You're wasting a lot of lead by punch process, which means more cost in re-melts, to recover it. With cutting round stock you're getting 99% yield, without handling sheet stock. Let the supplier's round stock work and spooling, work to your advantage, for your equipment, dies, and men. JMO
Quote from: Bullit on August 04, 2013, 04:05:45 PMYou're wasting a lot of lead by punch process, which means more cost in re-melts, to recover it. With cutting round stock you're getting 99% yield, without handling sheet stock. Let the supplier's round stock work and spooling, work to your advantage, for your equipment, dies, and men. JMOI have no supplier, I'll be melting lead ingots and making sheets out of them myself, it's extra work but I haven't found a supplier with lead wire.Cutting the wire is a lot easier than punching holes and more economical, but feeding the lead shots/balls or what ever into the mold could be a lot more work than just re-melting the spent strip.I am open to suggestions on how to feed pellet shots into the mold instead of punching it out of a sheet if you have any ideas please help me out here.
PCE is Pilkington Competition Equipment in Tenn. Scott Pilkington is a guy who knows what you need to know and has done what you want to do. He told me if I came up with the tooling cost or made the tooling he would make pellets on his machines.That was a while ago so I'm not sure if he still has that capability but he is a guy who HAS the T-SHIRT. Scott is a Southern gentleman that is a lot smarter than the average guy. He has been emersed in the 10 meter scene for as long as I have been into FT. That is decades! He is also a Master engraver & Airgunsmith. Scott's PCE landline is 931-924-3400 website is; http://www.pilkguns.com/I'm certain you do not need to invent the wheel. Just find the guy with the wheel factory and tell him what you want to make. This is a moment to avoid vertical integration. I'll bet there are pellet making machines that are under-utilized. They are extremely specialized machines, especially when you start talking about the precision stuff. I designed the RWS Superdome but I was never thinking I could come up with the machine to make it. You need manufacturing means and resources to fund. Designing and production engineering is critical. It cost just as much to make a poor pellet as a good one. The design is the element best left to the people with the sharpest knowledge and expertise.If You have specs You are ready to talk tooling & tolerances. Question is what are your tolerances and can you make the tooling. I'd go with a Pro because the first thing you learn in manufacturing is your limitations. You need the machines to do the actual manufacturing but I don't think you need to own them. You need the tooling but it would be best done by someone who is doing that at the highest level. The only reason I have manufactured what I have is because I know when to punt. A man needs to know his limitations!Good Luck. We need some competition to stir things up. Nothing I'd like to see more than a New dome made in the USA that rocks. Dan Brown would be a good guy to get feedback in terms of what pellet he'd like to see for his bughole barrel. You need help in every aspect of the project and that is obvious by your questions. When you get Pro help it makes you look a lot smarter than you actually are. It worked for me. All you need is raw determination and you will get where you want to go. I'm living proof of that.I would thrive on some American Made Ammo to shoot in the WORLDS BR championship in Australia(2015). That would be awesome. Go For ItTimmyMac1
Here's the sketch of what my idea would be if spooled round wire/lead was used.
I didn't think we were all talking about making the best performing pellet in the USA here. Just a cheap machine that can make pellets at home for the enthusiasts. Never the less, I would still like to see something in the USA perform.I have been and still am and engineer in the wire business for over 20 years. I have also built some pretty incredible machines. I would like to pass an idea over to consider. My sketches aren't the best but you should get the idea. If you need to make lead wire, it can be rolled fairly easy with a jewelers rolling mill (cheap under 300 bucks ). You can also draw your own lead using wire drawing dies. Used drawing dies can be found on the cheap. You can also use that jewelers mill to flatten your wire to a ribbon. By using a ribbon, there would be less waste than using sheet.Here's the sketch of what my idea would be if spooled round wire/lead was used.
Hey great job on trying to tackle this issue of hobbyist making their OWN pellets vs the price gouging I've seen over years and years of watching the market. Esp those $.25cal pellets!Often times ~70% price increase over .22. I know making these is not "easy," but it's not that "difficult" either vs some other forms of machining/engineering. $16 for a box of ~200-250 pellets, considering a "break in" for most AGis 500+ Seesh talk about an expensive hobby per gun. I do not see why it's been so long for this type of innovative thinking to be put in action by some hobbyist, thankfully we have folks such as yourself stepping up to such a monumental task! I too have many, many designs for pellets, but putting them into prototype/production has been/is always the weakest link; bridging the huge gap.Good fortune to you, this is once again boosted my moral for the day when I can cast off the chains of overpriced pellets!!!... Nothing like seeing a box of $16, 200rnd .25cals vs a huge bin of .22cal rimfires selling for practically pennies per round. I'm going to keep my eye on this thread for sure!Thanks!
For what it is worth... I found a 25.4 grain lead shot ball in with my JSB King .25 cal , 25.4 grain pellets. I would guess that meansthey use lead shot as the starting material with no lead lost in the forming process. The machine in the video used the same thing. Seems there must be a good reason for going through the process to make shot first.