My homemade pellet swage tools

[Eyerelief]

I'll need to describe all of this process in a couple of different entry's, but I'll keep them all under this post. Let me apologize in advance for bouncing around a bit on this post, didn't give myself much time to gather my thoughts.

I built 4 different calibers of tooling, .177, .20, .22, .25. I need to state also that the basic tool is not my design, but it has been highly modified to suit my ideas, limitations and abilities. The punches, the actual design of the pellets (all diablo style but to my dimensions), the cutters, extrusion die for lead wire, and the lead wire cutting device are all my design, more on those later.

Here is the completed, assembled unit, the two rods sticking up are punches used for swaging the lead and shaping the back of the pellet:

Here they are removed. Note the left one is cupped. It is used to force a length of lead wire down into the cavity. The right one finishes the work and puts the cavity at the back of the pellet.

Here is the exploded pic. From top to bottom, left cavity, right cavity, base, top with guide holes for punches, 3 cavity assembly bolts, 2 punches:

Here is the custom ground 4 flute carbide cutter. There are several places online to get them, if you can provide them with enough detail. The further right of the dot you go, the more expensive they get ie .001 dimensions on your drawing cost a lot less than .00001.

And finally, here is a couple of pellets:

I am pleased the way they turned out, and they shoot well. You can see a faint parting line when blown up to this size, but they are almost non existent in reality.

The cavity halves and the top are made from precision ground A2. For me, it machines well and is plenty strong. Precision ground because I don't have a surface grinder. After I have drilled and tapped, installed the locating pins and cut the cavities, I assemble the two halves and stone the cavity opening sides flat by hand. I do this mostly because I don't have a surface grinder, but secondly because I want to remove an absolute minimum of material and I want a very fine finish. The setup for milling the cavities was pretty straight forward, I will cover that as well.

The base is made from 11L44, but any steel can be used. It provides a work surface and protects the pellets on the opposite side from where you are working. It is relieved between the pins so that the cavities can be turned over when you are making pellets 10 through 18. The relief is there so that you don't disturb the base of the pellets you made. The relief is in the top so that extruded lead has a place to escape during swaging. It about .200 deep. The holes are reamed just a shade undersized in the top so that I can roller burnish them into a great finish and a precision fit. I should also mention here that I use a No1 arbor press to push the punches down. I even made an adapter for the arbor press so that I have a half inch torque wrench for a handle so the operator knows when to stop pulling down.

The punches are made from 5/16" turned ground and polished rod, O1 I believe. The outside (fat part) is 12L14. The inner rod slides up and down inside the 12L14. The 12L14 provides a positive stop so that you get the exact same depth every time without over travel. My pellets stay within a few tenths of a grain.

When swaging, some lead extrudes past the punches. You want that, you need something to plane off when you are done if you want truly accurate pellets. After you have used both punches, the top lifts off and you use a razor sharp cutter to shave off the excess lead leaving a perfectly flat, smooth base on the pellet. For a razor, I use a hand planer blade. They are sharp when you buy them, but I stone them and then strop to a polished edge. Sharpness is key, if its not razor sharp, then the lead deforms during the planing operation. You can kind of see the polish on the blade but the light wasnt great. Its a mirror finish and scary sharp. After you plane off the first side, flip the tool over in the base and do side two (do a search on Youtube for HM HEN and you can see this basic design in action):

Although you can't change the shape of the pellet without making new tools and buying a new cutter, you can continue to change the second punch, experimenting with skirt thickness, depth of cavity, taper etc. This will also change the weight of the pellet. It seems to make a difference. I have found a great contour for one of the .177 pellet guns, but the other I am still working on for example. I will have a punch for each gun. I have a few old Sheridans, I hope I dont need a punch for each of them but if I do, so be it. Punches are cheap, a 3' stick of drill rod or turned, ground a polished cost a couple bucks and you are set for a lot of experimenting, roughly 17 -18 pieces at 2" each.

