Bullet Making (originally owned by Stephen Perry)

Randy, the article you're referring to is from the January 1985 issue of Prescision Shooting, page 16.

Dave Brennan prefaced the article with this quote:

" Editor's note: Jonas Hallgrimson was a vital part of the evolution of thought and logic that lead to the development of the Biehler and Astles dies. The B&A bullet-making dies were a great breakthrough in the development of accuracy; they were the fore-runner of todays dies....all of which trace their lineage to B&A.....their development was one of the landmarks of the sport".

Mr. Hallgrimson also included a copy of the B& A catalog, a page of which was included in the article.


Al, thank you for digging it up! It was even older than I thought!:D I 'loaned' all of my PS mags - from '83' through '93' to a scoundrel and never got them back . . . sometimes, the synapses allow 'firing' in, at least, the right direction!:eek::eek: You bet I'd like a copy! Good shootin'!
RG

P.S. I posted this on a bullet swaging thread which is located on the benchrest forum - it's another link to HISTORY . . . and just about all one needs to know about bullet making 101. :eek:;)

Bullet making isn't 'rocket science': it's simply the common sense use of good tooling to convert lead-wire and excellent jackets into bullets. To learn the fundamentals of bullet making, one of the BEST reads remains the description, by Mike Walker and Emory Tooly, published in THE ACCURATE RIFLE, by Warren Page, Winchester Press, 1973, in chapter 11, The Supremely Accurate Bullet . . . some things haven't changed since Biehler & Astles, during the late 1940's, conceived the single cavity, 'swaging-up' process of bullet making. Keep 'em ON the X!;) RG
 
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Br bullet making

Notice the die for jackets?
That was for making jackets from 22 rifle hulls
Thats back when they were made from Copper.
Great post Randy''''
 
if any one is interested i have original's of this including instruction's on bullet making,price lists and instruction's for thier bullet presses. george
 
Gerry said:
Notice the die for jackets? That was for making jackets from 22 rifle hulls.
Click to expand...

Referencing the jacket sizing die, Mr. Hallgrimson says this in the article:

"All the jackets available at that time were grossly oversize, so it seemed to me that they must be sized down to some .000 under the proper size of the bullet. It just could not be right to squeeze the jackets around the cores."

Editor Brennan added his thoughts at the end of the article:

"Coming from the gentleman who finally resolved the problem of how to make accurate bullets....in the 1980 era....such modesty is becoming, but not justifiable. We all owe quite a debt to Jonas Hallgrimson of Iceland....who was never on an ego trip....yet who did more for rifle accuracy than many who were. Thanks, Jonas".
 
Br bullet making

My Mistake:eek:
It looks like the Corbin jacket maker.
Ted Smith made almost the exact die for 22 jackets.
I have a few old Sisk bullets and some Speers that were made from copper rim fire hulls.
You can still see the Winchester diamond on the bottom
You can also see where the RF firing pin hit
Thanks for catching that AL''
I read that article back then. I really didn't get into tooo much,
I had the B+A bullet making book at the time and had been making bullets for 12 years. I really don't know where this Hallgrimson fellow came in. Brennen would know more about that.
The B+A dies were made AT RIT in Rochester New York.
They were shop prodject for tool and die makers. The R +D on the bump up process Vs the swage down process was proven there.
Ray Biehler and Walt Astles were the Inventers of the prodject.
I never heard of there other fellow and his name was not in the B+A Book.
It could be that several people were working along the same lines.
Just as today. The B+A book is great reading, a little dated but still valid.
 
Gerry said:
I really don't know where this Hallgrimson fellow came in. Brennen would know more about that. The B+A dies were made AT RIT in Rochester New York. They were shop prodject for tool and die makers. The R +D on the bump up process Vs the swage down process was proven there.
Ray Biehler and Walt Astles were the Inventers of the prodject. I never heard of there other fellow and his name was not in the B+A Book. It could be that several people were working along the same lines. Just as today. The B+A book is great reading, a little dated but still valid.
Click to expand...

Gerry, a little more from the article, quoting Mr. Hallgrimson:

"It was then plain what was needed was a set of 3 dies to do the things that I wanted....first a die to size the jackets down, then a core forming and bleed-off die, and finally a core seating die, to expand the jackets in the core seating process to be fully expanded in the swaging die....which today we know as the EU principle (expand up).

I made some drawings, complete with explanations, and sent them off to Ray Biehler in Rochester, New York. He made the first set of dies for me, and then he called me on the phone, and related that he felt that this was such a good idea that he wanted to know if I would object if he made these dies for sale. I told him I had no objection, and this was the start of B&A dies".
 
