Ammo reloading

[kalos72]

Is it me or are there no rules for reloading anything above small arms?

What bout ac/mortar/arty rounds?

Suggestions?

[jester]

Some things like mortar rounds can not be reloaded, as the entire round is consumed much like that of a rocket launcher.

As for auto cannon rounds some are electronicaly fired which would pose a problem in the T2K world.

Large caliber gun round, much like the mortar the round or projectile is loaded then a bag of powder or charge and the entire thing is consumed.

As for large caliber gun fixed shells like tank rounds, such rounds are more complex, especialy the projectile. Where the round is made up of several internal components, these I can see being made, at least simplier rounds such as standard HE or HEAT rounds and probably some form of beehive or flachette round which would be like a giant buckshot round, these I can see being more common as reloads since the threat from armor is dwindling as more are lost on the battlefield and the threat of personel is the last main threat, of course tank crews would hoarde their last few anti tank rounds just in case and only use them grudgingly.

[kalos72]

Isnt most of the AC stuff just a really large bullet? Leaving a "case" behind just like a normal small arms round? Simple HE rounds should be able to reloaded I would think.

Mortars - could you just make a new case for it?

Losing rockets and missiles is gonna suck but I dont see those becoming made again for awhile.

I am sure the more complicated rounds cant be reproduced but the simple HE stuff should be...

And how do you figure mechanics for them?

[jester]

Originally Posted by kalos72

Isnt most of the AC stuff just a really large bullet? Leaving a "case" behind just like a normal small arms round? Simple HE rounds should be able to reloaded I would think.

Mortars - could you just make a new case for it?

Losing rockets and missiles is gonna suck but I dont see those becoming made again for awhile.

I am sure the more complicated rounds cant be reproduced but the simple HE stuff should be...

And how do you figure mechanics for them?

AC:

Not really, alot of the cases are steel or aluminuim which are made for a 1 shot life, stress they undergo would make them hazardous to reuse,=. <A rupted case on a large gun like that in the breach could be very very bad> And even with brass cases they would have to be resized, a die the size of the case would be needed to send the shell through and reformed, and those are not all that common outside the factory.

Mortars: pretty simple round, a cast metal casing filled with explosive and a impact fuse is simple enpough. The downside. If you have a misfire with a hot tube, life could suck really quick. At best you would probably loose the gun. But, then you need the facility to cast and mill down the casings for the shells and a facility to make the explosive and the propellant.

Rockets: things like RPGs and even old style Bazooka rounds wouldn't be that hard to make, about on par with the mortar rounds,. Just balance of the round and again explosive and propellant are the issue. I can also see this being done with the old tyme recoiless rifles too.

Complicated rounds, yeah like the ICBM and similiar rounds with submunitions, guided stuff, wireguided missiles, antitank rounds like the Depleted Urianium rounds and proximity fuses would be a problem.

Then again if you have the facilities, material and talent you could probably ramp up production on small scale.

[kalos72]

Then lets assume during a daring raid into an old Army Ammunition Plant, I was able to the dies and some of the basic machinery to cast the larger rounds.

By using this information I think it would be a great side adventure.... http://www.jmc.army.mil/FactSheets/FactSheets.asp

Question is, would the local MILGOV/CIVGOC forces be smart enough to pull that sort of machinery out or would they just "take the ammo and run"?

[Legbreaker]

Firstly, there is not such thing as a "simple" large calibre round. Even the "relatively simple" AP rounds, such as the solid slugs commonly used in WWII era tanks, require precision engineering. It's far simplier to say as a GM that these rounds cannot be reloaded (and IRL the vast majority can't anyway) and production of them is only possible in prewar facilities.

With regard to dies and production machinery, anyone with half a brain would quickly see the value of them, although if the pressure was on and time limited, they're not much good short term.

The machinery using the dies, etc are just as valuable and so I can see large scale offensives (at least large in terms of T2K forces) to capture and hold these types of facilities.

