Posted on 05/04/2011 12:21:58 PM PDT by smokingfrog
A tungsten/tin alloy was being made and sold to the US army as early as 98. Designed to be the same weight as lead, it’s biggest drawback was the cost. Of course with the American taxpayer footing the bill, who cares about silly things like cost.
it floats and kills witches,too.
I would give my left nut to have a CNC
I wouldnt know what to do with it, but I want one
I would settle for a lathe and mill though...
What’s the odds of making enough to pay for the equipment if I open a small shop? (not looking to get rich, only to support my habit of acquiring machines)
Barnes bullets are hollow points — expanding bullets are a no-no. Plus they don’t penetrate hard targets.
Plus Barnes bullets foul your barrel so badly that after 100 rds you would have a copper barrel.
Silver bullets.
Paging Mrs. Abathar... =)
If they are so worried about lead, why not convert everything over to depleted uranium? ;-)
>>Hehehe, my name is on the building and I own the CNC lathe I turned them on.
Only my wife has the authority to reprimand me on my time wasting done here. :)<<
That’s what happens when your wife agrees to take your name. Just maybe if you had one of these gals who demands a hyphenated name you could convince her that her authority stops at the door.
Have you done any chronographing on these rounds?
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
No I haven’t gone that far, I can just see the difference when I dig them back out of the hill to study how well they take the sand compared to soft points. They tunnel much deeper and some of them are still almost pristine looking when you find them. I shot one right through a nice size tree also, kind of interesting how well they work.
I would rather not see a bullet again when I shoot something, different strokes for different folks but a nice clean strait hole from one side to the other is what I want to see.
Right now you can pick up used equipment about as cheap as any time in history now. A small mill is usually easier to find than a lathe in decent shape, Bridgeports will still fetch more than other brands but there are some great deals out there.
Small lathes in good shape seem to go into everyone’s garages before they get on the market, but you can pick up a bigger size (18x80” or larger) a lot cheaper than a small toolmakers lathe, no one wants the larger size but if its got a 5C collet system on it and decent rpm’s they get sucked up faster than anything.
I get auction sheets in all the time, it seems like no one is looking to buy manual equipment at then now, and even some good CNC stuff is going for nothing. I saw an Okuma cnc lathe at one auction about 3 months ago sell for less than $5k, and it was in such nice shape the paint hadn’t even been worn off inside of it at all.
I kicked myself for not buying it, but work is slow now so I would have a nice machine sitting in a corner with nothing to run on it.
If you have the skill and word gets around you can earn a pretty decent return on a small shop that does prototype stuff for people, repair especially. An old Roll-In saw, a little TIG welder, Bridgeport and lathe you will always have people looking to find you for stuff.
Where can I get these auction sheets?
If you spot something good 9that you dont need) can you pass it along? I have nothing yet, so a mill and lathe is what i want to start with.
I am thinking with about 10 years of accumulation of machines and experience I can have a small retirement income
Why not try the water jug experiment to see just what the penetration values actually wash out to be?
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot2.htm
http://www.machinetools.com/us/auctions
I am on the email list of every one of the auction houses at the top of the page. If you don’t mind an occasional email they send you a list of all their auctions coming up with links to pictures, etc.
If you live in the NY area there is probably a few sales within an easy driving range, you just have to look out for them is all. For what you’re looking for I might recommend smaller auctions, the big boys that come in and buy up everything usually aren’t there and you can get some good steals if no one is looking. :)
That looks like a nice test, but the ones I made and loaded were for a .340 Weatherby magnum, it would take a lot to slow that puppy down.
I was actually thinking of bringing home some 13 gauge steel plates I have a stack of and seeing how many a soft point would go through vs. solid bronze. I used naval brass for my first test, but I had some bearing grade bronze that was harder for my second attempt. Barrel looked good after firing, rifling was nice and uniform when I dug it out of the dirt and it seemed to work beautifully.
In the back of my mind I’ve been toying around with the idea of doing some more experimenting with different things. We have a tool and die business here, building molds is all I’ve ever done. I was thinking about building a mold and molding some Delrin sabots, maybe dropping my .340 down to a .223 caliber. Choosing the right grade of polymer would be critical so as not to have buildup on the barrel, but with the chamber pressure I can get out of my .340 plus the friction coefficient loss I’m thinking I can get my f.p.s. up to some really impressive numbers.
Just something rolling around in the back of my head for a while...
I made some field point arrow tips, at one time, that still work just fine.
I do it just for the fun of it, to be honest unless you’re like us and have the equipment to play with and don’t mind spending some time then it isn’t worth the effort for the few bucks we save. I turned my bullets because the wasn’t anything I could find for that caliber, and it only took me about 1/2 hour to draw it, program it, I had all the tools set up already so I was dropping off a bullet every 18 seconds or so.
Was thinking it’d be pretty easy to grind a carbide tool to the correct nose profile, use the cams from a bushing job, and let it run for a while. Could even grind a radius on the shoulder of the cutoff tool for that “boat-tail” profile.
Ahhh, the good old days. CNC spoils the hell out of you... :)
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