Copper Bullet

Started by Jay Edward (deceased), January 19, 2007, 03:48:22 PM

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Jay Edward (deceased)

I mentioned in one post that my father-in-law used to copper plate his own bullets.  Here is an example of one of his cast lead copper plated bullet.  

I do not know how the performance was but I recall him speaking about how simple it had been to rig up a copper plating device.

Anybody out there have any experience with this form of bullet making?

bowhunter 51

As a kid out of high school, I worked a factory for a short time where they
chrome plated auto parts...So happened I worked the part of the machine
that copper plated the parts, which was one of the 1st steps..I recall that
a electrical charge was sent through the part to be plated while it set in a
bath of water diluted hydrocloric acid and copper which the acid would be
disolving apparently attracting the copper molecules to the electrically
charged item....The concept was called electro-plateing.........BH51....out
**********God Bless America**********
>>>>-----------Live to Hunt--------------->>
>>>>-----There is no off season--------->>

Paul Hoskins

Jay, Bowhunter pretty well summed it up. It will work for several diffrent metals such as gold, silver, brass, etc. The acid can or should be diluted. I don't know the exact proportions of the mixture. I understand Remington is using this process to make their 17 cal. bullets now. These aren't any good at velocities over about 4300 fps. depending on the barrel twist. Their bullets have a heavy coating of copper. The normal process is to suspend a lead core in a metal pan of the liquid with a piece of nickel, copper etc. in the pan. The core is suspended from a wood dowel on a wire into the liquid. One electrode of the battery charger is conected to the wire. The other electrode is connected to the metal pan. Thickness of the plating depends on how long it's in the liquid, the amount of copper etc, Usually it only produces what is normally called "flash plating". in other words the plating is extremely thin. Some makers of steel jacketed bullets flash plate the bullets with copper and advertize them as copper jacketed over a steel jacket. Widener's Reloading and Shooting Supply Inc. in Johnson City, Tenn. at one time advertized them in .224 cal. of 62 gr. wt. as having a "thin steel jacket with a thick copper jacket" on the outside. I bought 500 of  these at something like 35 dollars. Upon seeing them, I bacame suspect and scraped one lightly with my knife and discovered they were merely copper flashed with NO copper jacket at all. Copper flashing only colors the steel with very little buildup of copper. I called them and told them it was false advertizing and they got nervous and told me if I wanted to keep them they would refund 15 dollars of the purchase price, which they did. BEWARE. ...........Paul H

Jay Edward (deceased)

Thanks for the replies bowhunter and Paul... do you fellas have any opinion or experience in what type of fouling might result from this 'flash plating'?

Also... just how thick do you think the copper covering can be ultimately?

Paul Hoskins

Jay, with flash coating, I would think it would wash off in the rifling pretty bad. I suspect these bullet makers that advertize "no exposed lead" bullets for pistols are merely flash plating cast ot swaged lead bullets. This flash plating is probably no more than one ten thousandths inch (.0001) thick. It might prevent some leading but most likely causes copper fouling. It used to be difficult to get an even coating when trying to build up thick coats of material but I've been away from the shop several years now. Maybe new??? technology has come out that will give good results now. I just sectioned one of the Rem. 17 caliber bullets and the "jacket" appears to be close to .010' thick. I didn't bother to get my 10X optical comparator out and check it. I can  look at it and get a good idea what the thickness is. Oddly, the plating even covers the opening in the end. In other words there is no exposed lead. I don't know how they do this without leaving marks on the bullet somewhere. Modern technology leaves me in the dirt tho. I seriously doubt this type of jacket will work very well for big game bullets. I would thing the plating would be rather grainy like oillite bronze. As far as thickness goes, I would imagine it could be anything you desire. Something like the way grandma made candles many years ago. Just dip it in the tallow and bees wax, lift it out and let it cool a second and repeat the process until you got the thickness you wanted. This is just how I think it would work, not fact. .........Paul H.........ps........Never use oillite bronze or cintred bronze in making bullets. What a mess in the barrel.........yuk.

Jay Edward (deceased)

Your answer, which I believe, is pretty depressing.  I thought it might be worthwhile trying but I do not believe that I will bother.  I have the same feeling about this as I have about the Stannic Stain bullets.

drinksgin (deceased)

Jay;
I have copper plated some things, just used copper sulphate crystals like you put in a septic system tp kill roots.
Dissolve it in hot water, rig up the battery, use a glass tank, 6v is plenty, a carbon electrode in the solution on one wire, the object to be plated on the other wire, do not remember the correct polarity, but just run it a while and either the object will start turning red or it won't, in that case just reverse the polarity.
Works the same way as the galvanic copper removers for barrels.
I used it as a base for chrome, silver and gold plating of jewelry.
You can build up as much as you want, just takes time and a doner solution.
If you want to add a lot, it needs to be buffed out a few times, gets lumpy after a while.
NRA life, TSRA life, SAF life, GOA, CCRKBA, DEF -CON

Jay Edward (deceased)

Thanks for the info Don.  Do you have an opinion on the amount of fouling that might result?

drinksgin (deceased)

Jay;
I just used it to make plated jewelry, I do know it seemed to hold on pretty well, in a thicker coating, the faster , shorter time , coatings would rub off in a short time.
NRA life, TSRA life, SAF life, GOA, CCRKBA, DEF -CON

Hunterbug

All I can say is don't let Paul see this or his wife may hunt everyone of you down for getting him going on another "project". :D
Ask not what your government can do for you. Ask how your government can go away and get out of your life.
 
 
The unarmed man is is not only defenseless, he is also contemptible.
Niccolo Machiavelli

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