Something that should be kept in mind too is that just because a factory produces 120mm smoothbore tank rounds, it's very unlikely to be set up to produce 120mm mortar or artillery rounds, let alone rockets and missiles.

[kalos72]

So that might explain the case itself...but why does the bullet need to be lead?

My understanding is that a lead bullet will deform more causing more damage inside a persons body as it is rather soft. Steel would go straight through you breaking everything along the way.

So is it just a damage versus penetration issue or is there something more technical?

[jester]

So many things to address:


KOTA 1342, A Tow Pogue eh <grrrrrr grumble grumble, called themselves grunts but didn't hump. 0352 mean anything?>

I was talking brass casings vice steel and aluminium cassings, and I have seen many 20mm and larger steel casings, as for larger gun cassings, seen alot that are steel or aluminuim. The brass casing can be reloaded, the steel and aluminum had the 1 shot life.

1st, brass can be resized multiple times, as a rule I generaly use mine <well when I did reload, haven't in a couple years, have a Dillion RL 500, Lee Single Stage X2, RCBS progressive and single stage, Had a Lee progressive too but sent it back> Necked rounds, the main problem I have had with them is that the neck colapses into the cartridge body. Makes sense since that is the area that has the most stress in reloading. I supose they could be cut down into something else, otherwise they are just so much brass for the recycle bin.

Brass is also easier to recycle requiring less energy to reprocess.

Now, steel and aluminumum cassings,

Aluminuim is a soft metal with a low heat point, the heat and pressure within a firing chamber, especialy a large caliber gun would make the casing weak for sure. I am sure the metal is soft enough and slick enough to work in a die for resizing, but would it survive the resizing without creasing? And would you end up with a case rupture?

Steel Cases:

Usualy made from soft metal, but again the heat and pressure inside the chamber when fired acts as a tempering or hardening process. There is a reason alot of shooting ranges that make and sell their own overly expensive reloads BAN STEEL CASED AMMO. <the fuggers sweep up the cases you fire and leave and reload and sell them for their normaly overly inflated prices> The steel is harder and will no longer expand to give you that gas tight seal in the chamber.

Further, to send the now hardened steel case through your die is going to destroy your die. The case will get stuck if you are lucky and it is a pain to remove it.

As for the whole guy with a sledge hammer reloading a 90mm gun round. With a solid slug of lead it is possible, also with a reduced charge round.

I can see in a T2K world, they making shaped charged anti tank rounds, standard HE anti personel rounds and like I said a flachette or buckshot type round for anti personel purposes.

Making the rounds would be done in a small factory with a set up like you said, a press like that, comonly available from somewhere like Harbor Freight Tools to resize and seat the projectile. Of course the seating especialy when using a HE or Shaped charged HEAT round would not be done with a sledge hammer, AH! that just is to much

However, if the materials are available, then I can see several dozen being turned out a day.

As for using steel casings in normal dies, yes and it is BAD BAD BAD! It can at the luckiest get stuck, at the worste ruin your dies.



KALOS:

Yes, you can use almost anything for a projectile. Lead is the norm because it is cheap and it has known characteristics in flight. But, alot of rounds are steel, basicaly anything 20mm and over are steel, at least I have encountered rounds in the 20mm and larger that were steel. But keep in mind many of those rounds were also explosive.

Some rounds in the past were tungsten used for anti armor, and even some small arms rounds are made with a steel core with a light coat of lead and a copper jacket.

They have rounds made from zinc and even ceramic rounds today. And in WWII the Japanese even used bullets made from wood.

Lead is the norm because it is cheap and easily cast. To use steel you need to have higher temps to melt it, and you need to finish it and mill it down. Further it is harder so you will have to put a coating otherwise it can cause more jams inside the barrel. Imagine a steel bullet, firing, it gets hot and metal expands when it heats, so it gets jammed mid barrel, you are firing full or rapid semi auto, so you fire two more rounds into the barrel with a round stuck in it. Can you imagine what would happen next?