Let me also be clear on the fact that you could buy a box car full of factory pellets for what you will have in one of these tools. I think I have around $125-$150 in material alone, another $150 ish on the cutter (depends on the size of the cutter). The builds were slow, but quite enjoyable. The kids enjoy making their own, and I suspect my grandkids will as well.
I like the fact that it is a zero waste activity. I save old pellets, all my shavings and failed experiments. I melt them down in a lead melting pot, poor them in 1/2" x 2" round cavities. I save the ingots and when i get a few, I extrude them into lead wire with my 20 ton press. One ingot will extrude out to about an 18" wire 1/8" diameter. An 18" wire 1/8" will make about 30-35 .20 cal pellets. I'll get more into that later.

My wife tells me I have to BBQ a turkey tomorrow and I am sure that wont be all. I might not get back to this post with more pics till next week.

Wishing everyone on HM a Happy (and safe) Thanksgiving

 

[SLK001]

What is the weight distribution of the finish products?

 

[Nutfarmer]

The .20 caliber pellets for the Sheridans are getting hard to find. The original pellets had straight sidewalls unlike other pellets. I was thinking of making a set of dies and punches for a cast bullet sizer . Enjoy ed your post and pictures. Thanks looking forward to the rest

 

[pontiac428]

I am super impressed by the results, that is very cool! It's also a lot of handling of lead. Be careful, and be aware that kids sponge up lead in magnitudes greater than adults do. Next time you get blood work, ask them to add lead. It's the best way to know when it's time to double down on cleanup and hygiene.

 

[Eyerelief]

I'll start today by addressing the comments.

SLK001 - I do see very minor fluctuation in weight, typically +/- .2 of a grain. I grabbed five 20 cal pellets and weighed them. 3 of them were 15.4 grains, 1 was 15.5 grains, 1 was 15.6. If I am getting crazy about accuracy, I will weight sort them, and if my OCD is running in overdrive, I will sort by cavity. Sorting by cavity, using the torque wrench for a leverage bar on the arbor press pretty much sorts out variables in the projectiles. 15 grains is a little on the heavy side for a 20 cal, by my Sheridans like them, and my Airforce drives them like a freight train. I find the biggest accuracy gains come from having the back of the pellets perfect, not dented, chipped, rolled over etc.

Nutfarmer - I know those Sheridan pellets are getting rare as hens teeth. As time permits, I will build a tool for that style as well. I have a couple boxes of the Sheridans, they dont shoot that well for me but that wont stop me from trying. Since those pellets are straight wall, no waist like a Diablo, should be easy. I plan on trying to do it with reamers and a hand ground drill bit. I dont see a need for a precision ground carbide cutter. With a very low investment on the cutter, I can afford to make small tools until I find the diameter and weight that works best, then make a larger die with more cavities.

So far the diablo carbide cutters have held up well, but do to their design, I worry every time I put one in a collet. I plan on making a couple of brass tools with them that will allow me to make hollow points out of my pellets.

Pontiac - You are correct, everybody wears disposable nitrile gloves from HF when melting, swagging, cutting or otherwise handling lead and lead wire. As a kid, I used to run around with lead pellets in my mouth, occasionally even chewing one up. May explain why every time my wife asks Alexa a question, I fart and start singing "Oh Danny boy". Dont know.

 

[Eyerelief]

Preparing the lead.
It just dawned on me that I am describing the process backwards, I should show making the lead wire first, then preparing the lead wire, then making the pellets. But.........

I have purchased lead wire from different sources, it is usually available in 1 or 2 pound spools described as fishing weight wire. Buying it like that, I have paid anywhere from $4/pound (damaged or returned spools) to $12-$15/pound at retail. You can buy it in bulk, 25 pound spools as well. My last buy on that was $100 delivered or $4/pound. Don't know what it is today, that was a few years back.

As stated earlier, I don't waste very much. Damaged pellets, swarf, used pellets, bad pellets etc all get melted down and re-extruded. You have to skim a little contaminate / oxidation off the top when melted, but not much.

I mostly use 1/8" and 3/16" lead wire. The 1/8" is for the .177 but can be used for the .20 cal as well. The 3/16" wire is used for .20, .22, .25. I simply adjust the length of wire to fit the pellet size.

