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Yeah, but the important thing is consistency. Hornady's plastic is elastic per their patent. My thinking for quality HPs is to find a high temp wax or something to pre-fil the cavities with which will compress properly, and survive the baking process.

 

I may be completely insane by thinking this, but a wooden jewelry bead might be fairly effective and WAY easier than trying to fill the cavity with a liquid of some sort. You could stake them in to the cavity with a simple arbor press, tumble, bake, done. A quick ebay search revealed a lot quantity of 1000 3x4mm beads for $3 shipped (many sizes available, prices all seem the same). I would imagine the wood expanding inside the point would act a lot any other softer-than-lead material.

 

(I'll make the joke first) You'd be outfitted for vampire hunting as well.

 

edit: One thought on the process in your video.... Do all of your transferring of media inside a cardboard box. No more clean-up at all. Might not hurt to put the tumbler in a box too.

Edited by Maxwelhse
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I have more or less done that. But I don't like to keep a huge box around.

 

As for wooden beads- I want something more consistent than wood. Plastic beads could be OK, but I can't help but think one of those clear epoxies that come in a syringe thing will be better. I want the filler to be semi fluid but non compressible, so force on it pushes outward.

 

p.s. I've found that with HPs moisture is the main cause of clumping in the cavity. Dry better and tumble longer. I tested this out with a few hundred on Friday, and I don't think I got a single plugged cavity. Basically, if anything looks amiss, tumble longer and it will probably even out.

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I did think of using something like delrin rod chopped off with a gated guillotine. beads is a good thought, it's just a matter of finding something the right consistency. Airsoft BBS might do better than beads. The quality ones are regulated for porosity, roundness, and density. 

 

You've got a good notion about an arbor press. That's more power than would be needed. I think I could make a simpler tool with simple leverage. So long as it has a uniform depth stop, it could do well.


BTW, have you ever heard of Dum Dum bullets? - if not look them up, they put wood inside to force expansion. They are the reason our military has stupid ammo restrictions.


Here is an article w/ cross section. http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot37_2.htm

Wiki's article is garbage.

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In order of least-to-most relevant:

 

Arbor presses are available in all sizes. A 10" unit is $50 on Amazon ($10 at a garage sale). You're probably right that you won't need much effort. I'm betting you could make some simple dies for the press you were using in your video and get the job done (or another press that you no doubt already own). On a totally tangent topic if I were using that press for hundreds of rounds, for practically any purpose, it would have an air cylinder on it with a foot switch. I've done it before and I'd do it again. It's about a 30% efficiency increase to not work that handle (you can actually watch this yourself in the video). A small cylinder for high speed and low pressure is what you'd want for safety and the light effort. May as well setup some manufacturing tools if you're going to manufacture! smile.png

 

Your thoughts are going right down the line with my initial thoughts. Airsoft BBs are exactly what got me thinking about this but I was afraid they'd be too hard. I also just couldn't imagine filling a bazillion rounds with a syringe full of something that has a working time and trying to be neat about it. I don't have that kind of patience. So... Staking wood pellets became the concept.

 

Here is where I get confused about wood...

 

 

As for wooden beads- I want something more consistent than wood. Plastic beads could be OK, but I can't help but think one of those clear epoxies that come in a syringe thing will be better. I want the filler to be semi fluid but non compressible, so force on it pushes outward.

 

 


BTW, have you ever heard of Dum Dum bullets? - if not look them up, they put wood inside to force expansion. They are the reason our military has stupid ammo restrictions.

 

So, if I'm not mistaken you want something hard to force expansion but the dum dums use wood to force expansion? See why I'm confused? Wood is actually a really good material in compression (the nominal 2x4 on the bottom of the 40' tall pile is still 2x4 nominal). My basic thoughts on the wood was that it would simply keep the powder out of the cavity. I thought the point of the tipped commercially available HP stuff was just to keep the tip from getting clogged with fabric before it could fully open in the wound cavity? I'm sure there's more to it than that but that is the overall impression I have.

 

Like I said, I may be flat out insane. I do think making up a batch of 10 to try out wouldn't be that hard if you're making "J"HPs from scratch anyhow. It would be pretty easy to batch up just about anything you want (pop corn [i'm actually excited about that idea], plastics, epoxy, glass beads, q-tip ends, whatever).

 

If you're willing to do it after powder coating hot glue may not even be a bad.

 

edit: I wonder if the guy that invented cut shells started out like this! :)

Edited by Maxwelhse
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My Hps wuold probably need a different shape of cavity to work well with a solid material plug. Corbon PowrBall work like your design. It could be effective to make a mold with a cavity sized to work well with airsoft.

 

What I am looking for is a substance that is solid and consistent, but on impact will act like a firm fluid. It needs to splat without being compressible. So hydraulic force would be applying outward pressure on the cavity. Bonus points if it can be inserted prior to powdercoat and survive the baking process. I think the best bet is to find something sold in grains, beads or a rod that can be cut to size. HP diameter is 0.125", so that it could possibly work with a soft nylon rod, as is sometimes used as a hinge pin. 

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If Nylon is what you want then its easy enough. All nylon is going to be in the same "range" for durometer hardness as a family in general.

 

http://www.mcmaster.com/#9613k13

 

As far as pressing them in you'd just need to make something that can chuck in the top of your press (basically a pin) with maybe a 5/32 1/2 hole (just drill deep enough to crate the cone of the end of the bit) to center the ball up and push it in. The extra .031 of material that you'd pack in on top of the ball should hold it in nicely unless you want the ball to be the absolute leading tip of the bullet (then obviously use something smaller than 1/8"). If you didn't want to make tons of them you could probably get this done with a C-clamp for very little money or even just use a home made punch and a light hammer.

 

The easiest thing would be to manufacture a mold that holds the ball and pour the lead around it during casting. 6/6 Nylon melts at 515F which is only about 100F cooler than lead's melting point. I bet it would work fine if you're careful about how hot you get the lead.

Edited by Maxwelhse
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Lovely. I may have to order a pack. Pressing them in would be simple. I think I would just use the decapping die.

 

Casting around them wouldn't work well for a couple reasons though. First, it would be difficult to keep them centered, second, HP molding needs to be closer to 800*F or you get bad fill out at the mouth of the cavity.

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A correctly designed mold could overcome those casting issues but may not be worth your time. I still think they'd probably survive the temperature since the lead would cool so rapidly once hitting the mold.

 

I'll be following this to see how the nylon balls turn out! :)

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