Powder Coating Boolits

[bangerjim]

There is some smoke and smell from the HF powder when baked at 400F. Not much. I do it outside so I can see it in the sunlight. And smell it when a breeze blows in my direction. I would NEVER EVER bake these in my shop or a garage.....there is some outgassing and smoke that takes place. We breathe enough crapola shooting and smelting and fluxing and casting that we do not want to inhale anything more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bangerjim

[a.squibload]

Dang this thread is really moving along!

How thick a coating can you get with PC?
A friend & I are learning the ropes with 50 cal muzzleloaders.
My .495 cast balls seem to do well with .010 cloth patches,
making an extra .020 or so of padding in the barrel.
Would I be wrong to equate thickness between cloth and PC?

In other words, what would my chances be of using PC
to avoid dealing with patches?

Might also be convinced try PC on .40 S&W boolits for a polygon barrel.

[Garyshome]

Alright I shot around 200 or so 9mm out of 3 different guns, All loads were 4.5gr universal with a lee 356-125-2R lead boolit sized to 356 after PC'ing, piglet method with lacquer thinner. The tarus pt99 picked up some leading[in- correct boolit size I think], average fps was 1124. S&W 469 picked up some leading[haven't slugged barrel yet] 1063 fps. Marlin camp 9 No leading!!!! 1293 fps! I am happy with the results good fps, I wanted to see what these would do. Loaded more this afternoon. Need to get lee 358-125-2R mold for the Tarus.

[prickett]

Alright I shot around 200 or so 9mm out of 3 different guns, All loads were 4.5gr universal with a lee 356-125-2R lead boolit sized to 356 after PC'ing, piglet method with lacquer thinner. The tarus pt99 picked up some leading[in- correct boolit size I think], average fps was 1124. S&W 469 picked up some leading[haven't slugged barrel yet] 1063 fps. Marlin camp 9 No leading!!!! 1293 fps! I am happy with the results good fps, I wanted to see what these would do. Loaded more this afternoon. Need to get lee 358-125-2R mold for the Tarus.

My Taurus PT99's barrel had the largest inner diameter of all my 9's. At .356" it wouldn't hit 8x11 paper from 7 yards. I had to shoot .358" sized boolits to get no leading and be able to hit the paper. Once I did that it out shot my SIG and CZ. I use the Lee .356 TCN mold, but use aluminum tape to beagle it to .358".

[popper]

Just don't size for the Taurus. If that works, just beagle it or add some Sb (or reduce the Sn).

[tyeo098]

Made 100 red 45 ACPs and had a bit of lead in the barrel.
I attribute this to some 'shadows' I had one some boolets where you could see some lead, but Id dint think it would be a problem.

Oops. :P

Coat them all the way!

Stuff was pretty accurate though... RIA 1911 at 15 yds

[Garyshome]

I slugged the Tarus barrel and it was about .3575", and these lee casts are dropping at .356". But the leading is much less with the PC, then without. Also I could not check BIN before, but I can now. OK got it now. My numbers were wrong.

[Garyshome]

All my 9's were very accurate. For the second time with the Tarus and first with the S&W. Haven't sighted in the red dot on the marlin yet, but it's pretty close. No keyholes.

[alfloyd]

"I slugged the Tarus barrel and it was about .3755"

That is way large for a 9 MM.
My PT99 slugged at 0.3575 inch.
I powder coat using the piglet method and size to 0.358.
I have shot over 400 of these in Action Pistol matches and have no leading.

Lafaun

[prickett]

"I slugged the Tarus barrel and it was about .3755"

That is way large for a 9 MM.
My PT99 slugged at 0.3575 inch.
I powder coat using the piglet method and size to 0.358.
I have shot over 400 of these in Action Pistol matches and have no leading.

Lafaun

Ditto everything you just said with mine.

[Dolomite_supafly]

I picked up a powder coating gun yesterday. After messing around for a while I think I will be using it rather than the piglet method.

I use a piece of 3" long copper wire to hang the bullets from the rack that came with my toaster oven. The wire is wrapped around the bullet in a lube groove and twisted in place. I then hang them from the rack. I can do about 25 at a time. It is a bit slower but I can prep the 25 bullets in about the same time it takes to bake the bullets. I think this method give results are are more uniform and definitely a lot better looking.

I tried using bullets poked through aluminum foil and through a pan. Bascially I was leaving the base esposed to the powder coating. Worked great until I removed the bullets. Every bullet now has shards of the aluminum foil attached to it. I can still use them but they look pretty bad.

I barely coat the bullets. It is more of a light misting that a coating but when I baked them the coating becomes more uniform and better looking. I am afraid that if I add to much to the bullet my bore rider bullets will have problems chambering in my 300 Blackout.

[popper]

dolomite - are you shooting subsonic with the BO? Have you tried the H-T for SS? I did some green H-T for 30-30 that I'm going to try at plinker loads. The non-stick foil may help with your foil covered noses. I found twisting to break them loose before cooling left less of a divit.

[bangerjim]

dolomite - are you shooting subsonic with the BO? Have you tried the H-T for SS? I did some green H-T for 30-30 that I'm going to try at plinker loads. The non-stick foil may help with your foil covered noses. I found twisting to break them loose before cooling left less of a divit.

