Is this the infamous and unobtainium H&N 32 cal HGWC bullet?

https://www.hn-sport.de/en/reloading/wc-hb-313-100-gr-l

All except these are .313 and not .314.

Bill

Greetings,

Yes, that is the excellent H&N 100 grain Lead HBWC, match greased.

They come in 0.312", 0.313", and 0.314".

The challenge is getting them from Germany to the USA.

Darius (Doc) Young would literally load his suitcase with them when he traveled to Europe for shooting events.

Cheers,

Dave

fc60 wrote:

The challenge is getting them from Germany to the USA.

Darius (Doc) Young would literally load his suitcase with them when he traveled to Europe for shooting events.

You can’t do that now.

I know that firearms and live ammo are restricted, but lead bullets?

Why are they any different to airgun pellets (which I know for sure can be mailed from Europe to overseas destinations).

Shipping will not be cheap - probably as least as much as the cost of the bullets.

Vo max 320 m/s 1049 fps wow!

I was not allowed to carry airgun pellets on the plane so they may have similar rules.

I asked "if they were fishing sinkers would that be ok?"  Oh yes!

Roy:  The problem isn’t necessarily the law, it’s what the Customs officer thinks it is,  he sees a suitcase full of “bullets” and goes off the rails.

Well. If I really, really wanted 500 of those bullets I would find someone in Europe who would send them by ordinary airmail (or even surface mail). Declare them as components (not a lie). It is not (AFAIK) illegal to send such things, so the sender has no risk. Worst case they get stuck at US Customs, but it is also (AFAIK) not illegal to import them either.

I'd say that there is a pretty good chance they would get through. 

Back in the day, I've carried all kinds of weird and wonderful things across some pretty iffy borders (no, not the kind of things that get you put in jail, or worse), very rare to get stopped.

Yeah, back in the day...me too.

Greetings,

Mr. Langlois, of Cibles Canada Targets, used to import the H&N bullets into Canada. At the time, there were no restrictions shipping to the USA. I received many cases at my local Post Office.

No longer.

Last I spoke with him he said it took up to six months to get all the permits aligned for export out of Germany.

It has been said, "It's not illegal unless you get caught.".

So, best of luck smuggling them out of Europe.

Cheers,

Dave

If I had 1 bullet I would reverse engineer it into a mold. What’s the big deal? Cast it or better yet from wire swage it! What am I missing here

Sometimes there’s “magic Fairy dust” in the lubricant...

James Hensler wrote:If I had 1 bullet I would reverse engineer it into a mold. What’s the big deal? Cast it or better yet from wire swage it! What am I missing here

I probably have one squirrelled away. I might even know which corner of the garage it's in.

I would defer to the poster directly above you (the esteemed Senator Wilson from Washington) for the answer to, "What am I missing here?"

ETA: I do have a few of the .314 in my stash. If you would like to reverse engineer them, I'm happy to send you a sample pack. PM me for details.

I have 2000 of them. I'm saving them until I get too old and decrepit to shoot 45 in centerfire. There was someone on the list bumping up .312 to .314. I heard they were just as good.

Bill

I don't understand why they are so unobtainium. It can't be because of a trade restriction with H&N in general because their airgun pellets are readily available in the US.  Is this a specific import restriction into the US or export restriction out of Germany?  If the latter why does Krale have them for sale?

I saw a relatively recent post suggesting that Neal Stepp of I.S.S. was considering importing some.  You 32 SWL shooters might want to check with him.

Dr.Don wrote:I saw a relatively recent post suggesting that Neal Stepp of I.S.S. was considering importing some.  You 32 SWL shooters might want to check with him.

I sent an email to him asking the question.

beeser wrote:I don't understand why they are so unobtainium. It can't be because of a trade restriction with H&N in general because their airgun pellets are readily available in the US.  Is this a specific import restriction into the US or export restriction out of Germany?  If the latter why does Krale have them for sale?