Also, bullets made from harder materials would cause excessive barrel wear as well.

Wooden bullets have a short range of just a couple hundred meters before they burn up or loose velocity and drift off left or right and then just wildly. And of course poor penttration other than on soft targets.

Ceramics are used for indoor use on senstive targets and mainly on soft targets, they will penetrate soft targets ie, a person not using body armor. But when they hit a rigid target they explode into dust.

I personaly would use steel core ammo with either a hard well lubed lead coat, or even a copper coat <raid the telephone lines and other electrical equipment to give a jacket for your bullets to protect your bullets and give them better more traditional ballistics.


Now, as I see it, to make shells:

Mortars you can cast or mill the rounds or a combination of both. Cast them with finish them with some mill work. Fill them with explosive and then screw on a fuse. Then, add your propelant charges which is done in the field.

The same can be done with artillery rounds. Just on a larger scale. And there you have a early version of a HE round.

The fuse is the bigger design challenge. A mortar the tail fin can be semi complicated to build since it is one more step over a regular shell.


Anti Tank rounds:

Since these are high velocity rounds. I would do the following,


Cast, then mill them down.

Put them on a spindle or centrifuge even a car tire balancer and put it for a spin to see if it is balanced right. If it isn't you will have an irradict round which is dangerous.

Measure it with calipers for the proper tolerances for that round.

Fill it with the explosive olike a shaped charge,

Make and install your fuse assembly.


As for making the rounds:


You would need to set up an industry or factory to make or preform several of the processes at the same time so you have a steady flow of the items. Or at the very leastr have a stockpile of parts rather than custom make each part.

Fuse assemblies can be made and hopefully universal for the newly made rounds fitting several calibers and types of rounds. And of course you will need some folks in a shop making the components for the fuses as well as some folks putting them together into a complete assembly. I figure half a dozen people.

Casing, however many people needed to forge the casing, this I can see being contracted out with a factory who smelts iron.

A couple people running a milling machine and one person putting it on the balance.


A group who brews the explosive at another building a distance from the rest of the factory for safety purposes. They can easily produce more explosive than is immediatly needed so this would be operated monthly or bi monthly. And surpluses can be use for other products like claymores and handgrenades which can be made from cheaply cast pot metal.

Then one group pours the explosive in the shell and then the rest is assembled.

As I said you can have the entire staff of say two dozen people working on 1 aspect at a time when they build a large enough supply of components they stop and begin working on the other aspect, and so on and so on.


The manufacture of explosive rounds is more complex than standad rifle and pistol bullets as they have more components. I mean one can make molds for pistol or rifle bullets easily enough, to the poind you can mold 50 at a time. 50 holes, fill them with molten let, let harden a couple minutes. Do it again. Figure 5 minutes to pour and harden, inside an hour you have made 600 projectiles <thats 20 30 round magazines> And if you have more than 1 mold per person or more people doing this, well heck, 5 molds per person seems doable, times however many people you have at the task. You can make a large number of projectiles in a very short time.

Gun powder, I can not see a person making less than a keg at a time, it is to much work.

Brass, reform it, with a progressive press or even a single stage you can resize 1 case every three seconds, and with an automatice press its faster.

And then give half a dozen workers a progressive press where once the press cycles you are producing 1 complete round with each pull of the lever, or if its a automatic press, figure 1 round a second as long as you keep the components of powder, primers, projectiles and casings fed. Figure 5 people with a press and you can turn out a few hundred round an hour, I forget what Dillon advertising the output of some of their presses. But the components are easily made and easily assembled when compared to explosive rounds.

I am guessing with the components for say a mortar already, between inspection and assembly it would take lets see,

1 or 2 minutes to put the casing in balancer and test it.

2 minutes to measure it

1 minute to mount the round in a stand

2 minutes to fill body with liquid explosive that hardens or gels

10 to 30 minutes for explosive to solidify.

1 minute to screw on top piece of shell.

