bonded bullet: how made?

Hornady says their interbond bullets are bonded by a "propriety" process. What that means is anybodies guess. Nosler says something similar about their accu-bond bullets.

Some of the older bullets WERE soldered by means of tinning the inside of the jacket with solder, then pouring the melted lead for the core into the soldered jacket. The lead would then be attached to the jacket.

I'd think soldering could be done on a home-made swaged bullet, the same way. You'd just have to heat the bullets after production. The melting point of solder is way lower than that of pure lead.

Tin 'em, swage 'em, bake 'em?

The process is done by applying a bonding agent to the lead core before swaging the bullet. then the bullets are heated to bond the cores to the jacket. Corbin Bullet swage explains the tools and methods to do this at home.

vapor blasting bullet jackets

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4660263.html The invention provides a technique for vapor blasting the interior of regular production bullet jackets prior to lead seating. The controlled vapor blasting significantly increases the surface roughness of the bullet jacket interior. As a result, the formed bullet has greater adhesion between the bullet jacket and lead core. Links to Chuck Hawks>


http://www.chuckhawks.com/bonded_bullets.htm and > http://www.chuckhawks.com/federal_fusion_ammo.htm

I'd think soldering could be done on a home-made swaged bullet, the same way. You'd just have to heat the bullets after production. The melting point of solder is way lower than that of pure lead.

Click to expand...

There are lots of different kinds of soldier, and many of them ARE pure lead.

Keep in mind, it's NOT just the "bonding" that makes a bonded core bullet good, it's also the jacket that is used.

I use to mfg./sell bonded core bullets, and until i came up with the "right" jacket material, the bullets were just too brittle on heavy bone, and that's where they are needed most!

I never had any luck with heating bullets after swageing...

DM

Of course one could just place a drop of "Super Glue" in the jacket before they add the lead core and swage it. Too much and it might be a one time only experiment until you get the finished bullet out of the die

I'm not sure how it is accomplished, but I deffinitely prefer the bonded one's. I'm a big fan of Speer's bonded bullets, I think they call some of them Hot Core. The Gold Dot is a good bonded design. I have been testing them in my 40s and .357 loads, I really like the performance. I'm not sure if the XTPs from Hornady are bonded, I think they are because they haven't been separating at all.

Speer Hot core bullets are NOT bonded! Pushed hard enough the core will separate from the jacket.

Cut any bullet lengthways with a hacksaw, take one half and twist it with pliars, if the core comes out, it's not bonded... I think you will find gold dots are not bonded either.

DM

Speer gold dot and the federal fusion bullets are plated. The gold dot is formed from a flat point plated bullet, then it has a "punch" form the hollow point. That punch has a concave tip that carries some of the plating on the tip down to the bottom of the HP cavity, forming the gold "dot".

Federal fusion bullets are also heavily plated, then the nose is formed by a die that also skives the inside of the jacket, then leaves some lead exposed to initiate expansion.

I did a lot of expansion testing with the Hornady interbond and nosler accu-bond when they first came out. If you want to see the results, holler, I'll put the pics on here. In a nutshell, the Hornady expanded to larger frontal "shroom" and retained more weight. The Noslers expanded less and shed more weight.

Okay, here goes;

First is the 165 nosler accu-bond.



As you can see the frontal expansion is very small. Also, the weight retention was only 65%

Next the 165 hornady interbond;



Much bigger "mushroom", weight retention was 85%. Notice the lead is still sticking to the petals of the expanded bullet. Now that's what I call BONDED!

The cartridge that drove those 30 cal bullets is my 300 WSM. Velocity was around 3050 fps, material used was 1 gallon water filled milk jugs placed end-to-end @ 100 yds.