Non-stick foil is a miracle on a roll! I use it about 3-4 times B4 the coat on the foil starts forming "flash" on the boolit bases. Twisting off works. Actually the 1st couple batchs on new foil actually FALL off before I can get them back in the shop to remove them. I do 50-66 (depending on cal) on a sheet x2 racks at a time, so it moves pretty fast. And I have extra racks so I can fill them up while the others are baking.

If you are worring about the base being coated, just do what another member suggested: after baking, pour a little actetone on a rag in a dish, dab the base on the wet rag, tap the base in a thin layer of powder, and bake again laying down. You can use a different color! Black boolits with red "gas checks" look cool.

bangerjim

[bstone5]

I was powder coating 45 ACP 200 Gr bullets this weekend with the powder coat gun.

I saw a post where someone was putting the cast bullets on screen wire to keep them from sticking.

I put the non-stick Reynolds Foil on my 14 Gage steel plates and then some old screen wire on top of the foil.

The dry powder falls down inside the screen and keeps the base of the bullets free of coating with the powder coat.

This arrangement worked well and may do this all of the time, will need to find some more screen wire.

Keeping the base clean makes putting on gas checks from cola cans a lot easier.

Pictures Below.

[xacex]

Looks like aluminium screen door screen. I just put some new screen like that on my sliding door. It was cheep too. I think I paid 8$ for a roll.

[Dolomite_supafly]

dolomite - are you shooting subsonic with the BO? Have you tried the H-T for SS? I did some green H-T for 30-30 that I'm going to try at plinker loads. The non-stick foil may help with your foil covered noses. I found twisting to break them loose before cooling left less of a divit.

H-T???

So far I am only doing my subsonic bullets which will be blue. I am going to cast a bunch of my supersonic bullets and coat them with red HF powder. 90% of my shooting is with subsonic loads. You cannot push a powder coated bullet hard enough in a 300 Blckout to have a problem.

The problem with my method was I was punching the nose of the bullet through the foil and then only the bottom of the bullet was sticking out. The powder coat was on the bullet as well as on the aluminum foil, fuzing the two. I cannot stand them up because they are too long and fall over. I do not mind doing the wire method because I can sit and watch TV while I do them. It also takes about as long to bake a batch as it does to wire up a batch. It is also the same method I used when I used to plate my bullets using copper sulfate. Copper plating was cheap and easy but very slow going. But it worked and applied enough copper to the bullets to prevent leading. When I remelted the plated bullets down I could skim what looked like a bullet off the top of the melt. It looked just like the bullet except you could crush it by squeezing the "jacket".

Here is a picture of my $20 plating setup:

And the results:

I gave up because it was extremely slow going. I could do about 20 bullets an hour.

Non-stick foil is a miracle on a roll! I use it about 3-4 times B4 the coat on the foil starts forming "flash" on the boolit bases. Twisting off works. Actually the 1st couple batchs on new foil actually FALL off before I can get them back in the shop to remove them. I do 50-66 (depending on cal) on a sheet x2 racks at a time, so it moves pretty fast. And I have extra racks so I can fill them up while the others are baking.

If you are worring about the base being coated, just do what another member suggested: after baking, pour a little actetone on a rag in a dish, dab the base on the wet rag, tap the base in a thin layer of powder, and bake again laying down. You can use a different color! Black boolits with red "gas checks" look cool.

bangerjim

When I get around to doing pistol bullets I think this is what I will do. Pretty ingenious method for doing this.

Anything I do is going to be a slow process because I cannot stand for very long. Basically I get 30 minutes of working, maybe 45, and then I am done for at least a few hours if not the rest of the day. I was in a helicopter accident in 2008 that changed my life. I cannot do things I once took for granted and my wife has to help me. I have to walk with crutches to keep me from constantly falling. I need help getting dressed most days. I can no longer drive because my legs can give out. I literally spend 16+ hours a day in bed and that is on "good" days. On bad days I will be out of bed 2-3 hours a day. I used to shoot 5-6 days a week and now I am lucky to get to the range once a month so what I can do in a few hours a week will be more than enough to cover my shooting habits now. I can shoot at home but I don't very often unless I am working up test loads.

[popper]

Yes Hi-Tek coating from Bayou bullets, $47 for 1/2 liter delivered. Liquid that goes on like piglet & works great < 1200-1400 fps. No fancy rig to hold the long skinny boolits. It did NOT work for my full house 30-30 loads. No lead but no accuracy. Going to try some plinker loads. Seems like it would be a good easy solution for the BO. I quit doing the PC on pistol (9 & 40) cause the H-T is so easy and works great & I've been shooting a lot of pistol lately. Check out the thread here on the stuff.

[Dolomite_supafly]

I used powder from Powder By The Pound with the piglet method except I used Klean Strip lacquer thinner rather than acetone. With lacquer thinner it is almost fool proof, you only need to make sure you don't use too much powder for the amount of bullets you have. There is no waiting for the lacquer thinner to evaporate, just tumble until the bullets are coated then pour off what is essentially clean lacquer thinner.

Coating pistol bullets are not going to be a problem. I shoot flat points in everything so I will set them out nose down and coat.

This isn't about reducing leading because I did not have a problem with leading. It is about reducing my exposure to lead.

Either way I found what I am going to use to coat the bullets. Just a matter of figuring out which is better for me.

[20gauge]

Hey Guys. Just joined group and I've read a lot of the info posted about PC cast bullets, but I still have a couple of questions. Can you powder coat bullets already lubed? And do you have to clean all bullets before coating? ( with acetone)

[popper]

Got to get the lube and any 'junk' off first. It won't stick to alox.