1 minute for final inspection

And then figure a couple minutes to move shells from each stage of assembly to the next.

Fuses are added in the field prior to firing


As for making the components, that is another storey entirely.

[headquarters]

this is tight .

Originally Posted by jester

So many things to address:


KOTA 1342, A Tow Pogue eh <grrrrrr grumble grumble, called themselves grunts but didn't hump. 0352 mean anything?>

I was talking brass casings vice steel and aluminium cassings, and I have seen many 20mm and larger steel casings, as for larger gun cassings, seen alot that are steel or aluminuim. The brass casing can be reloaded, the steel and aluminum had the 1 shot life.

1st, brass can be resized multiple times, as a rule I generaly use mine <well when I did reload, haven't in a couple years, have a Dillion RL 500, Lee Single Stage X2, RCBS progressive and single stage, Had a Lee progressive too but sent it back> Necked rounds, the main problem I have had with them is that the neck colapses into the cartridge body. Makes sense since that is the area that has the most stress in reloading. I supose they could be cut down into something else, otherwise they are just so much brass for the recycle bin.

Brass is also easier to recycle requiring less energy to reprocess.

Now, steel and aluminumum cassings,

Aluminuim is a soft metal with a low heat point, the heat and pressure within a firing chamber, especialy a large caliber gun would make the casing weak for sure. I am sure the metal is soft enough and slick enough to work in a die for resizing, but would it survive the resizing without creasing? And would you end up with a case rupture?

Steel Cases:

Usualy made from soft metal, but again the heat and pressure inside the chamber when fired acts as a tempering or hardening process. There is a reason alot of shooting ranges that make and sell their own overly expensive reloads BAN STEEL CASED AMMO. <the fuggers sweep up the cases you fire and leave and reload and sell them for their normaly overly inflated prices> The steel is harder and will no longer expand to give you that gas tight seal in the chamber.

Further, to send the now hardened steel case through your die is going to destroy your die. The case will get stuck if you are lucky and it is a pain to remove it.

As for the whole guy with a sledge hammer reloading a 90mm gun round. With a solid slug of lead it is possible, also with a reduced charge round.

I can see in a T2K world, they making shaped charged anti tank rounds, standard HE anti personel rounds and like I said a flachette or buckshot type round for anti personel purposes.

Making the rounds would be done in a small factory with a set up like you said, a press like that, comonly available from somewhere like Harbor Freight Tools to resize and seat the projectile. Of course the seating especialy when using a HE or Shaped charged HEAT round would not be done with a sledge hammer, AH! that just is to much

However, if the materials are available, then I can see several dozen being turned out a day.

As for using steel casings in normal dies, yes and it is BAD BAD BAD! It can at the luckiest get stuck, at the worste ruin your dies.



KALOS:

Yes, you can use almost anything for a projectile. Lead is the norm because it is cheap and it has known characteristics in flight. But, alot of rounds are steel, basicaly anything 20mm and over are steel, at least I have encountered rounds in the 20mm and larger that were steel. But keep in mind many of those rounds were also explosive.

Some rounds in the past were tungsten used for anti armor, and even some small arms rounds are made with a steel core with a light coat of lead and a copper jacket.

They have rounds made from zinc and even ceramic rounds today. And in WWII the Japanese even used bullets made from wood.

Lead is the norm because it is cheap and easily cast. To use steel you need to have higher temps to melt it, and you need to finish it and mill it down. Further it is harder so you will have to put a coating otherwise it can cause more jams inside the barrel. Imagine a steel bullet, firing, it gets hot and metal expands when it heats, so it gets jammed mid barrel, you are firing full or rapid semi auto, so you fire two more rounds into the barrel with a round stuck in it. Can you imagine what would happen next?

Also, bullets made from harder materials would cause excessive barrel wear as well.

Wooden bullets have a short range of just a couple hundred meters before they burn up or loose velocity and drift off left or right and then just wildly. And of course poor penttration other than on soft targets.

