Armory Sponsor
Posted: 8/17/2010 7:30:51 AM EDT
|
I got on a kick about making 5.45 tracers a while back, so ordered some 55-grain 5.56 bullets and a Lee Precision resizer (special order) in .221" mode. The bullets went through by the hardest, and sprang back to .222". So I ordered another Lee in .220" thinking maybe the bullets would spring back to about .221", but they came out .2216" or so. Meanwhile, planning on success, I'd ordered a set of 5.45 RCBS dies, to seat the bullets with, using Russian primed (de-bulleted) cases.
Finally thought of using my cordless drill (because the battery provided a good base while holding it and operating the speed control with one hand), inserting a bullet into the chuck, and milling it down with a plain mill bastard file. Screwed a few bullets up by milling down to .218" or so, but finally got to where I could refine 90 % of attempts to .2205" consistently, striving for .22047" perfection, by finishing with sandpaper. Loaded a few up with the basic 7N6 case and powder, and a few more with the case but 22 grains of H335, which has been said to provide hot enough flame to ignite tracers. Fired near dusk, but no ignition. Drilled tiny hole in the base cap of several more sized bullets to expose the tracer element, and loaded up as before; Russian powder in Russian primed case, and another set in the Russian primed cases but loaded with 22 grains of H335. MF'in' ZERO trace. Any ideas as to how to complete the project ? |
|
Quoted:
How are you measuring down to 4 and 5 decimal places, and what is the margin of error? My dial caliper only goes down to 0.001". Frankfort Arsenal; 4 places to the right... didn't mean I was measuring .22047", just that.2205" was close enough for government work. |
|
Quoted:
The load core is remaining sized and the jacket is springing back. I don't believe I would use the 0.220 sizer. Right... I gave up on that and milled unsized bullets. I have a feeling the quality of your tracers is hit and miss, probably miss. Wish they were, but so far, 100 % miss ! |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
At what range are you testing these tracers? Some tracers don't light until they are out to 80 - 100 yds or more. My 500-yard range out back. I thought especially with the tracer element exposed there's be quick ignition. Are these the pulled tracers Hi-tech was selling a few years ago? I have only had about a 5% light on those. Try playing around with different powders...also I have had better luck with mine lighting when I left them out for a few days to "Dry out." |
|
Sounds like you got a bad batch of tracers. I loaded up some resized M-856 tracers using the original Russian powder and have had 100% success. Never heard of anyone having trouble resizing .224" projectiles down to .221". Maybe the tracer mix has too much moisture in it, making it spring back after resizing. You know, the old water can't be compressed thing...may explain both the blinds and the springing.
Try again with a new batch of tracers, preferably of known good performance.... 1DD |
|
I hope this isn't contrary to posting rules. Why would one want or need to re-size the projectiles? Are they larger than .224 diameter"
Don't see how. And which powder seems to give more reliable ignition. I ask because I just ordered some M-856 .223 tracers from Poly Bag and suspect some powders are better than others for tracer ignition. I have IMR 4198, 4895, Accurate 2460 & 2520. Is any one of these powders "better" for ignition than the others. I searched this forum & found no info. on my question about which powder is "better" for ignition of tracers. Thanks. |
|
Quoted:
I hope this isn't contrary to posting rules. Why would one want or need to re-size the projectiles? Are they larger than .224 diameter" Don't see how. And which powder seems to give more reliable ignition. I ask because I just ordered some M-856 .223 tracers from Poly Bag and suspect some powders are better than others for tracer ignition. I have IMR 4198, 4895, Accurate 2460 & 2520. Is any one of these powders "better" for ignition than the others. I searched this forum & found no info. on my question about which powder is "better" for ignition of tracers. Thanks. I'm guessing he's loading 5.45X39 ammo that uses .220 diameter bullets. |
|
Quoted:
I hope this isn't contrary to posting rules. Why would one want or need to re-size the projectiles? Are they larger than .224 diameter" Don't see how. And which powder seems to give more reliable ignition. I ask because I just ordered some M-856 .223 tracers from Poly Bag and suspect some powders are better than others for tracer ignition. I have IMR 4198, 4895, Accurate 2460 & 2520. Is any one of these powders "better" for ignition than the others. I searched this forum & found no info. on my question about which powder is "better" for ignition of tracers. Thanks. First sentence of original post : "I got on a kick about making 5.45 tracers a while back,... ." I've seen several times on the net where H335 and (I go from memory here) Win. 846 burn hotter and are more reliable than most other powders for tracer ignition. |
|
Saga not finished, yet; pulled a couple of tracers from clean 5.56 USGI rounds, milled to specs, and loaded into 7N6, using original powder, and will fire if I get back from work today in time.
