Does anybody of you know of any CNC machines I could buy/make for making rifle bullets?


This would be for hobby use, and perhaps sell as well..

That depends.
If you are talking about solid copper bullets like the triple shocks then any barfeed lathe would be adequte. These kind of bullets have to have the grooves in them, not for lube but for a place for the material to flow into when displaced by the rifleing.

If you are talking jacketed bullets then a barfeed lathe would work for making the lead slugs to proper size (although sever overkill). Most jacketed bullets are swaged with the jackets being fluxed and then melting the lead into them, thus bonding, and then forming up the point.

My dad casts his own bullets for his 45-70 rifle, so I have seen some of the considerations that go into them. Course he is running gaschecked paper-patched bullets with soft points. I offered to make a mold to make some ballistic tips for them but he thought that was overkill. I did make the adjustable mold that he does use, and they are not that hard to make.

JP

As far as selling them you will want to check with the BATF.
I know that loaded ammo needs some special permits if you make so many a year or something. You can make all you want for yourself but when you start selling them there may be a tax on them that you will have to keep track of.

Course your in Norway so that may be different there.

JP

That depends.
If you are talking about solid copper bullets like the triple shocks then any barfeed lathe would be adequte. These kind of bullets have to have the grooves in them, not for lube but for a place for the material to flow into when displaced by the rifleing.

If you are talking jacketed bullets then a barfeed lathe would work for making the lead slugs to proper size (although sever overkill). Most jacketed bullets are swaged with the jackets being fluxed and then melting the lead into them, thus bonding, and then forming up the point.

My dad casts his own bullets for his 45-70 rifle, so I have seen some of the considerations that go into them. Course he is running gaschecked paper-patched bullets with soft points. I offered to make a mold to make some ballistic tips for them but he thought that was overkill. I did make the adjustable mold that he does use, and they are not that hard to make.

JP

Sorry to disagree, but rifle bullets are made using hollow jackets like you said, but the led is swaged into the jacket from a plug cut from lead wire that is made for the job. There are many custom bullet making dies but I don't know aof anyone turing bullets other than the solid coppers.

Mike

Berger makes solid turned copper bullets. All CNC lathe bar work.

In any kind of volume, bullets should be made on a header. Necessary grooves and any sizing can be done on a thread roller. Turning something like that is a waste of valuable machine time.

d2 heat treated

d2 heat treated
:cheers:

Turning something like that is a waste of valuable machine time.
Serious benchrest target shooters use solid, lathe turned bullets. The bullets must be ordered in incrementally larger sizes until the barrel is worn out. Lathe turned bullets are the most concentric projectiles available. Lead core and copper jackets will never be as good, but they are good enough for 99.5% of shooters.

Yep the .50 cal 1000 yd record group was made with lathe turned solids. It's not a waste of machine time if each takes 20 seconds to make and you sell them for a buck fifty or two bucks a piece.

Yep the .50 cal 1000 yd record group was made with lathe turned solids. It's not a waste of machine time if each takes 20 seconds to make and you sell them for a buck fifty or two bucks a piece.

called easy money
if you break it the right market , a lil swiss style lathe with live tooling , 2 buck every 1-2 minutes
your right waste of time

called easy money
if you break it the right market , a lil swiss style lathe with live tooling , 2 buck every 1-2 minutes
your right waste of time

and that would come out to be 60 bucks an hour? sounds good to me...

I'm been the primary guy running and programming our Star swiss lathe at work. If you could get the material cold rolled or ground to size, I bet with the right program you could be getting a less than a 30 second cycle time. there are so many variables doing such a thing but with the right tooling you could flat crank them out. The only other faster way would probably be with a screw machine that does several bars at once.

About 4 hours south of me is Blunt or ATK or whatever they're called now and they do Speer bullets and I think CCI, I'll have to check some ammo, but most all of there stuff is cold formed in high volume from what I've heard. From my little bit of shooting most of there stuff is top notch. Manufacturing this way would lead to very high output levels in the size of operation they are running just in the one location.

Carl

....... if each takes 20 seconds to make and you sell them for a buck fifty or two bucks a piece.

20 seconds each is 3 a minute. Three times a buck fifty is $4.50 or two bucks is $6.00. Sixty minutes times 4.50 is $270 per hour or times 6 is $360 per hour. That is not a bad hourly rate.

Ya but how much of that buck fifty is material costs? I imagine copper is right up there with brass maybe higher.

I keep thinking about turning some bullets out for myself on my old bosses CHNC II+ Super precision. I would think that could make one every 45 seconds or so. I know simple aluminum spacers run 30 seconds so add a little turning time, use the turning tool to put some grooves in (they don't have to be square just a place for material to flow) under a minute anyway.
If material costs were $0.50 then a $1.50 total cost would still be $60+ per hour on a machine that does not need babysitting.

JP

basicly you wold be able to make money just sitting there and reading a book :)

basicly you wold be able to make money just sitting there and reading a book :)

Actually you would be able to make money while operating another machine making more money :D:D:D:D:D:D

Who has time to read a book anyway? :D

JP

this is true unless you only have the 1 machine :)

Then you are busy in the office trying to find work to keep the machine busy when its not making bullets. :D

JP

lol i could keep going but not going to keep flaming this post
(so what happens if you are a home shop doing this on the side with no real larg scale production?)

Corbin makes swaging equipment: http://www.bulletswage.com/