Ammunition Manufacturing: How was it Done?

G

GunXpatriot

New member
So not long ago, I had a strange thought. Manufacturing ammunition, in it's entirety, at home. Well, actually, I'm mostly talking about making shell casings.

After a small amount of research, I found it would be pretty impossible for the average joe to do in his own home. It was said that the proper dies were required, but more importantly, the presses, which could exert tons upon tons of force, were the most important component of the process.

Looking at the actual process of how casings are made, sheets of brass, different steps to forming the casing, etc, I can see how it would be pretty involved.

Others said it was possible to CNC machine casings as they had seen it done at some internet source, or another. But all of that made me wonder...

I know advances in technology were at full force during the mid-late 1800's. What I wonder is, how did they do it back then? Did they really have the types of presses we'd use today, to perform all of these processes that we'd use today? For that matter, how were foil cartridges made?

I dunno, I mean, I doubt most of the people on this forum would have any clue, but it was just something that popped into my head. Thanks.
 
Machined brass cases are weak. Most firearm cartridge cases in the last 100 years are drawn over a die and "compressed" into final form. The working of the metal imparts strength. You don't start with sheets of brass, but rather cylindrical pellets. Rimfire is different; it may start with sheets, or discs cut from sheets. Since the first commercially successful brass cased cartridge was the 44 Henry rimfire, that might be the place to start.

It's not all that hard to build a press that can exert tons of pressure per square inch. What's hard is designing one and building it so that it can be run in an economical fashion for production work.
 
The process is called 'back extrusion ' .A pellet is put into a female die ,and the male die is pushed into it forming a basic cup shape..The process requires a series of forming and annealing steps .A step to form the primer pocket, then the machining of thr rim. The die work hardens the brass annealing softens it .At the end the hardness of the various areas of the case is controlled by carefully working and annealing which machining the whole case couldn't do. :)
 
Oh boy, do I have a lot to say about this subject, but I just don't have time to get into it right now!

This is one of my favorite areas of study in cartridge collecting, the changing capabilities over time and how they progressed from what was essentially a percussion cap with a lead ball seated in it to today's modern cartridge...
 
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