Brass Jacket Bullets
Why in the heck are brass jacketed bullets produced? I have Remington UMC and American Eagle bullets that have lighter collored jackets than my Winchester rounds. Does anybody know why the jackets are a different color? I'm pretty sure that they are all copper jacketed, but the differences in color concern me.
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IMHO, brass jackets would be cheaper then copper. This would be because the copper is alloyed with a substantial amount of Zinc to make Brass.
EDIT #1, For a high velocity rifle bullet, I don't see any great problem with a brass jacket. Low velocity JHP hand gun bullets is likely where problems would occur, due to the harder tougher jacket.0 -
CORBIN makes a system for producing 22 caliber bullets from annealed empty 22 jackets. I shot many thousands of them over the years. Kind of cool seeing a bullet with a F or W or U stamped into its base.
Even though the brass is harder than the standard gilding metal jackets we never saw any difference in shooting them.0 -
Jacket materials vary.
Winchester uses Lubaloy. The current composition is 91-8.5-.5 copper, zinc, tin; but it used to contain less zinc.
Gilding metal is typically 90-5 with no tin.
And that does not allow for different grades of alloy under the same brand name or production tolerances.
Sellier & Belot, Montana Gold, and Remington Golden Saber apparently use cartridge brass (70-30) jackets, the bullet is the same color as the case.
CORRECTION. I had my Lubaloy and gilding metal backwards. Gilding metal is traditionally 90-5 copper-zinc.
I don't know what the exact composition of AE and UMC jackets is, but would be very surprised if it were much different from 90-5 gilding metal.0 -
The information you guys post on here never ceases to blow my mind. Hawk Carse, do you have any idea the jacket composition of Remington UMC and American Eagle 115 gr. 9mm bullets? Or a good place to find this kind of info? 0 -
Of all the major ammunition manufacturers, only Winchester has it's own mill for producing cartridge brass and bullet jacket material. They have direct control of "quality and condition" of the product they use. All the other manufactures buy from outside sources and the material they use is subject to "tolerances". All SAE alloys have some degree of variation batch to batch. Winchester come closest to getting exactly what they want lot to lot. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by XXCross
Of all the major ammunition manufacturers, only Winchester has it's own mill for producing cartridge brass and bullet jacket material. They have direct control of "quality and condition" of the product they use. All the other manufactures buy from outside sources and the material they use is subject to "tolerances". All SAE alloys have some degree of variation batch to batch. Winchester come closest to getting exactly what they want lot to lot.
They do have that, but do not use it to their advantage. Their current run of cartridge brass overe the last two years, has been nothing but pure junk. It works alright for the normal shooter, but for an avid accuracy freak, it is very unreliable. Remington is not far behind. The folks across the pond(Lapua, Norma, Privi Partizan, are to name just a few) are realy spanking the USA made stuff.
Also, any alloys, such as lubaloy, or gilding metal, have to have their component parts of copper, zinc, tin, or any other elememt, add up to 100%. It can't be just 90-5. there has to be something else in there
Rufe is correct, that brass, tends to be less expensive than copper these days, when considered the amount of copper versus zinc, is displaced. However, I suspect that even though the bean counters reason for brass over copper, is economy, I suspect also there are some other valid reasons. The lubricity of brass compared to copper, strength, so you can use less of it, etc.
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Steel jackets even make sense, as the jacket thickness in expanding bullets can be geared to the expansion desired. It would be cheaper. It's been commonly used in military ammunition for a long time, and not only in foreign stuff. I have some ECS 43 .45 Auto bullets that I pulled, that are magnetic, although they are copper plated. 0 -
Rather than being copper plated, those ECS bullets may very well have GMCS (Gilding Metal Clad Steel) jackets which the US used on much of it's WWII ammunition.
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