Also, noticed that the bullets that haven't worked were all tumbled so much that the red paint was totally missing, as was the neck sealant... maybe some sort of solvent helped make these look nice, but affected the tracer compound. Carrying on. |
|
Resizing tracers that much probably fractured the composition/ignitor, causing the tracer to burn out before it left the barrel. Tracers are charged after final sizing and the composition is compressed (triaxially). Your resizing just compressed it biaxially, causing it to extrude out the base. The ignitor/delay is more forgiving as it is further compressed when the closure is made. |
|
Quoted:
Resizing tracers that much probably fractured the composition/ignitor, causing the tracer to burn out before it left the barrel. Tracers are charged after final sizing and the composition is compressed (triaxially). Your resizing just compressed it biaxially, causing it to extrude out the base. The ignitor/delay is more forgiving as it is further compressed when the closure is made. Interesting theory, but the caps were still perfectly in place after the sizing. Also, I quit sizing after the first failures, and only milled the OD down to .2205" and they still failed to ignite. Good thought, though. Need to get Vladimir Putin on board... he'd find a market here, I believe. Also, as indicated, I drilled a pinhole through the caps til I could see the compound, giving ignition flame ( both Russin GI and H335 powder ) direct access to the tracer compound. BTW, I fired a GI 5.56 tracer round from the box the 5.56 bullet that was milled down to 5.45 was pulled from out of my AR 15, and the bullet traced perfectly. I'm now left with two alternatives: A) load a USGI pulled-by-me-from-USGI tracer round bullet ahead of H335, and see if it works with the (hopefully) hotter powder than the Russian 7N6,or, B) wait for Russsia to sell GI tracers. |
|
resizing tracers that much probably fractured the composition/ignitor, causing the tracer to burn out before it left the barrel. Tracers are charged after final sizing and the composition is compressed (triaxially). Your resizing just compressed it biaxially, causing it to extrude out the base. The ignitor/delay is more forgiving as it is further compressed when the closure is made.
That is what I thought also.. you should test the tracers in a 223 before and see if they are tracing in a known cartridge.. you may have a bad lot with a high percentage of non lighting tracers.. I'd use a stick powder instead of a ball powder, stick powders tend to burn hotter than ball powders.. If the tracers have been cleaned ie no paint on the tips they may be very old the red tip short tracers were designed to trace 460M where the longer tracer orange tip were designd to trace for 800m.. 762 |
|
Latest and the greatest... pulled several bullets from 5.56 m/m USGI WCC 68 tracer rounds, M196, milled them down to .2205" diameter. First thing I noticed was that the base plug was bright red in color, as opposed to the projectiles I'd bought from Graf Bros. The Graf caps were brass or some other metal, and the pulled bulllet caps were of a plastic-appearing material, it seemed, when I used a tiny drill to expose a few bullets' compound material.
Remember the Graf Bros. bullets were clean as a whistle... no neck sealant, no ogive paint, which leads me to believe they've been over-cleaned, probably with solvent and tumbling, to remove both paint and tar... that's pretty durable stuff. Anyway, yesterday evening I fired three rounds of untouched M196 through my AR15... perfect performance. Then, using my own pulled M196 bullets from the same box in 7N6 cases, fired three rounds of A) Russian powder, my bullets with pinhole in base... perfect flare, and B) 22 gr. of H335 powder, no pinhole in bullets, perfect flare. I think the ultra-cleaned, washed, tumbled, immersed and sanitized bullets from Graf were the ignition problem. Their ad showed the bullets in nice shiny condition, sans even paint, so I can't fault them, but Bonaduce, for instance, shows their bullets as untreated, just pulled. They'll get my money next time. Now on to .22047" Raufoss ! |
|
Quoted:
Latest and the greatest... pulled several bullets from 5.56 m/m USGI WCC 68 tracer rounds, M196, milled them down to .2205" diameter. First thing I noticed was that the base plug was bright red in color, as opposed to the projectiles I'd bought from Graf Bros. The Graf caps were brass or some other metal, and the pulled bulllet caps were of a plastic-appearing material, it seemed, when I used a tiny drill to expose a few bullets' compound material. Remember the Graf Bros. bullets were clean as a whistle... no neck sealant, no ogive paint, which leads me to believe they've been over-cleaned, probably with solvent and tumbling, to remove both paint and tar... that's pretty durable stuff. Anyway, yesterday evening I fired three rounds of untouched M196 through my AR15... perfect performance. Then, using my own pulled M196 bullets from the same box in 7N6 cases, fired three rounds of A) Russian powder, my bullets with pinhole in base... perfect flare, and B) 22 gr. of H335 powder, no pinhole in bullets, perfect flare. I think the ultra-cleaned, washed, tumbled, immersed and sanitized bullets from Graf were the ignition problem. Their ad showed the bullets in nice shiny condition, sans even paint, so I can't fault them, but Bonaduce, for instance, shows their bullets as untreated, just pulled. They'll get my money next time. Now on to .22047" Raufoss ! Perhaps you should ask the source before making claims without facts. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Latest and the greatest... pulled several bullets from 5.56 m/m USGI WCC 68 tracer rounds, M196, milled them down to .2205" diameter. First thing I noticed was that the base plug was bright red in color, as opposed to the projectiles I'd bought from Graf Bros. The Graf caps were brass or some other metal, and the pulled bulllet caps were of a plastic-appearing material, it seemed, when I used a tiny drill to expose a few bullets' compound material. Remember the Graf Bros. bullets were clean as a whistle... no neck sealant, no ogive paint, which leads me to believe they've been over-cleaned, probably with solvent and tumbling, to remove both paint and tar... that's pretty durable stuff. Anyway, yesterday evening I fired three rounds of untouched M196 through my AR15... perfect performance. Then, using my own pulled M196 bullets from the same box in 7N6 cases, fired three rounds of A) Russian powder, my bullets with pinhole in base... perfect flare, and B) 22 gr. of H335 powder, no pinhole in bullets, perfect flare. I think the ultra-cleaned, washed, tumbled, immersed and sanitized bullets from Graf were the ignition problem. Their ad showed the bullets in nice shiny condition, sans even paint, so I can't fault them, but Bonaduce, for instance, shows their bullets as untreated, just pulled. They'll get my money next time. Now on to .22047" Raufoss ! Perhaps you should ask the source before making claims without facts. Perhaps you should A) ask an English professor, which type person it's obvious you're not familiar with, to define "making claims," and, B) tell us how closely you're related to the Graf Brothers. |
|
I have had good luck getting tracers to light in my AR, using ~25-26gr of W748, or 4gr of blue dot. Subsonic tracers are F-U-N.
Store the tracers in a drybox with a ton of dessicant. I have heard they light from the heat generated by air resistance when moving and don't directly light from the flame of the charge, but what do I know. BTW all of my tracers are "dirty" pulls. Painted tips and some tar still present. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Latest and the greatest... pulled several bullets from 5.56 m/m USGI WCC 68 tracer rounds, M196, milled them down to .2205" diameter. First thing I noticed was that the base plug was bright red in color, as opposed to the projectiles I'd bought from Graf Bros. The Graf caps were brass or some other metal, and the pulled bulllet caps were of a plastic-appearing material, it seemed, when I used a tiny drill to expose a few bullets' compound material. Remember the Graf Bros. bullets were clean as a whistle... no neck sealant, no ogive paint, which leads me to believe they've been over-cleaned, probably with solvent and tumbling, to remove both paint and tar... that's pretty durable stuff. Anyway, yesterday evening I fired three rounds of untouched M196 through my AR15... perfect performance. Then, using my own pulled M196 bullets from the same box in 7N6 cases, fired three rounds of A) Russian powder, my bullets with pinhole in base... perfect flare, and B) 22 gr. of H335 powder, no pinhole in bullets, perfect flare. I think the ultra-cleaned, washed, tumbled, immersed and sanitized bullets from Graf were the ignition problem. Their ad showed the bullets in nice shiny condition, sans even paint, so I can't fault them, but Bonaduce, for instance, shows their bullets as untreated, just pulled. They'll get my money next time. Now on to .22047" Raufoss ! Perhaps you should ask the source before making claims without facts. Perhaps you should A) ask an English professor, which type person it's obvious you're not familiar with, to define "making claims," and, Well lets take a look here. You said. Quoted:
...... Also, noticed that the bullets that haven't worked were all tumbled so much that the red paint was totally missing, as was the neck sealant... maybe some sort of solvent helped make these look nice, but affected the tracer compound. Carrying on. Looks like you are speculating. Then you said. Quoted:
....... I think the ultra-cleaned, washed, tumbled, immersed and sanitized bullets from Graf were the ignition problem...... You seem to be convinced you know how they process their bullets. You added. Quoted:
.....so I can't fault them.... In fact you cannot. These bullets were not processed by Grafs. They were purchased that way from BVAC. BVAC delivers to Grafs and Grafs re-packages. B) tell us how closely you're related to the Graf Brothers. Related? Not at all. I have purchased tens of thousands of dollars of goods from them. They have purchased materials and goods from me as well. That is the nature of my relationship with Grafs. No more no less. Grafs however does not need to have mis-information spouted about them, and have their business potentially hurt by the uninformed. As a last note. Quoted:
Now on to .22047" Raufoss ! I sure hope you have your DD mfg license. 
