Powder Coating Boolits

[62chevy]

Warmer day in the mid 50s low humidity in the 30s but the wind was a bit much. Thank God for wind blocks.



Third times a charm Thanks coffeeguy ...

[johnc486]

Today, I gave powder coating a try. I bought a dedicated convection oven (Oster), a pancake compressor and the Harbor Freight powder coat gun. I didn't try them on boolits (wanted to see if I could do it 1st) so I powder coated a horseshoe. It took quite a lot of prep work on that rusty horseshoe but it turned out nice and well covered (red), next stop, boolits. Thanks to everyone who contributed their knowledge in this thread, it sure helped me in accomplishing this feat.

[Smoke4320]

looking good there 62chevy .. You are getting the hang of it now

[josper]

I just wonder if powder coated bullets wear the barrel more? I still like having a lube. I guess I'm still old school,lol.

[Beagle333]

I just wonder if powder coated bullets ware the barrel more? I still like having a lube. I guess I'm still old school,lol.

Not that anyone can tell. This has been tested many times. Here is the latest discussion thread on it.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...asivenss-of-PC

[62chevy]

looking good there 62chevy .. You are getting the hang of it now

Thanks Smoke, now I have to cast more boolits so I can PC them.

[Smoke4320]

Thanks Smoke, now I have to cast more boolits so I can PC them.

Now says the Spider to the fly...I have you in my web !!!

[borg]

Am I getting old?
Did I read on here that any kind of flat black won't BBDT?

[bangerjim]

Am I getting old?
Did I read on here that any kind of flat black won't BBDT?

Nobody to my knowledge has been successful (one coat is my success rate for ANY powder) with matte powder. The matte agent kills the static.

If you want matte (my favorite ...Ninja Matte Black!) you have to use ESPC.

And..............YES................you ARE getting old, just like the rest of us!!!!!

banger-j

[borg]

I don't no, after I passed 65, I started counting down.

[dwildemn]

New to the forum and hope I am posting this question properly. Got a late start w/ reloading and at 71 decided not to cast my own bullets. I buy cast bullets to use in my S&W 29 and just got a new Marlin 1894. I removed the lube from the cast bullets I bought and tried to powder coat with the tumble method. Everything looked great - new oven and wire cloth tray. Preheated oven to 400F and put in about 75 of them for 20 minutes. Big mess - bullets melted partially of completely - I salvaged 3! Maybe thermostat bad - any other thoughts? Nothing like on the videos! Thanks.

[Beagle333]

Oven thermostats are not usually reliable. Buy a cheap baking thermometer and double check it.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...their-accuracy

[62chevy]

New to the forum and hope I am posting this question properly. Got a late start w/ reloading and at 71 decided not to cast my own bullets. I buy cast bullets to use in my S&W 29 and just got a new Marlin 1894. I removed the lube from the cast bullets I bought and tried to powder coat with the tumble method. Everything looked great - new oven and wire cloth tray. Preheated oven to 400F and put in about 75 of them for 20 minutes. Big mess - bullets melted partially of completely - I salvaged 3! Maybe thermostat bad - any other thoughts? Nothing like on the videos! Thanks.

Welcome to the forum !!! LOL and I thought I came to the party late at 60. Better late than never I guess. Check the thermostat as stated. Lead bullets will melt from 550 deg to 621 deg so you could be off a hundred and get some heavy bullet slump.

[bangerjim]

New to the forum and hope I am posting this question properly. Got a late start w/ reloading and at 71 decided not to cast my own bullets. I buy cast bullets to use in my S&W 29 and just got a new Marlin 1894. I removed the lube from the cast bullets I bought and tried to powder coat with the tumble method. Everything looked great - new oven and wire cloth tray. Preheated oven to 400F and put in about 75 of them for 20 minutes. Big mess - bullets melted partially of completely - I salvaged 3! Maybe thermostat bad - any other thoughts? Nothing like on the videos! Thanks.

Convection ovens will usually not melt boolits because they do not have hot spots due to the air movement. But as said get a good oven thermometer. Your oven dial is probably waaaaaaay off, as most of them always are.

