Powder Coating Boolits

[Smoke4320]

tryed Harbor Freight PC gun .. hooked .. I took the broiler pan included in the toaster over turned it upside down..superglued hex nuts in rows..covered with tin foil. poked holes where the hex nuts are .. PC noce down , turn over coat again size and go .. its all good.. 458 socom at 1650 FPS and no leading

[bryonbush]

nice idea Smoke! i was thinking about doing it with 38 cases but was wondering if i would need to use something like jb weld or if glue would to complete the circut. but never thought of Nuts.

[unfy]

Why are so many folks building mountains instead of mole hills?

The point of the oven builds isn't necessarily to melt stuff at 2000F....

Nor is it necessarily to bake 5000 boolits at once.

The point of the larger oven build is to be able to bake a few more boolits at once sure ... but also to be able to powder coat and bake larger objects as well. Powder coat is a handy thing to apply to surfaces, so being able to do larger items is ... well... handy. Folks powder coat car tire rims, bike frames, etc etc etc. Ya aint gonna fit that stuff into a toaster oven.

Does my $20-$30 toaster oven cook boolits just fine ? Oh yes.

Would a $40-$75 large toaster oven from wally world suit the needs of this thread for coating a larger quantity of boolits ? Darn tooting. And it's easier than building your own oven etc as well.

As far as materials and discussions on the building the larger oven and concerns about temperature.... no, we're not trying to hit 2000F. In a larger oven (possibly not necessary for even 24x24x24 ?) the insulation goes a long way for getting more even thermal stability within the oven. I dunno if anyone here is insisting on having insulation for such a size... and it's prolly NOT required. In all honesty, if your oven is large enough - rock wool insulation is easy and $45 gets you all you'll need for small to moderate sized ovens ($45 is 4 strips of 4'x2' I think ? Or is it 8 strips ?).

As far as some of the stuff I've been posting in regards to the pink foam, polystyrene, and recently the foil lined cardboard for ductwork or whatever (panning?) ... the point here is attempting to reduce the cost of the oven build. Wood could possibly ignite at 400-450F (especially any constructed wood things that involve glue.... ODF, plywood, etc). "Real wood" (not ply/odf/etc) should be able to handle 400-450F, especially if it's got something between it and the oven interior. Thus, some cheap 1x4's as the exterior (or just framing) and a cheap panel of *something* on the interior makes for a cheaper oven build. White styrofoam is out - it'll have melty issues. The pink foam might work. Gypsum / concrete board would definitely work. Etc.

A sheet metal box can be expensive to build ($25-$50 a sheet and you'd need 3-6 sheets).... there's some HVAC ductwork sheet metal that's only $9 a sheet that would quite possibly do the trick as well... and lastly, there's the galvanized siding that is inexpensive but has ridges in it.

If I can get a PC oven build that's 24x24x24 or 24x24x36 and costs $50 or less, that's awesome and preferable to a toaster oven.

---

I'm thinking that a two burner camp stove could bring up 375* petty easy.

Kinda don't like this idea myself. If you had a huge deflection thing for the flame to avoid direct heating... maybe. But you're also exposing an ignitable powder to an open flame.

[Edubya]

You said all that pretty well.

The flame stuff was brought to my attention by a personal friend of mine. We were talking about firebrick and he said those things are real expensive but up to 4-500 degrees most any stone could handle it. I'm gonna be checking with some resources and get more savvy on this thing, it has really peaked my interest.

I started thinking about this rock/brick stuff some more and if the brick were isolated form the flame, the brick would transfer its heat pretty well. There is special mortar for fire places and such.

Gives me something to do besides smelting, shooting and liying.

EW

[unfy]

You said all that pretty well.

The flame stuff was brought to my attention by a personal friend of mine. We were talking about firebrick and he said those things are real expensive but up to 4-500 degrees most any stone could handle it. I'm gonna be checking with some resources and get more savvy on this thing, it has really peaked my interest.

