shoot best.

The simple fact is this particular lot of jackets contains many that are not within that magic .0002 or less wall thickness variation.
 
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J4 doesn't guarantee tir up the whole jacket just to a datum around .2 up from base, these are prints from Spiveco that started making jackets ( pre j4 ) read the notes you will see the issue. only had 22 and 6 I don't think there was a 30 br in 95....
 

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geo.ulrich said:
J4 doesn't guarantee tir up the whole jacket just to a datum around .2 up from base, these are prints from Spiveco that started making jackets ( pre j4 ) read the notes you will see the issue. only had 22 and 6 I don't think there was a 30 br in 95....
Click to expand...

George, I've got all the prints - just cannot get the new computer to co-operate with sharing the scanned images . . .:( Pretty much the same, except, 0.oo7" up in the tapered portion!! :eek: RG
 
The ideal diameter coming out of the die is .3082. At this diameter, the jacket will shrink in length to around .905.

I then add core seat pressure until the core seated jacket grows about .002 inch in length
Click to expand...

When I made bullets, 6MM, I followed the method of seating the core and measuring the jacket shrinkage, and diameter. But once the jacket stopped getting shorter and the diameter was the diameter of the die ID, I never saw the need to keep adding pressure. Is the jacket itself stretching? And I did the same as Joel, 1/2 grain of lube per 1000 cleaned jackets. You won't stick a seated jacket in the die, there is a full size punch ejecting it. I did add some lube and tumble again for pointup. That need to come out easily.
 
wayne shaw said:
when i made bullets, 6mm, i followed the method of seating the core and measuring the jacket shrinkage, and diameter. But once the jacket stopped getting shorter and the diameter was the diameter of the die id, i never saw the need to keep adding pressure. Is the jacket itself stretching? And i did the same as joel, 1/2 grain of lube per 1000 cleaned jackets. You won't stick a seated jacket in the die, there is a full size punch ejecting it. I did add some lube and tumble again for pointup. That need to come out easily.
Click to expand...
if you use light cloth with small amt. S t p on it your fingers will lube the jacket with lead already in it. Works 1400 a hr.
 
wayne shaw said:
when i made bullets, 6mm, i followed the method of seating the core and measuring the jacket shrinkage, and diameter. But once the jacket stopped getting shorter and the diameter was the diameter of the die id, i never saw the need to keep adding pressure. Is the jacket itself stretching? And i did the same as joel, 1/2 grain of lube per 1000 cleaned jackets. You won't stick a seated jacket in the die, there is a full size punch ejecting it. I did add some lube and tumble again for pointup. That need to come out easily.
Click to expand...
ferris pindel put on a show at harts rage on how to core seat when mark showed on the outside of the jacket from punch pressure that was what you used . Lightly
 
geo.ulrich said:
J4 doesn't guarantee tir up the whole jacket just to a datum around .2 up from base, these are prints from Spiveco that started making jackets ( pre j4 ) read the notes you will see the issue. only had 22 and 6 I don't think there was a 30 br in 95....
Click to expand...

George,that is what I am getting on these .925 30’s about 2/3 way up the jacket. Some are really good, some not so good.
 
Spievco PDF files

If your computer won't open the pdf's that George linked, here they are:

JGYldLDl.jpg


u2KjB3vl.jpg
 
billbrawand said:
if you use light cloth with small amt. S t p on it your fingers will lube the jacket with lead already in it. Works 1400 a hr.
Click to expand...
i put cloth in small cookie tray put about 200 at time.this generaly left enough to point up with. After pointing up i rolled on paper towel this keep barrel from copering up.
 
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