Gerry, this is a jacket draw die i got one when i picked up all b&a stuff years ago. everything shown in pictures is the same as is laying around here except the don't show there presses. george
 
BR Bullet Making

Does anyone have the name and addres of the person that sells per swagged cores. His shop is in north Georgia. I had his address on my old computer but it went west. I think he has an E-mail address also.
john
 
The time machine

All this B&A nostalgia from Rochester,NY is making me feel quite Parisian.Like Felix Nadar who photographed Claude Monet at the turn of the 20th century.Quite the time warp parallel.
Being only minutes away from Downtown Rochester I think I'll don a beret and hang outside RIT with a Starbucks coffee and see if I can strike up a conversation with some other aspiring bullet makers. "pardon me garcon',what ogive do you prefer for Short range BR"? "You there,madomoselle,I would like to discuss core seating pressure with you",,,Do not run away,I mean no offense", " what lubricant do you use? " "I have a rather large meplat, come back".
 
Br bullet making

NADER:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
Al thanks up on the heads up on the Article Too.
George"
A photo of the press would be nice. Think some one has a photo to post?
It would be nnice to show the guys what B&A were doing.
 
To swing this thread in a new direction, I am interested in hearing about some of your quality control methods.
What measurements do you take of jackets, cores, finished product, and how do you track/record this data?
What is it you are looking for in each of the measurement steps?
Examples of spread sheets or other would be interesting to view.
What perimeters do you use to establish lot numbers for your runs? Jacket lot numbers? One day volume? Batched by the bucket?

Thanks
DanO
 
BR Bullet Making

This is an interesting topic, with lots of good ideas & opinions floating about.

I've been making bullets on an off for about 35 years, started in the early 70s with a set of .224 Frank Hempstead dies which I still have. With that setup, I could make as good a bullet as I could buy, at least as far as I knew.

Now have a set of Blackmon .224 dies and his press, a fine setup for for my limited use. I make my own bullets and a few for a buddy, don't need $$$ carbide that.

One thing mentioned over and over is to get with an experineced maker for some first hand experience and knowledge, not much of an option in the 70s.

Buy good equipment, learn to use it properly, keep it clean and enjoy.

Jim
 
There's got to be a better way than counting to 100,200,500,1000,etc. with slugs,cores ,jackets and finished bullets. Does anyone have a program worked out with a scale where one can just weigh the volume and land on an accurate count ? What type,how accurate, and expensive of a scale is needed to accomplish this ? Thanks,
Joel
 
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Establishing Counts

Nader
I started setting up a weight scale for rough cores, swaged cores, and finished bullets when I started making bullets in 1999.

These are my weights for 100 count when making 66.1 grn bullets 6mm bullets.

Rough Cores 0.68 lb
Swaged Cores 0.62 lb
Finished Bullets 0.95 lb

The core/bullet weight scale was made in 4/99 when J4 jackets weighed 22.7 grn my current lot of J4 jackets weigh 23.1 grn. Thus I lowered my core weight from 43.4 to 43.0 to keep my bullet weight at 66.1 grn.

Nader I hand counted the cores and finished bullets to make this scale, I haven't done any counting since.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR
 
Nader said:
There's got to be a better way than counting to 100,200,500,1000,etc. with slugs,cores ,jackets and finished bullets. Does anyone have a program worked out with a scale where one can just weigh the volume and land on an accurate count ? What type,how accurate, and expensive of a scale is needed to accomplish this ? Thanks,
Joel
Click to expand...

Easily adapted to your presses Joel...

http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMCTLG=00&PMAKA=00208017&partnerURL=http://catalogs.shoplocal.com/mscdirect/index.aspxopagename=shopmainPcircularid=15382Pstoreid=1040626Ppagenumber=4295Pmode=
 
Br bullet making

George that would be great to have a photo.



Nader thats the way to go and at a cheap price.
I was wondering who had them.
the count= weigh would be easy if all of the bullets weight exactly the same. Then all you would have to do is have an accurate scale.
Remember 7,000 grs = a pound. IE 7,000 gr Divided by 66gr = 106 + bullets aprox. Still there that fraction to deal with you might have to throw in a few extras.
I know i'm old fashoned but i count mine. I don't want anyone feeling like they are cheated. I think the counter is the way to go as long as you keep alert. . Those rejects once in a while.
 
Care of Bullets

I saw a shooter at a match laying out bullets on a foam pad. He said he didn't want to risk damaging them laying them on the hard table..

Anybody remember how Jeff Fowler used to ship his bullets. All wadded up in a big ole clumb, and held togther with some type of self sticking celophane wrap. Darn right scary, but thiose things shot awfully well......jackie
 
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