I started thinking about this rock/brick stuff some more and if the brick were isolated form the flame, the brick would transfer its heat pretty well. There is special mortar for fire places and such.

Gives me something to do besides smelting, shooting and liying.

EW

http://www.dansworkshop.com/2008/03/...ace-2/#more-86

I picked up the plans for $4, worth the purchase. Gets you an electric shop furnace capable of melting aluminum and maybe brass for $180-$250. Firebrick, fire place cement / mortar, percolite as refactory stuff, etc. T'is a good read, I'd suggest it.

Even at 400-500 degrees, things get unwieldy though. So many common construction materials burn, melt, etc. Most bricks / cement blocks can probably handle it (albeit it makes the device heavy). Be sure to properly heat things up the first time around to get rid of moisture / temper things. I dunno so much about brick *transferring* heat, though... it's more of an insulator.

As far as the metal duct work sheet metal I was referring to:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Master-Fl...n#.UYr3_7U4ui4

$10 - 24x36. It's 30ga... which makes it pretty darn thin.

As a comparison:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/24-in-x-3...9#.UYr4TrU4ui4

$20 - 24x36 - 26ga. Twice the cost.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/MD-Buildi...9#.UYr4q7U4ui4

$22 - 36x36 aluminum.

http://www.menards.com/main/building.../p-1936273.htm

$18 - 96x36 galvanized, with ridges.

---

To bring it slightly back on topic -- it might be a bit before I can fiddle with new HP mold. The compressor-be-quiet box is nearly built, though \o/. Erik's work at www.hollowpointmold.com is excellent and I'd suggest him to anyone without hesitation.

After being able to fiddle with HP mold, should be able to build the new hollow point stems for powder coat stuff I've talked about (have the 5/32 tubing and everything...). Should make powder powder coating hollow points easy, I hope.

[DangerousDrummer]

Range report, powder coated hand cast 285, 350 and 420 gn for 458 SOCOM AR15.

All were seated to 2.10 OAL
All cycled ok with no unburned powder
No leading, and the barrel was clean.

I started with the 350s.
Powder was H4198 (I usually use I4198 but could not get any)
35.5 gn load was running 1642 to 1670
36 gn was much more consistent around 1672, and was also pretty accurate. Overall this load with the 350 gn powder coated was not much different than the Berry's 350 FN plated.
36.6 gn produced a sliver of lead that still had the powder coating on it.

Next was the 285 gn.
This bullet was hard to seat when loading. For some reason it wanted to tilt in the neck which caused some rejections when gauge checking.
Powder was H4198
None of the speeds for the various loads were consistent.
30 gn 1685 -1711
31 gn 1819-1828
32 gn 1799-1888
33 gn 1893-1912
34 gn 1960-2041 this load produced such bad flyers that one of them hit one my diffuser rods 15 ft away. Luckily it did not damage the chrono itself. These bullet/load combinations hurt my shoulder! It was like someone punching me hard with each shot. With my blood thinners, I will probably be black and blue tomorrow. I may just scratch the 285s as not fun to load, and not fun to shoot.

Now the 420s. I was a little apprehensive after getting punched by the 285s, but I had loaded these with Reloader 7.
I started these with a 27 gn load. Speed was 1080-1218. Group was acceptable.
27.5 gn first shot a bullseye 1179 fps grouping was great.
28 gn another bullseye, grouping still great 1197 fps.
28.5 gn another bullseye! 1235 fps. For grins I pulled the next shot up to the 100yd target, within 2" of spot on!
29 gn 1256-1267 starting to pull up.

420 gn analysis. Even though the speed ranged from 1179-1235 fps for the accurate loads, the accuracy was much better than the 285s or 350s, including the Berrys plated. I guess the accuracy comes from the longer total length of the bullet which makes it more stable even at slower speeds. This would also explain why one of the 285s almost took out my chrono. It was going too fast for the length of the bullet to be stable. The kick of the 420s was less painful than either the 285s or the 350s.

