For those of you who wonder how these tools were made I thought I would post the process. I usually try to find junk or orphan dies at the gun shows to buy cheap. I stay away from chromed or nitride coated dies as well as carbide as they cannot be drawn down soft enough to machine easily. At least that is my experience.
I pack the parts in my furnace crucible with fine charcoal before putting them in the oven. This prevents them from scaling during the process and doesn’t seem to add any carbon as bone charcoal does. I heat them to about 1480 – 1500 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours until they are fully soaked through then I turn my kiln off and let it cool on its own to room temperature. This takes about twelve hours. After that they are usually soft enough to work with ordinary high speed cutters.
This die had a straight .250” diameter hole through it to begin with so all I had to do was center it and drill it through with a 23/32” (.3594”) drill. The hole finished at .360” which left me with .005” or so to clean up. Using the tool shown below I finished boring the hole to .364” and left a thousandth to polish out later. Then with the same too I cut the recess for the point die to fit into. For these parts I usually use standard bolts usually grade five as they are easy to cut. With this cutter ground the way it is I can bore into a shoulder and then face off square without changing cutters or position. You have to be very careful as you approach the bottom so you don’t jam the tool and get a bad chatter. I bored it to just clear the finished outside diameter of the point tool and the depth I needed for support and to make the point. After that I could take the body tool out of the lathe.
93x72R Lathe tool I.jpg
Next I rough cut a ½” bolt so I would have enough shoulder to true and machine the point. I held the bolt in the chuck by the hex, trued it up and center drilled the end. Then I faced it off using a regular lathe tool. Next I drilled it through with a 3/16” drill. This hole would be the ejection hole and give me clearance for the point tool.
93x72R Point lathe tool I.jpg
The tool above is hand ground to the shape that I want the point to form. You can move it around a bit to get it just right but it is sort of a trial and error thing. The first one I made was too “pointy” and I didn’t care for it. With the ejection hole it is a simple matter to plunge the point tool in a little at a time until you have both the depth and diameter you want. In this case I wanted the diameter right at .357” or the starting size for the bullet I was using. I ended up with .358” finished and I was happy enough with that. At least nothing broke or chattered or went too wrong.
For the point plug I started with a #12 bolt and roughed it off to the length I needed then chucked it up and filed it to fit the hole. When it would just go in I trimmed it flush with the end of the point radius. The last thing was to center a 3/8” bolt long enough to make the bottom punch and turn it so it would just fit into the body die. Everything got polished up a bit and that was that. I may color harden them later but they could work for years unhardened.
They are not very pretty but they work. I lube the bullet with bullet forming lube from Rich Corbin and then press it in my shop press. These bullets are soft and don’t take a lot of pressure to reform. After that I drop the die between two bars so it is held by the shoulder and press the bullet along with the point die out of the body die. The bullet is now stuck in the point die but I clamp it in my vise and pull the ejection plug out. This usually comes out very easily. Then with a 3/16” punch I knock out the bullet. It leaves a small indent in the end of the bullet but doesn’t hurt anything. Slow and easy gets it done.
Thanks, Diz
I pack the parts in my furnace crucible with fine charcoal before putting them in the oven. This prevents them from scaling during the process and doesn’t seem to add any carbon as bone charcoal does. I heat them to about 1480 – 1500 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours until they are fully soaked through then I turn my kiln off and let it cool on its own to room temperature. This takes about twelve hours. After that they are usually soft enough to work with ordinary high speed cutters.
This die had a straight .250” diameter hole through it to begin with so all I had to do was center it and drill it through with a 23/32” (.3594”) drill. The hole finished at .360” which left me with .005” or so to clean up. Using the tool shown below I finished boring the hole to .364” and left a thousandth to polish out later. Then with the same too I cut the recess for the point die to fit into. For these parts I usually use standard bolts usually grade five as they are easy to cut. With this cutter ground the way it is I can bore into a shoulder and then face off square without changing cutters or position. You have to be very careful as you approach the bottom so you don’t jam the tool and get a bad chatter. I bored it to just clear the finished outside diameter of the point tool and the depth I needed for support and to make the point. After that I could take the body tool out of the lathe.
93x72R Lathe tool I.jpg
Next I rough cut a ½” bolt so I would have enough shoulder to true and machine the point. I held the bolt in the chuck by the hex, trued it up and center drilled the end. Then I faced it off using a regular lathe tool. Next I drilled it through with a 3/16” drill. This hole would be the ejection hole and give me clearance for the point tool.
93x72R Point lathe tool I.jpg
The tool above is hand ground to the shape that I want the point to form. You can move it around a bit to get it just right but it is sort of a trial and error thing. The first one I made was too “pointy” and I didn’t care for it. With the ejection hole it is a simple matter to plunge the point tool in a little at a time until you have both the depth and diameter you want. In this case I wanted the diameter right at .357” or the starting size for the bullet I was using. I ended up with .358” finished and I was happy enough with that. At least nothing broke or chattered or went too wrong.
For the point plug I started with a #12 bolt and roughed it off to the length I needed then chucked it up and filed it to fit the hole. When it would just go in I trimmed it flush with the end of the point radius. The last thing was to center a 3/8” bolt long enough to make the bottom punch and turn it so it would just fit into the body die. Everything got polished up a bit and that was that. I may color harden them later but they could work for years unhardened.
They are not very pretty but they work. I lube the bullet with bullet forming lube from Rich Corbin and then press it in my shop press. These bullets are soft and don’t take a lot of pressure to reform. After that I drop the die between two bars so it is held by the shoulder and press the bullet along with the point die out of the body die. The bullet is now stuck in the point die but I clamp it in my vise and pull the ejection plug out. This usually comes out very easily. Then with a 3/16” punch I knock out the bullet. It leaves a small indent in the end of the bullet but doesn’t hurt anything. Slow and easy gets it done.
Thanks, Diz
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