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Hey, I am on my way to pick up a batch of powder for powder coating. I live in Canada and don't have easy access to the Harbour Freight powder that it sounds like everyone uses. However, Princess Auto (a similar company) sells a Power Fist brand powder in red, blue, and black. I'm wondering if A) anyone has any experience with this powder, and B) if so, which colour functions best? Thanks for your help!
If it's colors you want then my suggestion is moot. I wanted to get away from lubing with Alox (too messy) and my Lyman lubrisizer was just too putzy and tedious. After some internet research I found a dry, non-baked on, simple lubricant called hexagonal Boron Nitrate (or hBN). It makes coated bullets slick as heck (I had a hard time picking them up with my fingers.) It is non-toxic. (It's used in women's make-up!) It is very heat tolerant (up to 2500 degrees f) and it is applied in a tumbler with steel BBs and little rods in about 40 minutes. Baking is NOT needed or suggested. The coated bullets are separated from the media and toweled off lightly. Finished lead bullets are kind of a sexy grey/black color. Copper jacket bullets come out with kind of thin-misted whitish look. The stuff isn't very expensive and goes a long long way. I'm sure it's available in Canada if you look around.
Smoke probably ships to canada
I have used Powerfist powder. It works as advertised, but the colours are not as advertised. Much lighter/faded than one would expect. Red is especially disappointing, more of a pastel orange.
Emerald coatings is a Canadian company online that has powder, also if there is a KMS Tools close they have a good verity of colours and they work very well. Some Canadian Gun Nutz guys have used Princesses Auto powder with good results, they just don’t have a lot of colors
Look for polyester high gloss powders for best results
I have used the black color from Princess Auto for the last couple of months without the bb's and it works just fine.
He does. I was quoted something like $40 for a pound of powder.Quote:
Originally Posted by rancher1913
Black prom princess auto kind of sucks in my experience. Check out tool blue from emerald coating. One of the best powders to use that we can easily get up here.
smoke absolutely ships to Canada
Hey thanks guys. I ended up getting the blue. This is my first time powder coating, so I'm learning, however it seemed to work OK. I got some lee 113-309 soup cans going at about 1400 fps without any leading. I'm going to try and get them going a little faster this weekend. Maybe try some different colours out. I don't really care as to how the colour comes out at this point as long as it WORKS. Do different colours often perform significantly better than others, or is the difference pretty small?
Were those from Emerald Coatings as well?Quote:
Originally Posted by Grmps
Hi. I have used princess auto black. Is was disappointed compared to emeralds tool blue. A few on CGN have gone to gloss clear. Like others here I was drawn into quick stellar results, then less than stellar results. Listen to what others are passing on and don't get greedy, and you will produce excellent boolits. Simple small batches work the best, don't forget to smash test. I didn't know smoke shipped up here, that awesome I will be ordering soon!!!!!
Be well
This is very interesting. I have so many questions. Is there a separate thread on this topic? Is this hBN readily available and under what trade brand name? Is it similar to moly?Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveK
Thanks
I agree. I suggest that you simply google "hexagonal boron nitride" or "hBN bullet lube" or something close to these, and you'll get a boat-load of links to articles and vendors. The place where I'm buying it is "www.davidtubb.com/bn-boron-coating".Quote:
Originally Posted by finstr
This, so far, is the easiest bullet lube method I have found. A couple of the articles discussed using hBN on jacketed or solid bullets, which seems unnecessary to me, but they suggest that it improves bullet accuracy and bullet speed. While I cannot speak to the speed aspect of hBN use at this point, I'm very eager to take my chrony out to the range and test that claim for myself with my 7mm-08 and some Hornady ELD-X bullets.
I think some of the colored powder coated lead bullet colors are very sexy and cool but, on the balance, it's putzy enough just to size lead bullets with a simple Lee sizing die before I tumble them with hBN then towel them off, and adding a sorting and baking process to the mix is just too much. Liquid Alox was simple but that stuff could gum-up a seating die badly in less that 50 bullets. Since I use a progressive reloading press, I would check bullet OAL every ten-twenty rounds or so. It was maddening to find my bullets were getting shorter and shorter with each pull of the lever. So I remove the seating stem from the die and remove an accumulation of alox (which looks like soft ear wax) from the stem, screw it back in, readjust for proper length and then continue for 20-30 more bullets before cleaning the darn thing again. That made my ancient Lyman lubrisizer look appealing... oy vey! HBN has made my reloading life a ton easier and soon I can tell you if it has contributed to my shooting accuracy too.
Smoke's powders WORK, and for most here, quite a bit better than those of other (maybe cheaper?) suppliers. He ships to Canada. With original cost, shipping costs, and CDN$$ exchange, his powders are 'expensive' but they are QUALITY and a pound does hundreds, nay, thousands of boolits: I have a dozen colors and all WORK. He is a member here and we should support each other, yes??
remember you can mix powders to fine tune colors (though I sometimes get a truly ugly color)
I just add a different color each time I recharge the tumbling container. (I get bored easily)
bullets don't care what color they are and no one has complained about the color of the bullets as the leave the barrel
I would suggest you order your powder from Smoke, if not, I would suggest you order solid color powder from Prismatic Powder. I would also suggest you check out the safety precautions before fooling with HBN.
Excellent thanks stevek I’ll look that stuff up. It sounds somewhat similar to mica powder. I use mica for the shotgun reloads. It’s a very slippery type of powder.
I've tried Princess Auto's powder with just some success. I find it doesn't flow incredibly well when baking, and an even thin coat is difficult to achieve. I tried the blue colour.
I had much better coverage with Emerald's powder. I've had bullets after tumbling in a plastic container look pretty "iffy"... shiny parts showing where they bounced off one another, and PC missing from tiny imperfections. When baking with this powder, the melted PC flows across and into these imperfections much better than the Princess Auto's powder. I used the Tool Blue from Emerald Powders due to its popularity on the Canadian forum.