Question for swaged jacket cores .

[RBHarter]

I'm leaving this intensionally vague in hopes of getting well rounded conclusions .

A question came up about producing cores for a RF case bullets . I don't have that dog . I have a light 30 cal set up .

Alloy .
It seems to me that soft lead to 20-1 lead /tin is going to be best for the process , tools and pretty mushrooms .

ACWW or extruded wire is probably going to be harder to form and reduce expansion by 50% .
My thought is that if the finished bullet were raised to WW heat treat temps and water cooled even a fairly large SP or SPHP with a high jacket , ie 5% of total length exposed lead , would be a really hard bullet to get any expansion at all from .

Lino ......... I don't even think it could be formed in a press short of an actual swage press and then we I'm thinking maybe just the final form and point with a dipped full core . AC it's going to yield the same results as HTWW except that if the jacket moves it will break up depending on impact speed etc .
HT I would think a spitzer would be almost an FMJ but an 80% dia or HP would be in the realm of Glaser types ?

Would not the impact results be about the same in a thin jacket as cast ? With abrasion and a wrap . Paper thin varmint jackets . Obviously this can't be applied to the assorted one step sets with assorted cartridge cases used for jackets ..... A 5.7 250 30 cal ........it'd probably run through light armor like an AP .

Is my understanding/thinking flawed ? Discounting jacket form with an applied 22-2500 fps impact speed .

 

[Ian]

most commercial cores are lead with a little antimony, hardly any tin. They draw well both in the form dies and in the rifle's throat. Tin does a different thing to lead than antimony. That's all I got, never swaged a bullet in my life.

 

[fiver]

that's a lot of questions in one post so let's take them a bit slower.

20-1 your gonna crack your die.

what is your desired outcome?
if it is to make an AP type bullet you need more than just a simple core and jacket to make that happen with what you got.
you can get close with certain combinations, and you can go the other direction easy enough.

 

[RBHarter]

Sourced from a question elsewhere that piqued my curiosity .

I only have a 30 cal 105-110 gr RNHP die set and no need to make it anything but a plinker or pattern I figured anything much past ACWW would have to be in a mostly finished jacket to do more than point form .

 

[fiver]

you got cheats.
one way I work around thin jackets is by making a stronger core.
how I do that is by core seating, then I melt the lead and jacket together [bonding] and water drop everything.
then I immediately lube, point form, and clean.
and just like heat quenching a cast bullet I wait for the alloy to settle down.

Tin is a very good hardening agent and promotes more penetration.
unfortunately high amounts are awful hard on your equipment, by having it in the alloy but not settled in place yet you can use a bit more, but there's no way I'd go past 1%.
however the structure is still there and it really resists swaging and deformation.

jackets are only part of the equation, but they are really good at influencing how a bullet works in a terminal sense.
thicker or the addition of zinc or thinner and thicker in the same jacket all influence what happens, combine that with bonding, core strength, and impact velocity.
you can easily see how one bullet gives a different outcome versus another without any of those features, or with different features than the first even with the same basic core material.

just remember thin jackets and soft lead equals varmint bullets.
varying on that, or going more and more away from that gets further and further away from that fragility.

now you can change some of that or expand on the varmint bullets fragility by adding a lead tip.
putting a hollow point in the bullet and adding a plastic tip.
skiving the nose of the jacket thinner, cutting the jacket, adding a flatter nose shape, etc.

 

[RBHarter]

In my poor mechanics understanding and translation that is exactly what I had understood about the applied workings .

I may go and dabble some in it if I happen across a mountain range brass.

 

[fiver]

it's a good way [the best actually] to really understand how bullets work if you make them yourself and test their results.
you can see when and what to change if you change the impact velocity.
you can see what influences bullet upset, and how to change the balance of upset and penetration based on your desires.
if you buy into the energy dump theory you can easily see what options you should choose in a bullet.
if you want more penetration, you can see what it is that gives you that option.
if you just want a little more of one or the other you can see what changes to a bullet will influence it towards your desires [within reason]
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