I am not sure at this point why I would want to shoot anything other than the 420s. They are accurate, don't require as much powder and are easy on my shoulder. While they do use a little more lead when casting, the powder coating is easy and effective as a lube and gas check. It looks like I have found food for my 458 that is inexpensive, accurate and most of all reliable.

[unfy]

DD: awesome report \o/

I'm kinda surprised the 285's kicked as hard as they did. Almost makes me wonder if they were getting jammed up (or slightly cockeyed) inside the barrel somehow causing a pressure spike etc.

420's seem like a definite winner. Sure, ya burn a bit more lead... but... sounds like it was the smoothest running and best load ya had <3

[Russel Nash]

Unfy wrote:

...Nor is it necessarily to bake 5000 boolits at once...

THE HECK YOU SAY!

Once I have my wire jig frame perfected I am going to rule the powder coated boolit world with my access to a walk in powder coat oven.

BWHAHAHAHA!!!!!

[Ken73]

Remember too - you can also use an oven for other bake-on finishes. I've got a custom "barrel" oven I made out of a stove top burner and 6" vent pipe so I could bake on some spray-on finishes to some old shotguns that had been through some rough times. Pretty sure you can get "oven" type insulation and build yourself a nice oven any size you want; if you want to bake larger objects (again, the advantage of powder coating - it doesn't just apply to boolits!) you can make an oven to fit the object if need be, or use the IR lamps as well. The "barrel" oven I made didn't have any external insulation; didn't really need it as it was only used a few times.

[savage308]

my spacing is 1.5" C.T.C. AND EACH ROW offset to give as much capacity as possible because I have a small black and decker brand toaster oven. When I tried 45 acp boolits just sitting base down on the 22lr casings it did very good but the next tray I fab up will be 2"C.T.C. to see if I can get better coverage. so far the yellow H.F pc does better for me then the red color.i saw online a company sold high heat black 1200 f. for bar-b-q grills and I might try some. my wife has misplaced her dig. camera so no pics till she finds it. I think you get the idea on the trays. they seem to be the best way for me to get a good base boolit coat with minimum effort.

[Russel Nash]

Remember too - you can also use an oven for other bake-on finishes. I've got a custom "barrel" oven I made out of a stove top burner and 6" vent pipe so I could bake on some spray-on finishes to some old shotguns that had been through some rough times. Pretty sure you can get "oven" type insulation and build yourself a nice oven any size you want; if you want to bake larger objects (again, the advantage of powder coating - it doesn't just apply to boolits!) you can make an oven to fit the object if need be, or use the IR lamps as well. The "barrel" oven I made didn't have any external insulation; didn't really need it as it was only used a few times.

This one job I was on, we had a "hotbox" for our lunches or meals. It was a plywood box on the outside, say like maybe a cube, 3 foot by 3 foot by 3 foot. On the inside was some of that foil faced celotex insulation, maybe just 1/2" thick. There was some sort of light bulb or bulbs inside, might have been just a regular 100 watt incandescent bulb(s). Definitely was NOT heat lamps. We would show up for work in the morning, put our lunch in the hotbox and by noon our food would be piping hot. One guy forgot to punch some vent holes in his can of soup, and supposedly the can ended up exploding before we got back down for lunch. Made a mess, and got soup all over everybody's else's tupperware containers inside the hotbox, which p.o.'ed those guys.

[unfy]

my spacing is 1.5" C.T.C. AND EACH ROW offset to give as much capacity as possible because I have a small black and decker brand toaster oven. When I tried 45 acp boolits just sitting base down on the 22lr casings it did very good but the next tray I fab up will be 2"C.T.C. to see if I can get better coverage. so far the yellow H.F pc does better for me then the red color.i saw online a company sold high heat black 1200 f. for bar-b-q grills and I might try some. my wife has misplaced her dig. camera so no pics till she finds it. I think you get the idea on the trays. they seem to be the best way for me to get a good base boolit coat with minimum effort.