That's interesting, but wheter or not they are bonded I guess doesn't matter to me considering every test I've don't with the Gold Dot has indicated they don't separate. I tested 3 different bullets recently in a box lined with a plastic trash bag, and the box filled with water and rolled up denim jeans packed into it. The XTPs did very well and the Gold Dots as well. But the 3rd bullet, a Sierra HP, exploded into pieces . I did this testing with each bullet multiple times with the same simular results with .357 125 grain bullets. Expansion with both the XTPs and Gold Dots was nearly identical. And both of those penetrated all the way through and stopped against the soft sand embankment.
Regarding the Hot Core, I killed an elk with a .270 Hot Core 130 grain BT and the onyl shot I had was from the rear. The bullet entered just above the poop shoot and traveled the entire spinal colum through every single vertebra and came to rest at the base of the neck. When I remove the bullet it was in a very controlled expanded shape, and weight retention after washing away the bone material was 89%. Good enough for me, considering this last fall my Son's and I used the standard Speer, not the Hot Core, and the bullet fragmented into pieces after only going though a shoulder of a mule deer, three mule deer with the same results. The Hot Cores have always performed without failing like that on every animal I've shot with them. I'll stick to Speer Hot Core or Barnes solids because of proven sucess.

I've shot 7mm 145 Hotcores out of my 280 Rem. on whitetail's/blk bear/caribou ect., and they do come apart on tough shots, but that's ok, as i know what they will do, and i make sure i put them in the boiler room.

In this case, it has MUCH more to do with the "jacket design" of the bullet, not whether the core is put in hot or cold, as to how it stays together on impact. Used properly, they are a great bullet!

DM

gamestalker-

Went for the old "Texas Heart-Shot", right.

Speer Gold dots are bonded the same way as the fusion and deepcurl bullets. hot cores are standard cup and core bullets with the difference of the lead being poured into the cup, instead of using a swaged core.

Yesterday I was on Speer's web site and they stated plain as day that the Gold Dot, Bear Claw, Deep somthing, and another long time classic I can't remember the name of, are all bonded core bullets. But the Hot Core isn't really a typical bonded core, even though Speer says the pouring of the lead into the jacket creates bonding effect. But regarding their bonded bullets, they say the process they use is a step above other bonded bullets. I wonder what that means. All I know is I like their stuff.
Those are some cool pictures of expanded bulltets. I wish I wasn't so old and far behind with the computer thing, I would love to post some pictures of interesting things like that if I knew how to do it. I have a couple of really good up to date camera's and a video camera that will do slow motion. My Son's have done some of bullets driving through 1/2" plate steel, water bottles and stuff with my video set up, that I barely know how to use.

What is the Texas Heart shot? Is that through the shoulder? I'm not from Texas, close but not quite, Arizona and New Mexico are both home to me. I do want to do a hunt in Texas before I get much older though.

When i lived in Alaska, a Texas heart shot was a shot through the guts.

The saying got started from all the duded up texans coming up to Alaska, with their cockroach killer boots, shooting big game through the guts.

DM

Heh. I'm not a hunter. I always thought a Texas heart shot was a shot directly from behind.... Because Texas is the only state where it can be legal to shoot someone fleeing from you.

A texas heart shot is definitely a rear end shot. If it's the ONLY shot that can be taken, the aim point should be under the ****, to avoid the poop chute. A well constructed bullet is a must, it has to travel the entire guts to get to the heart/lungs. A quick opening bullet would result in a gut-shot deer, and one that wouldn't leave much of a blood trail. Also a steenkin mess to gut out.

I would NEVER do that, I'd rather pass up the shot.

snuffy lol i would never take that shot either i'm from SC and for some odd reason allot of hunters around here think a .300 win mag is a must for deer hunting and i know a few that will take that shot in a min yea they have killed allot of them but i've got that call at 11pm a few times "hey man i shot a deer would u come help me track it" after i track the deer and all that good stuff i always give them the old "why in the world did u take that shot"?

Hey what's up with picking on Texas.At least we Texans hit the deer not like some out of state people that come to Texas and can't hit the side of a barn.Ha!

Pretty informative thread guys. I wonder how different the manufacturers "proprietary" methods actually are.

At least we Texans hit the deer

Click to expand...

Which is a thing to be proud of, given their diminutive size. Kidding, kidding.