Enjoy your evening. Edit to correct a fragment of a sentance that did not belong where it was. |
|
In fact you cannot. These bullets were not processed by Grafs. They were purchased that way from BVAC. BVAC delivers to Grafs and Grafs re-packages.
B) tell us how closely you're related to the Graf Brothers. Related? Not at all. I have purchased tens of thousands of dollars of goods from them. They have purchased materials and goods from me as well. That is the nature of my relationship with Grafs. No more no less. Grafs however does not need to have mis-information spouted about them, and have their business potentially hurt by the uninformed. ***************** "Related? Not at all." And thank you for proving my ancillary point, however unfortunately I had to, while merely trying to talk about how to make 5.45 tracers. I hit a nerve, apparently, while attempting to tell people about my small experience with tracer bullets that have been sanitized past the point of tracerism. If you're in bed with Graf, fine... they're on my "favorites" list and I have ordered from them before, and will do so again. The point was to be on the lookout for the pictures of shiny tracer bullets. Methinks he doth protest overmuch. |
|
You do not need a DD license for rofos rounds are not DD's they do not contain enough HE to be classified as a DD.. and I don't think he made a negative remark about graf & son's.. seems he said he did't falt them.. I'm glad he figured out a way to make them work. I'd still like to know if you sized down a functioning tracer in the .221 bullet sizer will it work..??
B2B |
|
Quoted:
In fact you cannot. These bullets were not processed by Grafs. They were purchased that way from BVAC. BVAC delivers to Grafs and Grafs re-packages. B) tell us how closely you're related to the Graf Brothers. Related? Not at all. I have purchased tens of thousands of dollars of goods from them. They have purchased materials and goods from me as well. That is the nature of my relationship with Grafs. No more no less. Grafs however does not need to have mis-information spouted about them, and have their business potentially hurt by the uninformed. ***************** "Related? Not at all." And thank you for proving my ancillary point, however unfortunately I had to, while merely trying to talk about how to make 5.45 tracers. I hit a nerve, apparently, while attempting to tell people about my small experience with tracer bullets that have been sanitized past the point of tracerism. If you're in bed with Graf, fine... they're on my "favorites" list and I have ordered from them before, and will do so again. The point was to be on the lookout for the pictures of shiny tracer bullets. Methinks he doth protest overmuch. WTF part of knock it off do you have trouble understanding? |
|
Quoted:
You do not need a DD license for rofos rounds are not DD's they do not contain enough HE to be classified as a DD.. and I don't think he made a negative remark about graf & son's.. seems he said he did't falt them.. I'm glad he figured out a way to make them work. I'd still like to know if you sized down a functioning tracer in the .221 bullet sizer will it work..?? B2B No. I had to use a Ryobi cordless drill, put the bullet in nosefirst, and mill it down with a common file, a little at atime, meauring once every ten or so seconds, until the shank measured 0.2205" and then reversing the bullet to do the same thing (takes much less longer) to the part of the bullet forward of the cannelure down to the same diameter. Gets fairly easy after a few screwups down to .217" or so. Not time/energy efficient; just wanted to do it. Groove diameter is .22047" and across the lands is .2126" so considering tracer rounds aren't accuracy-critical, it's fun to make the deal work. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
In fact you cannot. These bullets were not processed by Grafs. They were purchased that way from BVAC. BVAC delivers to Grafs and Grafs re-packages. B) tell us how closely you're related to the Graf Brothers. Related? Not at all. I have purchased tens of thousands of dollars of goods from them. They have purchased materials and goods from me as well. That is the nature of my relationship with Grafs. No more no less. Grafs however does not need to have mis-information spouted about them, and have their business potentially hurt by the uninformed. ***************** "Related? Not at all." And thank you for proving my ancillary point, however unfortunately I had to, while merely trying to talk about how to make 5.45 tracers. I hit a nerve, apparently, while attempting to tell people about my small experience with tracer bullets that have been sanitized past the point of tracerism. If you're in bed with Graf, fine... they're on my "favorites" list and I have ordered from them before, and will do so again. The point was to be on the lookout for the pictures of shiny tracer bullets. Methinks he doth protest overmuch. WTF part of knock it off do you have trouble understanding? You got suck with Flamethrower ? |
Armory Sponsor