I know 1.0 inch on centers for 40s&w tends to feel a bit close / tight. Been thinking about a 1.5 CTC jig. Then again, if I ever get a bigger oven built, 2 inch centers might possibly do well.

I have yet to try reusing the powder I reclaimed from my 'paint hood', but that's another concern with larger spaces between centers - wasted powder coat material.

The high heat black is prolly a ceramic based powder I think. It's prolly akin to the high temp "paint" stuff ya can get in rattle cans for grills and motor parts. Hit a hardware or automotive store and read some labels (they tend to require curing / baking, just like PC).

Pretty sure you can get "oven" type insulation and build yourself a nice oven any size you want;

That'd be rock wool insulation. Most large hardware stores should have some (although I think my local home depot dont). Good to 2000F AFAIK. $45-$55 should get you a decent amount.

There's also that weird 'denim' based stuff which is supposed to have an A fire rating (don't burn). I'm sorry but I don't understand - how do cloth fibers NOT burn ?

Remember too - you can also use an oven for other bake-on finishes. I've got a custom "barrel" oven I made out of a stove top burner and 6" vent pipe so I could bake on some spray-on finishes to some old shotguns that had been through some rough times. Pretty sure you can get "oven" type insulation and build yourself a nice oven any size you want; if you want to bake larger objects (again, the advantage of powder coating - it doesn't just apply to boolits!) you can make an oven to fit the object if need be, or use the IR lamps as well. The "barrel" oven I made didn't have any external insulation; didn't really need it as it was only used a few times.

There are folks that talk about using heat lamps / IR lamps to cure powder coat. Not a huge fan of the idea myself. Dunno why...

But yeah, the multipurpose oven stuff is my primary drive for wanting to build a bigger oven. Powder coating, ceramic coatings, other heat-treated coatings, etc. There's just a fair amount of stuff that can be done, and a larger space would be real handy. I'm not entirely sure where the "useful practical size" limit is. 24x24x24 gets you a car tire rim. 24x24x36 gets you a 2-2.5 foot long item comfortably.... which would cover stuff such as a gun barrel.

24x24x24 or 24x24x36 seems to really be the sweet spot as far as I can tell.

At 6 inches between racks, ya get 3 racks with 24" tall, or 5 racks at 36" tall. 3 racks of 24x24.... is a lot of boolits. 144 per tray with 2 inch centers, 256 per tray at 1.5 inch centers. Give or take a dozen. That's a healthy amount of boolits to do at once.... and I almost wanna shudder at the fumes it'd put off LOL.

[kweidner]

Built my second trial jig for 9mm rfn yesterday and the flourescent powders came in. I used an old piece of stainless i had, drilled holes in it. I then took once fired non sized .380 cases and drilled the flash hole out so a number 6 bolt would make it through. Bolted them onto the stainless. The boolits fit perfectly up to the first driving band nose down. Gonna do the bottom first, bake, then flip and hit the rfn. Will see if the powder is truly thermo setting.

[popper]

Did someone want pink? I see an advantage in a combined coating booth/oven. Don't have to try to move these suckers.
Attachment 70015
The coating worked, 100% even coverage, on the CB with the wire cast into it (0.015 dia.). I haven't found any diff in accuracy between pre and post coating sizing. I glued a wire on 1 with locktite 406, not much conductivity but coated good. Of course the glue didn't hold when baking. Thud. Still looking into the pin nail gun. A US welder would probably work too.
Dropping the HS blade idea, I'm too shaky to make it work.

[Smoke4320]

nice idea Smoke! i was thinking about doing it with 38 cases but was wondering if i would need to use something like jb weld or if glue would to complete the circut. but never thought of Nuts.

