Pellet making

[trajectory]

Well it's cold & wet here & pretty quiet on the forum & a few things crossed my mind, one of which was pellet making. Not huge industrial scale manufacture but experimental messing about.
I know there has been & probably still are a few hand tools sold to make pellets but has anybody made their own. If so how did it go & how did you go about making the tooling? Did you plan on casting or swageing them, how many stages did it take to oroduce a pellet? What would you do differently next time? ( other than not bother & just buy a tin).

I was thinking of having a bash at swaging, possibly two stages, bit like a cup slug with a driving band at the rear. I have no misconceptions about the likely outcome or accuracy, nor the amount of time it might take to make one but if you've had a go, how did it go? Similarly if you haven't had a go but have 15 minutes to give it a think over a cup of tea how would you go about it?

Maybe it's one of those things that just ain't worth doing but if you had the kit & the time maybe it's one of those things that makes you wonder how it might turn out.

I'd be keen to hear from you

[ashf9999]

Have never swaged, but did experiment a while back with a LEM .22 Spitzer mould for a friend with an FAC Theoben. (I was used to casting for muzzle loading anyway, so it wasn't a major issue). I can't remember the exact proportion of linotype that was in the lead mix (it probably wasn't an ideal ratio for pellets anyway), but they cast fine and were then sized afterwards. Grouping was, from what I remember, about 1/2-3/4" at 60 yds or so - like with all pellets the barrel dynamics have a big bearing on performance. You see more of these style being commercially produced for FAC rated airguns as of late, so little point casting now other than for fun I guess.

[trajectory]

Have never swaged, but did experiment a while back with a LEM .22 Spitzer mould for a friend with an FAC Theoben. (I was used to casting for muzzle loading anyway, so it wasn't a major issue). I can't remember the exact proportion of linotype that was in the lead mix (it probably wasn't an ideal ratio for pellets anyway), but they cast fine and were then sized afterwards. Grouping was, from what I remember, about 1/2-3/4" at 60 yds or so - like with all pellets the barrel dynamics have a big bearing on performance. You see more of these style being commercially produced for FAC rated airguns as of late, so little point casting now other than for fun I guess.

That's impressive accuracy, whatever you used certainly seemed to suit it.

[BC312]

I cast my own in a LEM mould in .22 then use a die so the back end is trimmed up uniform just like they do in certain swaging practices. I get better accuracy that just casting and snipping the backs off with a pair of snips the usually way. Shame you couldn't get a gang Lee type mould for the same thing. I use a 18 Lee gang mould to cast buckshot for my sling shot as steel ball bearings are dangerous, they fly back.

[Bonzo!]

I make my own lead ammo for my catapult
,I use a lee presicion furnace and mould, nice finnish to each ball no triming required.
I get the lead from my pellet catchers,and ltttle bits from a friend who is a roofer.
I usually cast about 100 at a time,which lasts me a while as I only hunt with these.

[ZAKDINGEL]

I cast my own in a LEM mould in .22 then use a die so the back end is trimmed up uniform just like they do in certain swaging practices. I get better accuracy that just casting and snipping the backs off with a pair of snips the usually way. Shame you couldn't get a gang Lee type mould for the same thing. I use a 18 Lee gang mould to cast buckshot for my sling shot as steel ball bearings are dangerous, they fly back.

I have been trying for a while now with a .22 LEM mould i can cast them no probs but its the trimming them off that i find difficult--what die are you using to trim them? and where can i get one? thanks

[junglie]

Have never swaged, but did experiment a while back with a LEM .22 Spitzer mould for a friend with an FAC Theoben. (I was used to casting for muzzle loading anyway, so it wasn't a major issue). I can't remember the exact proportion of linotype that was in the lead mix (it probably wasn't an ideal ratio for pellets anyway), but they cast fine and were then sized afterwards. Grouping was, from what I remember, about 1/2-3/4" at 60 yds or so - like with all pellets the barrel dynamics have a big bearing on performance. You see more of these style being commercially produced for FAC rated airguns as of late, so little point casting now other than for fun I guess.

They were gun specific too, i had a .177 one for my innova & the maker asked me what rifle it was for so he could make it for that barrel. Stupidly sold it with the innova.

[BC312]

I have been trying for a while now with a .22 LEM mould i can cast them no probs but its the trimming them off that i find difficult--what die are you using to trim them? and where can i get one? thanks

I made my own trim mould or plate. Drill say 5 or 10 holes in a flat bit of plate about 10 or 20mm thick each hole the exact diameter of the cast spitzer body say 5.5mm then drill the diameter of the skirt 5.6 or 5.7mm about the thickness of the skirt deep .5mm or what ever it clocks up at. Trim the cast spitzer to best you can then push into the holes flush as you can and with a sharpened flat chisel or flat sharped blade slide over the back end of the spitzers in the hole drilled, the ends will be trimmed of nice and flush and even. To remove from the holes use a hollow coned bit of dowel to push them out. I saw this being done on a youtube video where they trimmed up the ends of swaged pellets.

[trajectory]

[U]Sketched out a swageing set up. Interchangeable nose punch for shape, & adjustable too so pellet length can be controlled. Tail punch interchangeable to allow variations in cavity shape & adjustable too for depth to allow cog variations to be tried. Almost certainly a WOTAM but it's something to try.