Ceramics are used for indoor use on senstive targets and mainly on soft targets, they will penetrate soft targets ie, a person not using body armor. But when they hit a rigid target they explode into dust.

I personaly would use steel core ammo with either a hard well lubed lead coat, or even a copper coat <raid the telephone lines and other electrical equipment to give a jacket for your bullets to protect your bullets and give them better more traditional ballistics.


Now, as I see it, to make shells:

Mortars you can cast or mill the rounds or a combination of both. Cast them with finish them with some mill work. Fill them with explosive and then screw on a fuse. Then, add your propelant charges which is done in the field.

The same can be done with artillery rounds. Just on a larger scale. And there you have a early version of a HE round.

The fuse is the bigger design challenge. A mortar the tail fin can be semi complicated to build since it is one more step over a regular shell.


Anti Tank rounds:

Since these are high velocity rounds. I would do the following,


Cast, then mill them down.

Put them on a spindle or centrifuge even a car tire balancer and put it for a spin to see if it is balanced right. If it isn't you will have an irradict round which is dangerous.

Measure it with calipers for the proper tolerances for that round.

Fill it with the explosive olike a shaped charge,

Make and install your fuse assembly.


As for making the rounds:


You would need to set up an industry or factory to make or preform several of the processes at the same time so you have a steady flow of the items. Or at the very leastr have a stockpile of parts rather than custom make each part.

Fuse assemblies can be made and hopefully universal for the newly made rounds fitting several calibers and types of rounds. And of course you will need some folks in a shop making the components for the fuses as well as some folks putting them together into a complete assembly. I figure half a dozen people.

Casing, however many people needed to forge the casing, this I can see being contracted out with a factory who smelts iron.

A couple people running a milling machine and one person putting it on the balance.


A group who brews the explosive at another building a distance from the rest of the factory for safety purposes. They can easily produce more explosive than is immediatly needed so this would be operated monthly or bi monthly. And surpluses can be use for other products like claymores and handgrenades which can be made from cheaply cast pot metal.

Then one group pours the explosive in the shell and then the rest is assembled.

As I said you can have the entire staff of say two dozen people working on 1 aspect at a time when they build a large enough supply of components they stop and begin working on the other aspect, and so on and so on.


The manufacture of explosive rounds is more complex than standad rifle and pistol bullets as they have more components. I mean one can make molds for pistol or rifle bullets easily enough, to the poind you can mold 50 at a time. 50 holes, fill them with molten let, let harden a couple minutes. Do it again. Figure 5 minutes to pour and harden, inside an hour you have made 600 projectiles <thats 20 30 round magazines> And if you have more than 1 mold per person or more people doing this, well heck, 5 molds per person seems doable, times however many people you have at the task. You can make a large number of projectiles in a very short time.

Gun powder, I can not see a person making less than a keg at a time, it is to much work.

Brass, reform it, with a progressive press or even a single stage you can resize 1 case every three seconds, and with an automatice press its faster.

And then give half a dozen workers a progressive press where once the press cycles you are producing 1 complete round with each pull of the lever, or if its a automatic press, figure 1 round a second as long as you keep the components of powder, primers, projectiles and casings fed. Figure 5 people with a press and you can turn out a few hundred round an hour, I forget what Dillon advertising the output of some of their presses. But the components are easily made and easily assembled when compared to explosive rounds.

I am guessing with the components for say a mortar already, between inspection and assembly it would take lets see,

1 or 2 minutes to put the casing in balancer and test it.

2 minutes to measure it

1 minute to mount the round in a stand

2 minutes to fill body with liquid explosive that hardens or gels

10 to 30 minutes for explosive to solidify.

1 minute to screw on top piece of shell.

1 minute for final inspection

And then figure a couple minutes to move shells from each stage of assembly to the next.

Fuses are added in the field prior to firing


As for making the components, that is another storey entirely.

[jester]

Remember I posted a couple years ago a means of manufacturing large amounts of small arms ammo. This basicaly how it went,

Using the legions of disabled people now working in ammo factories.