I did the same thing on another broiler pan using smaller nuts for 7MM and 308 boolits .. it works great

two size nuts seem to fit most all the boolit sizes I do .. If hole fit is a little loose for nose shape just add another layer of tin foil

yesterday I shot 300 blackout (lee 309-180) 308 same mold and Rcbs 457-300 using a mix of 94.7% lead 4.05% Antimony and 1.78% tin..According to the lead alloy calc's on this website .. All bullets weighed within .3
all sub moa at 100 yds This has totally changed the way I look at cast boolits .. i am totally hooked

[popper]

Smoke - good report, those PB CBs? How much of the nose was in the nut? Did you push them in hard enough to imprint on the nose? Problem with the RD311170 is that big nose. It doesn't taper until last 0.2 or so. I tried doing that with a foil covered wood block, drilled holes in it, but still couldn't keep them from falling over.

[Russel Nash]

I did the same thing on another broiler pan using smaller nuts for 7MM and 308 boolits .. it works great

two size nuts seem to fit most all the boolit sizes I do .. If hole fit is a little loose for nose shape just add another layer of tin foil

yesterday I shot 300 blackout (lee 309-180) 308 same mold and Rcbs 457-300 using a mix of 94.7% lead 4.05% Antimony and 1.78% tin..According to the lead alloy calc's on this website .. All bullets weighed within .3
all sub moa at 100 yds This has totally changed the way I look at cast boolits .. i am totally hooked

Got a chrono? Any idea how fast the 180 grainer .308 boolits were going?

With a gas check or without?

[Smoke4320]

No gas check ..
not pushed into nut just balanced in the holes .. yes balance and steady hand movements are required .. I have done 4 small batches so far .. so getting the feel of it ..
On the 308 size I powder coated nose down heated in oven, cooled, flipped and coated the nose the heated again (10 Minutes at 300) HF Red Powder .. so a totally covered boolit.. Going to try nose exposed next time
The 458 I coated nose down only..so bottom and grooves were coated .. Tip is exposed lead

all boolits lee push thru sized after Powdercoating 308 to 311 and 458 to 4595 ( machinst honed for me from 457 to 4595)
308 and 300 were approx 1200 FPS .. will be working up and down from there

458 socom was approx 1600 FPS ..

these were original loads.. figured I would need to do a lot of development so I did not set up the chrony.. boy was I wrong..
totally satisfyed with the socom so that load is nailed down ..
trying 458-500 3r and 500F later this week

then try pushing the 308 and blackout faster and faster till groups open up

I was so happy with the group sizes I actually fired 2 rounds with suppressor in both the 308 and blackout .. both did beautifully
no detectable pc residue on baffles but 2 rds is not a good test

[Joe Thanks]

So is it decided that Polyester TGIC is the way to go? What about Epoxy? or Hybrids? anyone that can weigh in?

[unfy]

Did someone want pink? I see an advantage in a combined coating booth/oven. Don't have to try to move these suckers.
Attachment 70015
The coating worked, 100% even coverage, on the CB with the wire cast into it (0.015 dia.). I haven't found any diff in accuracy between pre and post coating sizing. I glued a wire on 1 with locktite 406, not much conductivity but coated good. Of course the glue didn't hold when baking. Thud. Still looking into the pin nail gun. A US welder would probably work too.
Dropping the HS blade idea, I'm too shaky to make it work.

Back when fiddling with copper plating (on hiatus atm) ... I toyed with the thought of soldering boolits to wire for hanging in solution. This didn't work out too great, that's a lot of lead that acts as heat sink. If ya try to use an external solder source you'll prolly end up with a cold solder joint... and attempting to melt the lead of the boolit is just problematic. Granted, folks with better tools than I (such as what we have at work heh) could possibly do better.

Out of curiosity, "US" welder ?

Sorry to hear ya dropped the hacksaw blade idea. It seemed like it had possibilities... especially if ya dremel-grinding-stoned out some dents in the backs of the blade to grab the boolits with. Then again, it seems like something along those lines suffers from the same problem no matter what the application - it needs to be rigid enough to hold things, but springy enough so that ya don't have to 'fight it' to get it to grab multiple objects in parallel.