I made a cutter to cut the lead wire. As you can see in the photos, is uses disposable single edge razor blades. The blades can be turned around so I get good mileage out of them.

It is mounted on a piece of cutting board. I relieved a well in the cutting board to allow the cut wire to fall into a receptacle. The handle rotates on a shoulder screw and has two ball end set screws to apply pressure to the arm to keep it true to the guide. Its difficult to see in the pic, but the razor blade sits in a recess.
It currently has two guide holes, 1/8" and 3/16". Keeps the wire perpendicular to the razor blade. The two cap screws act as stops so that I get the same size wire every time. They are locked into place once you get the size set.

Simply feed the wire in, sheer it, feed in more wire, sheer it, rinse and repeat. Probably wont let the grand-kids do this step even though you would have to work at it to cut your finger.

The slugs in the second photo are 3/16" for the .20 cal.
I'll jump back on as soon as I can to show the ingot mold and the extrusion die (s).

 

[Eyerelief]

Making lead wire.
As I mentioned before, for a small investment, this can be a very low waste, inexpensive hobby. Doubt I have $30 in what I am describing below. I keep spent pellets, swarf, mistakes, etc, melt them down and reuse. You could also use wheel weights old fishing weights, or any other lead source you can find.
I made a simple crude mold out of a couple pieces of .5" bar stock. A couple of locator pins are all I needed. I didn't want to screw it together since I might be casting several pours. Instead, I either hold it together in my vise, or with vise grips. Hot lead will warm the mold quickly hense the reason for an alternate handle. The small slot on the side is so I can slip a screwdriver in and pry open if it sticks. Not a problem as of yet.

Here is an ingot, and what the overflow (swarf) looks like when shaved off the top of the tool (back of the finished pellet):
The ingots are only a couple inches long. I like 2" because it extrudes an 18"x1/8" lead wire (not to mention that is a lot of travel for my press). I store these lead wires in a 19" section of 2" PVC with a threaded cap. The PVC keeps them very straight and slows oxidation.
The extrusion tool is a piece of 2.5" round bar, reamed to .5010". You want a good finish here because the smoother the interior wall, the easier the lead will extrude. I chose 12L14 for this. The hole is 3" deep so that the ingot will drop all the way in and allow the top 1" to act as a guide for the ram. The top is the same, 12L14. In the top, I pressed in a length of .500 turned ground and polished. This gives .001" clearance which the lead doesn't seem to slip by. The ram just reaches the die head (large bolt in bottom). The two recessed holes in the top are for jack screws in the event the lead binds the ram. A half turn or so and the ram pops loose. The flats on the side are so I can hold it in the vise if necessary. Last pic shows an ingot sticking out of the tool to display assembly.

The other end of the die is fitted wit a 3/4" bolt center drilled various sizes to act as the die. This way I can change out the bolt to change the wire diameter. The threaded end of the bolt is machined flat and square with a slight chamfer in the hole to act as a lead in. This compresses the wire a little, making it a little harder, but not much. Showed this pic earlier, but here is an extrusion directly out of the shop 20 ton press:


I know it sound like a bunch of stuff, but it all, including the electric melting pot, fits in this 12" tackle box. The pellet tool is not in the box.

Finally, I did this not in a quest for greater accuracy, although with a little effort accuracy has improved. I thought it would be a fun project that just kinda got out of hand. With the lead refineries in the US getting squeezed, I could see where lead could get a little harder to come by. At the end of the day though, I dont think you can go wrong with a tin of JSB Exact pellets.

 

[macardoso]

Honestly, the pic of the lead extruded out of the nozzle is really cool. Extrusion is nothing uncommon, but I bet it is immensely satisfying to crank the press and see the wire spit out the bottom.

 

[Eyerelief]

Honestly, the pic of the lead extruded out of the nozzle is really cool. Extrusion is nothing uncommon, but I bet it is immensely satisfying to crank the press and see the wire spit out the bottom.

Yes it is! My press is air over hydraulic so I just hit the button and watch the wire come straight out the bottom of the press table, shiny and straight!

 

[Ike Carlson]

This is great! I would love to see a video of the process.