Manufacturing of Copper Bullets.
Two main methods. Stamping and Swaging - using large stamping machines with dies, a piece of copper is bashed into the shape of a bullet over several steps. This is how the vast majority of bullets ate produced on an industrial scale. With traditional bullets, part of the process includes feeding in a lead wire and then swaging the jacket around the core.
This is a capital intensive process with very expensive dies being made for each bullet type, but these last for a few million bullets produced.
This is how military, and most cheap ammunition is produced.
Expensive to set up, but low cost per unit produced, especially once all the assets have written right down.
Very capital intensive to set up a new production run, or to introduce a new shape or design of bullet. And it probably takes a few days to switch from one product to another when running a production run.
2) small scale machining. Much easier to do with a monolithic bullet than a two dissimilar cored bullet, but you start with a rod of copper or brass (an alloy of Copper with Zinc), chuck it in a lathe and turn up a bullet. It is no more or less difficult than mass producing other parts such as a bolt. With a simple copying jig on a basic lathe and a machinest to run it, you can make very good bullets. Cost of labour would be high though per unit.
Most monolithic bullet manufacturers will use an automatic CNC controlled lathe. Such machines are readily available and not a huge cost. Bullets are designed on CAD, translated into a CNC File and loaded into the system. It takes very little time to switch production across from say a 130gn 7mm bullet to a 120gn 6.5mm bullet.
But most of production has been to date relatively small scale production in small designer owned businesses with all the design work being recouped in the first years of production.
When you buy a cup and core bullet, it was designed 60 years ago, probably made on machinery 60 plus years old and fully depreciated.
When you buy a copper bullet you are still paying for all the design work and testing that went into the bullet. You will also be paying for CNC tooling as this will yet to be depreciated.
As always as volumes go up, prices will come down. At the retail end, RFDs are currently having to carry all types of ammunition, so you are paying for cost of such ammo sitting in the warehouse and on dealers shelves.
The UK is not a large market, but it’s a significant market for ammunition. At present copper is a premium product and price accordingly.
Now that are definitive dates and certainty, manufacturers and suppliers can start investing for the future demand.
Some will stick their heads in the sand, whinge hugely and go out of business.
Others will make good decisions and see the opportunity.
