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Other Jacket-Forming Technology

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Impact extrusion process

Although the drawn jacket is still the most common method, newer technologies are emerging. Like coining, impact extrusion of jackets is performed in closed dies and can often produce a long rifle bullet jacket in fewer operations than required to draw the same jacket. Impact extrusion provides improved control over wall concentricity and produces a finished jacket edge.

Jackets can be formed through chemical electroplating, bonding the jacket to the lead core. Separation of the jacket from the core was once a major hindrance to bullet performance. The process of plating jackets was first used for fully encased jacketed handgun bullets. These bullets start as an alloyed lead core that is swaged from wire. The core is plated to build up a jacket of uniform thickness.

Speer Gold Dot forming stages. Swaged Lead Core, Jacket Plated Over Core, Initial Cavity Formation, Final Forming

Images courtesy of Alliant Techsystems, Speer-Bullets, CCI Ammunition

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