Has anyone did any accuracy testing on pellets they have swaged using the CORBIN swage dies?
I'm thinking of making the plunge for my 25 cal PCP.
I'm thinking of making the plunge for my 25 cal PCP.
Corbin swaged pellets
- Thread starter yukoncat
- Start date
From Corbin...
Corbin makes pellet swage dies for conventional .177 and .22 airguns as well as the full spectrum of diameters for specialty and precharged high-power airguns, including 50, 45 and 9mm rifles, .12, .14, 5mm (20 cal) and .25 caliber. Any caliber of airgun projectile can be made using Corbin equipment. The same tools can make a wide range of weight by adjustment.
Please note: for the sake of brevity, airgun projectiles are referred to as "pellets", even though they are bullets of a special design and can properly be called bullets. Do not take offense at the term. It is just a short-hand way of saying "projectile designed for use with compressed air propulsion weapons".
Upvote 0
I have 2 hydro presses from Corbin and enough dies and tooling to make you drool. You can not make a pellet/slug/bullet that is not straight walled. If you look at my bullets there are no lube grooves in them because I can not make lubed grooves in a Corbin die.
If you want to make a pellet/slug that is diabolo shaped or have lube grooves you need a die that splits open. Corbin dies do no open, they push the pellet out the die so the direction it is being pushed has the to have the widest diameter.
Corbin quality is excellent but besides a press and die you will need something to cut the wire, sizers if you need to size for different guns and strong arms. We use hydraulic presses which takes a lot of the work out. You would be a manual press and takes a lot more effort to make the pellets/slugs.
It will costs thousands of dollars to get just a little bit of tooling, press and other tools needed. Just be sure you are someone dedicated and enjoys that type of thing before forking over that kind of money.
I am here to help though if you need it.
If you want to make a pellet/slug that is diabolo shaped or have lube grooves you need a die that splits open. Corbin dies do no open, they push the pellet out the die so the direction it is being pushed has the to have the widest diameter.
Corbin quality is excellent but besides a press and die you will need something to cut the wire, sizers if you need to size for different guns and strong arms. We use hydraulic presses which takes a lot of the work out. You would be a manual press and takes a lot more effort to make the pellets/slugs.
It will costs thousands of dollars to get just a little bit of tooling, press and other tools needed. Just be sure you are someone dedicated and enjoys that type of thing before forking over that kind of money.
I am here to help though if you need it.
Upvote 0
I'm aware of the straight wall design, and the expense.
What I'm interested in is if anyone has done any extensive accuracy testing with them.
What I'm interested in is if anyone has done any extensive accuracy testing with them.
Upvote 0
G
Guest
Guest
Well, yukoncat NSA is an example that closely relates to Corbin style projectiles. So you can consider them as a benchmark.
Upvote 0
They are not close to Corbin, they are Corbin. Corbin makes all my tooling. As far as accuracy you will have to break that down for gun to gun. I made mistakes in the beginning and you may buy dies and punches that do not produce accurate ammo for a given gun. This is an adventure for someone who enjoys the challenge, has the time and has plenty of cash. If not, I would suggest casting if you want to make your own ammo. Swaging is superior for small bullets which are difficult to cast well.
Upvote 0
That a good question. Maybe back in the day there was not enough interest to bring it to the table. There are split type swage pellet molds or dies, (not really sure what the proper name for that style is?) that are available. Unfortunately they are made overseas. The ones I've read about here have decent reviews, BUT product support and communication is pretty poor. I think it's a good starting point from moving up from casting before making the plunge to full blown swaging. I think that if an established US manufacturer would bring these to market and be comparable if not superior to the overseas products it would be a winner.
Upvote 0
The question is, Do airgunner's wish to make their own Diabolo pellets ? or are they more comfortable to buy them from likes of JSB ( assuming that all the current woes are fixed ) ? Because its not a big deal for a tooling engineer and munition tool manufacturer like me to get things done, but question is about the demand and volume.
Upvote 0
For .30 caliber and up, I’d say that it’s worth it for frequent shooters (maybe 500 pellets or more per month). With semi-autos becoming more prominent, it may possibly become more cost effective for a very active hobby or competitive shooter to manufacture their own pellets - for cost and consistency’s sake. I may even be interested in swaging quality .25 caliber diabolos at some point. This is my unqualified opinion.
Upvote 0
the problem i see with DIY pellets is that the process would get old in a very short time , and you would have all this time and money just collecting dust . speaking of dust . I haven't heard anything about proper ventilation for working with lead.?
Upvote 0
@beerthief From my reading, ventilation isn’t a serious factor in swaging small quantities of slugs. I cannot speak to swaging pellets in split dies or swaging on a comercial scale. In my setup the majority of the excess lead appears to come out in a solid thin strand of lead via an extrusion hole in the die. I think there’s less dust created in this process than by say me shooting 100 rounds out my Evol where the vents in the shroud are close to my face. When I open the shroud, the amount of dust seen is a lot more than what I see in swaging dies.
As for the process getting old, that pretty subjective. I imagine it gets about as old as routine maintenance or whatever routines that we establish for ourselves. If I’m into it, it’s just something that I do.
Last edited:
Upvote 0
maybe something like coffee filter material placed in the shroud ? another "million $$ home business ? or maybe not . hahaha
Upvote 0
There needs to be more slug manufacturers that start putting alot of R&D and testing hours into pellets. I think the air rifles have a reached a point we're there's nothing else much to increase accuracy. Maybe more R&D on different barrel twist rates and land and grooves. What is needed now is a different type of pellet, something like a pellet slug combo maybe?
Upvote 0
I've probably hand swaged 600+ pellets since I got my Thor Mold swaging die back in May. Yes, it's tedious. I'm not worn out from it but it's definitely a significant time investment.
I see no lead dust sources.
You take lead wire, cut it. There are no loose lead particles aside from trace amounts left on your cutter.
Press the lead core into the die and trim off the swarf. The swarf falls straight down onto the table as either little rings or shavings. Again, a tiny bit on the blade of the scraper.
Finally, there can be a bit of flashing. I use a small piece of non-abrasive scotchbrite pad to gently scrub off flashing. That falls to the table and/or gets stuck within the pad.
I wash my hands diligently and of course keep all lead shavings contained to one place on my workbench, which is on a couple of shop paper towels that I roll up and discard occasionally. I would not eat off of my workbench due to lead but also many other things there.
I did get a lead test done last winter. I'll do another this winter. I'm taking more precautions but I'm also handling more lead, more often this year. So I'm curious to see how my numbers change.
Upvote 0
Start turning pellets on the lathe so you can work out new prototype designs quickly and cheaply before you buy tooling. I suspect that many of the pellet designs we rely on today are simply the least bad of the many ideas that have been tried out, and like fishing lures, were designed to catch buyers not necessarily optimized to catch fish.
Last edited:
Upvote 0
After the new barrels from Sub-MOA Barrels start being utilized, CNC turned projectiles are the next wave of airgun accuracy. There's more ability to control special contours, profiles, and weight in a turned projectile on a CNC. A superior pellet design can be made far easier on a lathe, and in large quantities. Most noticeable are designs with reduction in bearing surface losses and better flight from less wind drag. Superior slugs can be turned out easier as well. The smooth cylinder type of swaged slug, for example, is highly dependent on the twist rate of the barrel to gain long range accuracy, just as long heavy pellets are more twist rate dependent.
Upvote 0