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Since jacketed bullets work well, many amateur ammunition makers toy with the idea of adding a coat of another metal to lead-cast bullets...
Pomodliłem się do każdego boga jaki istniał bym był w wstanie wkurzyć tę kobietę do granic możliwości. |
This idea looks better on paper than in practice, and a few such coats can be dangerous. Tin or other metal washes should never be used because they can weld chemically to the brass cartridge over time and create excessive pressures when fired. One possibility that might work would be to add a copper coat through electroplating; a few commercial companies have tried this with .22 LR bullets and have had moderate success.
Many bullets are interchangeable with cartridges other than those for which they were designed. Weight can often be removed, with a little judicious file, drill, or knife work, to create a lighter bullet for smaller cartridges using the same bullet diameter. Lightweight bullets in heavier loadings usually are problem free, except for lead bullets, which may create leading problems if propelled too fast.
The .357 Magnum, .38 Special, .380 ACP, .32 ACP, and 9mm Luger (or other 9mm cartridges) can all use the same bullet if the weight is reduced for the smaller cartridges. Though the
.357/.38 bullet is .002 of an inch larger in diameter than that of the 9mm and .380 ACP, the barrel will swage the bullet down to a good fit with only a slight gain in chamber pressures.
Provided "hot" loads are avoided, this is a fairly safe practice. As with other possibilities in this book, bullet substitution can be dangerous, so think carefully before deciding to exchange bullets between cartridges.
The .308 Winchester, .30-06, .30-30, .30-caliber carbine, and .300 Magnums can all fire the same-diameter bullets ( .308 inch), with the principal difference being weight; this bullet diameter will also work in the 7.62x39mm cartridge (which is usually seen with a .3 1 1 -inch bullet), though some guns firing the round will have bore width a bit different from that of U.S.
cartridges.
The .224-diameter bullet works in a huge range of .22 centerfire cartridges such as the
.223 Remington, .222 Remington, .222 Remington Magnum, or .42 Hornet (or .22 LR, etc., if you're file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Morga...lt)/Homemade%20Ammo%20-%20Duncan%20Long.txt (28 of 34) [9/1/2003 11:39:20 AM]
reloading it). Except for the .22 LR bullet (which is quite close to the .224 diameter), all these rounds use a .224-diameter bullet; again, weight and the avoidance of maximum loads are the main considerations.
Whether you're using the .308- or .224-diameter bullet, you can vary the weight of the bullet to the round you're reloading by drilling out lead from the nose of the bullet with a drill press and a very small drill bit. This can reduce the heavier 68-grain bullets designed for the
.223 Remington to the. 40-grain weight of the .22 Hornet, for example. Or you might cut off and round the nose of a 180 grain bullet designed for the .308 Winchester to reduce it to a 110-grain pill for loading a .30-caliber carbine cartridge.
Shotgun projectiles are readily improvised with small nails, screws, bolts, or even sand.
There are several important considerations in improvised shot, however. One is that the lighter the material, the less its effective range. That means sand is going to be good only within 10
yards, in contrast to the normal useful range of 30 yards for lead buckshot. Likewise, the shape of the projectile will enhance or decrease its range; steel ball bearings travel farther with greater velocity than steel screws, whose shape quickly slows them down.
Another important consideration is barrel wear. Sending steel screws or sand down a barrel is going to scar it quickly and will eventually cause extensive damage to the smooth bore. The solution is to use a shot cup, perhaps improvised from plastic tubing or small plastic bottles. By encasing the abrasive shot in such a shot cup, the barrel will be protected and the shot pattern a bit smaller to boot, putting more of the projectiles on target. Shot cups will also help you avoid excessive chamber pressures, because odd-shaped projectiles such as screws could conceivably bunch up and bind in a barrel as they travel down it.
If you can obtain lead wheel weights easily, they would be ideal for making shot. By melting the lead and dropping it from the highest point available into water, you get a variety of pellet sizes. If the drop is long enough, you can even create relatively round shot (though probably with a lot of odd-shaped pieces as well).
Several companies offering bullet molds also offer molds for casting shotgun slugs. A slug transforms a shotgun into a weapon capable of reaching clear through a car body to strike an opponent and makes defeating lesser barricades a cinch. The slug also increases the useful range of a shotgun to 100 yards, making it a consideration for those facing an opponent with a rifle or pistol.
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