You can thank the global restrictions being placed on the arms trade... in the US there are two agencies involved, Department ofvState and Department of Commerce.  The State department covers “weapons of war” and Commerce handles “Sporting” arms.  The problem is that they defined “sporting” to mean shotguns and air guns.  Rifles and pistols including target arms and cowboy guns are “weapons of war”.  It also includes ammunition and components.  Each country has its own requirements for export licensing.  Difficult to justify spending thousands of $ for a shipment giving $5000 profit.

The EU has looser requirements within the EU.

Greetings,

I have reverse engineered the H&N bullet long ago.

I swage them as needed in various diameters for the pistol I need to feed.

I have sent drawings to many members of the punch and base for machining specifications.

IT IS A LOT OF WORK TO SWAGE A BULLET FROM SCRATCH!!! It is much easier to open a box of H&N and start loading.

The best option, thus far, is to "bump" up the Speer 98 HBWC to 0.314" or 0.315". These shoot almost as well as the H&N.

The export problem is with Germany. H&N has to apply for an export permit along with the recipient. I suspect this is due to us all being potential terrorists.

Hopefully Neil Stepp is importing them, he is a good guy to deal with.

Those of you saving your stash of H&N for later use...

Keep an eye on the lube. It reacts with the atmosphere and turns into a white crusty crud.

Cheers,

Dave

I'm one of the appreciative recipients of Dave's H&N drawing.  I contacted RCE and asked Richard if he could produce a die and punches to copy the HBWC bullet from the drawing.  He in turn stated it would be much easier to work from the actual bullet, which is the reason why I asked another member here to send me a few samples.  That doesn't make sense to me but that's the lead I'm following.  I also plan to solicit a few local machinist where I live and draw from my limited machining experience to do the same.  I belong to a local machinist group that has a fairly broad and experienced base.  Collectively it might be interesting to see if something productive can be accomplished.  If not I'll probably learn a thing or two in the process and that's always fun.

Greetings,

A friend sent a sample H&N bullet to a "Professional" swage die supplier and they chose not to make it identical.

Rather, they machined the punches "their way".

The perils of out-sourcing your work.

Once the job leaves your Kave, you are no longer in control of the process.

Cheers,

Dave

Dave,
Your message was and is well received, which is the reason why I intend to keep the process close at hand by doing the work myself (if possible) or working with a local machinist.

I had heard through the grapevine that H&N 32 HBWC machinery was broke down and they were not making bullets for a while. Apparently they don't sell enough of them to warrant an immediate repair of the machinery. That was probably 18 months to 2 years ago. I had heard before the covid BS that there might be more being imported into the US.
Jon

Jon Eulette wrote:I had heard through the grapevine that H&N 32 HBWC machinery was broke down and they were not making bullets for a while. Apparently they don't sell enough of them to warrant an immediate repair of the machinery. That was probably 18 months to 2 years ago. I had heard before the covid BS that there might be more being imported into the US.
Jon

Possibly but while checking with all of the US H&N dealers (online) none listed bullets on their website, plenty of airgun pellets but no bullets.  That sort of suggests to me a general restriction of bullet importation to the US.

beeser wrote:

Jon Eulette wrote:I had heard through the grapevine that H&N 32 HBWC machinery was broke down and they were not making bullets for a while. Apparently they don't sell enough of them to warrant an immediate repair of the machinery. That was probably 18 months to 2 years ago. I had heard before the covid BS that there might be more being imported into the US.
Jon

Possibly but while checking with all of the US H&N dealers (online) none listed bullets on their website, plenty of airgun pellets but no bullets.  That sort of suggests to me a general restriction of bullet importation to the US.

 Ot a restriction of importation, it is on the German end.  Ever since 9/11 there has been an ever-increasing (it seems) level of effort required to ship almost anything gun related.  It really isn’t difficult to get the permits, but it’s a major hassle and adds months to the process.  

This lunacy is also affecting the US.  It has come down to the Feds chasing down Canadians buying stuff while visiting the US.  If the seller KNOWS the buyer is Canadian, he commits a crime of an “Unlicensed Export” of Arnaments.  ATF isn’t likely to prosecute one offense, but they can.  They’ve also charged and deported Canadians.  Not common, but not rare either.