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I am sorry if the question has already been answered, I have not found it in my search. Will harbor freight red react with any powder? What about epoxy powder vs poly powder? Will the nitro in the powder eat away the coating during long term storage? Thanks
This has been much discussed. Some folks are careful to store loaded rounds with the bullet up, I just try not to load too far in advance for lots of reasons.
At one time I’d put a couple bullets in various jar of powder to watch what happens, but I don’t know where they are now.
1st culprit is not baking the powder coating according to the manufacturers' specifications and not getting a full cure of the powder coating.
Manufacturers state to bake at XXX degrees for XX minutes AFTER:
1) the surface temperature of the material (boolits) reaches XXX°
2) the powder starts to flow
the powder coating will LOOK GOOD after 10 minutes @ 375 BUT is not fully cured.
I did some experimenting and found the baking for 25 minutes at 400° in a preheated oven with the floor of the oven covered in a heat-retaining material (I use ceramic BBQ briquettes, others use fire brick, lava rock, anything that retains heat and helps the oven recover faster after the door has bee opened.
this is what can happen if you bake for less than 25 min
https://i.imgur.com/2TgCAcZ.jpg
I would not want to rely on this cartridge to fire accurately.
+1 on proper curing time at proper temperature lessens the chance of any reaction contamination of failure to pretty near 0. Meaning the proper temperature is reached and the boolit and powder are KEPT at that temp for the manufacturers specific time. A way to measure the temperature other than the ovens temp gauge is strongly recommended
Err on the longer time when baking PC as the base material may take longer to get up to the required temperature than you think. Also use a proper temperature gauge to make sure your oven reaches the required temperature.
I have a small business that does custom PC work and I quickly learnt that baking for longer than what you think is needed is usually best practice.
This is an easy problem to solve. Ausglock over on the hi-tek thread came up with the answer. Buy a digital thermometer on amazon. They are cheap. Make sure you get some K-type thermocouples with it. Drill a hole halfway into a coated bullet. Coated bullets absorb heat different than bare lead. Insert the thermocouple in the drilled bullet and secure it. I use hi temp aluminum tape. Lay it on top of your bullets when you put them in the oven.The thermocouple will not interfere with the door closing. You will know exactly what your bullet temp is. When your bullets reach the manufactuers recommmended temp. start a timer. Say your powder says 385 for 10 minutes. When the bullets reach 385 start a timer counting down for 10 minutes. Easy,not expensive,works for hi-tek or powder coat. No guess work.
@slide, I really like that, very simple.
Thanks for all the replies. So if I understand everyone correctly a properly cured paint will not react with any powder even if in contact for years? Thanks again
I have been using it for about three years now. I do hi-tek and powdercoat. It has made the coating on my bullets better. You can use this setup for other things. I preheat my molds on a hotplate. Stick a thermocuple in one of the cavities,you won't overheat and warp your mold. I don't have a P.I.D. Ordered a probe off of amazon ($7.00). Probe goes in the melting pot. I can keep an eye on my alloy temp. If you heat your bullets before coating no need to put them in the oven for 4 minutes. Put a thermocouple in the bullets,put a hair dryer on them,only takes a minute or two to get them to 140F. I am sure there are other uses. You can buy a single channel up to a four channel I think. You can run four thermocouples if you want. Multi tasking.
And, keep in mind that Alliant's Sport Pistol is formulated to not eat at the coating.