It is very easy to shake & bake boolits. You just need to verify your temps.

Also be sure ALL, I mean virtually ALL, the lube is off those comcast boolits. I use a laq thinner soak overnight. Then swirl in clean laq thinner. Then rinse in VERY HOT water and Simple Green and then rinse in VERY HOT water and dry. They always coat perfectly. There are other methods suggested on here but this method works everytime flawlessly for me.

Welcome to the fun!

bangerjim

[mongoose33]

New to the forum and hope I am posting this question properly. Got a late start w/ reloading and at 71 decided not to cast my own bullets. I buy cast bullets to use in my S&W 29 and just got a new Marlin 1894. I removed the lube from the cast bullets I bought and tried to powder coat with the tumble method. Everything looked great - new oven and wire cloth tray. Preheated oven to 400F and put in about 75 of them for 20 minutes. Big mess - bullets melted partially of completely - I salvaged 3! Maybe thermostat bad - any other thoughts? Nothing like on the videos! Thanks.

Been there, done that. I had a toaster oven where the dial said 400 the oven produced 550! I learned that the hard way, demonstrated by the following pic:



That was remedied by an oven themometer and discovering that a dial reading of 325 was what I needed to produce 400 degrees.

So whatever else you do, don't think you're the Lone Ranger here.

Good luck, you're about 90 percent of the way there.

BTW, here's the thread where I discuss my temperature lesson and there are other gems in there, a few from me, most from others: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...d-some-success

[dwildemn]

Turned thermostat down to 175 and bullets still melted so returned to store. Got another one and oven thermometer. This one is off about 25 deg. Bullets look a lot better now. Thanks for all the help.

[fredj338]

I've been checking out PCing bullets and it has a lot of advantages but the bottleneck in production is the oven capacity. I do mostly tactical handgun shooting and I cast up 1000 at a time. With a toaster sized oven that would be a lot of cycles. I could salvage an old range oven but that takes up a lot of space and has to be wired up to 220v - which all make the PC process a lot more bother than traditional lubing.

Is it possible to use my kitchen oven? I'm single but I don't want to poison anybody. I assume I'd have to take precautions not to contaminate it with PC.

I apologize if this question has already been discussed. I haven't yet read all 114 pages of this thread.

Thanks

I'm just getting into coatings, bought a double rack, convection pizza oven from Wally, $50. The racks are 11x14. It seems t work great for hi-tek coatings & will give it a try with PC.

[RobsTV]

After seeing another poster mention they did not stand up boolits when baking, and experienced no loss of accuracy or any additional cleaning required, even though they were not as pretty or perfectly covered, gave it a try. I HIGHLY suggest giving that method a try if you wish to do a ton of boolits in a very short time. Yes, if you look close enough, they do have some occasional bare spots where the boolit contacted the wire basket or mesh tray, or from contact with other boolits. But results are still what we want, same or better accuracy than traditional lube, with no leading or mess to clean up. I bake around 500 at a time, piled up in fry basket, then toaster over. Does take a bit longer for temperature to get back up to 400 and gloss over, but not like you have to do anything extra but wait. It works, even in hot and humid Florida! This with Smokes fine powder, so results might be different using HF powder.

The other tip I read that really helped was pre-heating the boolits to around 100 degrees before coating, which seems to make the powder stick much easier and more thoroughly, even when not using ASBB's.

[mpawlina]

Hi all!

My attempt at wet coating:



Got some sample powder from local shop. Eventually came to mixing ratio of 20 grams to 100ml of acetone. Coats well but still needs two coats for complete coverage. Needs to be dumped on a drying screen while wet or it will get lumpy. Discovered that if you place lumpy boolits back in the coating bucket and add some acetone and remix it it will smooth out completely.

15 min each time at 400 degrees in pid convection oven. Passed smash test. Will shoot 'em this week and report with outcome.

[Beagle333]

'Good lookin boolits! Wet coating works, and it works well. I usually did 2 coats because the first one usually wasn't too pretty (and sometimes the second one still wasn't), however it is very easy and shoots great.