1 group in a building deprimes and resizes rounds. they have an easily made single stage press. And all they do is put a used round in the shellholder and pull the lever down, then remove the resized round and place it in a bin,box, bucket or container.

The bin is now taken to another table where a guy reprimes the casing. You need 1 hand for this task. Simply place the casing in the primer, then squeeze the handle. This is placed in a block with 50 apropriatly sized holes. These blocks are placed in a tray. When it is finished it is taken to another station.

POWDER STATION:

A person with a bucket of powder has a special spoon that holds just the right amount of powder and with funnel fills each casing.

Or, he has a specail flask that pours the desired amount of powder. When he has a tray filled of blocks it goes to the next step.

Another battery of guys with a single stage press. These guys place a round in the case and pull the handle and the bullet is done. It is now placed in another bucket where it is packed and shipped to the front.


Now, imagine a large building where 4 long rows of table each with 20 or 30 people at them each row does 1 task then it is sent to the next table. With such a system of mass production each person turning out say 20 to 30 pieces a minute you can turn out fiarly large amounts of ammunition in a day. At 20 rounds completed a minute durring an 8 hour day comes out to just under 9000 rounds. Multiply that times the number assembly teams and you can turn out a massive amount of ammo. And it is all using disabled persons, people with no legs or who are paralyzed or even a few with 1 hand or arm, or blind thus making them productive in the T2K world.

Now imagine dozens of workshops like this, so small arms ammo would not be a major issue.

And that is using single stage presses. Now if you had the same amount of people with progressive presses that turn out a fresh round with each pull of a handle then you can make even larger quantities of ammo.

[kalos72]

That was awesome Jester. Thank you.

To recap:

Casing
Brass casing is best on small arms rounds because you can reload - steel is a one shot deal. Everything over 20mm/mortar rounds will use a steel case anyway and cant be reloaded.

Projectile
Lead is suggested but jacketed steel or ceramics can be used for small arms. 20mm+ will all be steel usually.

New question: What about shotgun shells?

Production numbers are really off for me though. I understand actual experience might be easier but I need to some how develop numbers based around either the core rules or some sort of mathematical formula or soemthing.

[jester]

Shotgun shells are:

Aluminuim seen but not used.

Soft Steel shells, used they are okay.

Plastic, is the norm here in the US, reloadable, although I do not reload shotgun yet. I hear you can do it half a dozen times.

PAPER or Cardboard shells, used them. They work pretty well. Although of course caution should be used when using them around wet enviroments, these of course can not be reloaded.

Shotgun shells require,

The shell hull

Primer or Cap

Powder

Wadding

Shot

put in a new primer
add powder
wadding,
shot
crimp the top over

Its that simple.

And yes, you can use damn near anything as shot in a shotgun, dimes like on young guns, glass, nails, chain, lead, rocks dang near anything.



As for production numbers, I am using real world experience with common sense on how long it takes to put a round in a reloading press and pull the handle, with experience the numbers are greater.

As for the explosive manufacturing, again calipers, putting a item in a vice, hitting the balancer, pouring liquid into a mold, although the setting time for the liquid explosive is a guess. But anyone who has worked on an assembly line or in a similiar factory setting can tell you, you can become pretty fast doing the same motion over and over and over.

Further, if I had the data from Dillion Reloading they actualy give the output of rounds produced per minute.

As for my figures, I simply had a team, 1 person preforming each step in the cartridge assembly line. Giving them roughly 3 seconds per round which is rather long to be honest. that equals 20 rounds per minute, times 60 minutes times 8 hours.

so, 3 sec per round=20 rounds per minute

20 rpm times 60 minutes= 1200 rounds per hour

1200 times an 8 hour work day= 9600

So, 1 four man crew could have a quota of 9600 to 10,000 rounds per day.

And like I said with a progressive reloader and a support crew keeping the components ready you could probably put out een more rounds than that.