making rifle brass?

[animus_divinus]

im not sure if this topic has been touched on in the past, i cant seem to find much with the search feature, but im curious as to if people on here have ever made their own rifle brass, or have been considering it, maybe not so much to keep costs down, but maybe as a self sufficiency project, or for those shooting cartridges that are nearly, or entirely impossible to find brass for?

making primers, bullets, even black powder (for older cartridges) isnt that difficult to do, but im all sure we agree that brass is just a large question mark to most of us, and im sure most of us wishes we had a way to get past that.

i guess the ways you could do it is maybe casting the straight-walled profile of your brass after making a mould, small, simple foundrys are very inexpensive to make and are in fact capable of melting brass.

you could probably lathe out the same profile from a brass rod

last option is drawing brass, which in my best guess would take equipment none of us could afford in our wildest dreams

if casting was in fact an option, wouldnt it be cool is if after your old brass was used up and cracked that you could in fact melt it down and make more?

 

[rcmodel]

Casting is not an option.

Low pressure brass cases for black-powder calibers could be turned from brass bar-stock on a lathe.

High-pressure rifle cases must be die drawn from cartridge brass sheet (70% copper, 30% zinc) in several steps, and differentially work hardened and annealed.

That provides enough case-head strength & hardness to contain the pressure, while still being soft enough in the front portion to form to shape and hold a bullet in place.

All that is way beyond the ability & equipment of even a die-hard hobbiest.

A cast brass case would blow up and shoot your eye out the first shot!

rc

 

[MrOldLude]

Fundamentally, deep drawing is pretty simple. An individual with a hydraulic shop press could make the most rudimentary deep-drawn tube. However, the cost of machining a tool-steel die would immediately cost more than several thousand new brass cases.

 

[animus_divinus]

you really think a 12 or 20 ton shop press has the forces neccessary to draw a brass disc to the shape neccessary for a cartridge?... you would also need a die to sort of peen the flat base into a rim, and a punch for the primer pocket... i may have a friend with a machine shop that could make the dies if in fact a 12 or 20 ton press was adequate pressure.. it may work, it may not work, would be interested to see how they turn out

for the record, i would never take a piece of brass like this and just feed it into a rifle and shoot it, im more of the type that would take a barrel mounted onto a test platform and use a remote firing mechanism behind plexiglass for several rounds before considering feeding them into a rifle

so basically, its possible, but probably only possible for straight walled, rimmed cartridges, if one could afford the equipment to do it

 

[animus_divinus]

well, since im looking for all of my next firearms to be either one of two different cartridges, i guess i could get by with budgeting to buy brass by the thousands for these two calibers (probably .44-40 and .45-70)

 

[Jim Watson]

There is such a thing as lathe turned brass. It is expensive and maybe not as durable as drawn brass. Seems you could store away a lot of cases for the price of an equal amount of brass barstock.

I would not trust a casting, even to make up a bar to turn down.

 

[animus_divinus]

wonder if you could just draw out a tube that matches the ID of the base cartridge diameter, and with an outside diameter to match the size of the rim, then lathe off the excess to create the rim, then put through a reloading die to neck down or fine tune the shape?

 

[medalguy]

A ten ton press is a hobby press. I worked with hydraulic presses in the 550 ton range and up for many years, and while I'm not sure exactly what would be required to draw cartridge case cups I would think something in the many hundreds of tons range. And the tooling would indeed be many thousands of dollars in cost for each set of tools. Depending on the caliber and case and press tonnage used, you might be looking at 8 - 10 sets of tools for a large case....

 

[MrOldLude]

A ten ton press is a hobby press. I worked with hydraulic presses in the 550 ton range and up for many years, and while I'm not sure exactly what would be required to draw cartridge case cups I would think something in the many hundreds of tons range. And the tooling would indeed be many thousands of dollars in cost for each set of tools. Depending on the caliber and case and press tonnage used, you might be looking at 8 - 10 sets of tools for a large case....

Yep. It's been probably 8 years while since I've deep-drawn anything. And back then it was aluminum beverage cans. I can't remember the press-loads, but it wasn't extreme.

Also, if I had to guess, much like beverage cans, brass cases probably require progressive draws to not overstrain the metal. So several hardened tools.

 

[jmorris]

The best reason I have seen to machine your own brass is to make reduced volume rifle cases for subsonic loads using pistol powder. A case is not made in one step but many, each step using different dies. A 20 ton press will get it done for some cases but it's not the hydraulic shop press you are likely thinking about but what is called a punch press and they cost a lot more not to mention the $1000's in dies you would need to tool it.

In the end, you could buy all of the brass you would ever need for the price of the equipment you would need to make it in any reasonable quantity. Not to mention you could store a life time supply in the space that equipment would take up. Not to mention, if you can’t get brass you are likely not able to get primers or buy smokeless powder. For that scenario you need to learn how to make black powder and get a flint lock muzzle loader.