copperplating

[edwin41]

hello,
today i decided to give it another go at copperplating of castbullets.
i did it for experimenting with it , i usually shoot my own casts of this type sized and lubed.
i started out by sizing my 170 gr swc keith style bullet , that i cast from a lead/tin alloy to .357.
then i cleaned them with the electrolyse process , its a water and soda , i put the plus side of a adjustable powersource on the iron anode in the reservoir and the minus side to the material.
i found that an amperage of 3 ampere works good for this type of cleaning.
i rinsed them off with water , and gave them a hydrochloric acid dip , then rinse of again with water.
i put them in the reservoir filled with a plating solution , wich i made with water , coppersulfate and some batteryacid.
this time the anode is pure copper , the kathode is still the bulletmaterial.
i have a little airpump connected to the reservoir so i can get some bathmovement when the plating is going on.
the bullets that came out were somewhat dull , i buffed them up a little with a powered polishing wheel.
these bullets are real slick !
gonna give them a try in my smith&wesson .357 mag revolver.

[edwin41]

i forgot to mention that im gonna shoot these bullets without lubing them.
in the pictures you can see three bullets , two of them have been plated , one is left unplated.
i also must mention that it was a lot of work to plate these bullets , i made me a batch of 25 in one time.
the most timeconsuming was to hang them up by a string , from an electrocable.
the plating itself is a real easy step , so is the cleaning.
to be a workable process i will have to make me a sort of attachment that will hold some 50 bullets at a time .
i think the final polishing could be done in a tumbler , but for now , im just experimenting with the process.

when i can get a good enough quality my intended use would be for the .30 m1 cartridge .
my .357 mag bullets do just fine left unplated and lubed .

[somedude101]

I'm excited to see how your plated boolits work out, been thinking about trying it myself. Please share your 30 m1 results when you do that project, my buddy and I are tring to figure out if plating 308 win will work out or not.

[6mm250]

edwin41 , any chance you could post pics of your plating setup ?


Mike

[edwin41]

yes 6mm , i can post pictures of the set up , but not now as its getting late here in holland now , maby tomorrow.
ive got a simple setup by the way...
here is some pictures of a few loaded and ready to go , i will let you know how it worked out.
i did a very thin plating though , the thickness of the copper layer would be determent by the time one would have it in the solution.
my thinking would be that if i plated a thick coat the plating would easily be cracked and left particles in the barrel , with a thin coat my thinking would be that the plating would easily form itself to the barrels land and grooves , afterall , all it would take is a very fine layer between the lead and the bore.

[357maximum]

Not sure you need to copperplate for either application, but they sure are purdeee and would make a nice addition to a gunbelt.

[savingprivateyang]

Wow, these look a whole lot better than my attempt. You do have a much better process than I did though.

[nhrifle]

I havd tried plating with so-so results, so I will be following this with interest. Curious to see your setup and the power supply.

[edwin41]

for the looks in a gunbelt i would also plate the casings!
ive plated some casings in the past with good results .

[GabbyM]

Very nice job of Cu plating. Not an easy thing to do.

IMHO, However:

All that Cu plating will do is copper foul your barrel.
I shoot my plain old Pb bollits with Felix lube and the bores shine up more after a shooting spree than before I fire them up. After shooting I just wipe out with Ed’s Red home made solvent. No ammonia or other corrosives necessary.

Sorry if that sounds like I’m busting your bubble. But I’ve shot Cu plated bullets.

Back when I did commercial casing a couple of my commercial re-loader customers tried to push me into Cu plating. As they new full well the copper color bullets would move off the gun show tables fast. Just could not go there from an ethical based reason. Since I view them as snake oil. Not that they will not shoot OK. But you do have to charge more as you know it’s a huge amount of work. End result boolit shoots slower due to increased friction plus you typically get a huge amount of copper fouling.

Please don’t hate me or transcend some bad karma m way.

Some of the casters here have been playing around with low % Cu alloy into there boolits. I’ve cast some of these up and will be testing. I truly think the place for Cu is alloyed into the boolit not plated on the top. Kind of a more for your money thing.

As a peace offering I can send you a box of #358429 clones cast from an NOE mould lubed with a semi hard lube. Gratis with no postage due. As a control load. They’ll give you a standard to shoot against. Side by side. Given all the work you’ve done. Potential knowledge gained by our community has a measure of value. I may even be wrong and loose this challenge. Only one way to find out.

PM me as I may miss a thread post.

[edwin41]

youre not busting my bubble at all gabby,
i know its a lot of work plating a castbullet , and i dont know if i ever get the plating workable.
im just experimenting with the process , i normally shoot this casted bullet unplated and lubed and it works great.
on the range sometime ago i saw some 9 mm bullets , were you could tear the copper of with a sharp object , clearly a factory plated bullet , and this let me on to do some further experiment on the process.
in my swedish mauser rifle i shoot a paperpatched bullet , wich is a far better solution than the plated stuff.
thank you for your offer to give me some bullets , but there is no need for them , the offering is appreciated though !
i know i can cast a harder bullet , but i dont wanna go that route , and stick with my soft alloy , a lead / tin mix .

[edwin41]

i tried to take some pictures , but they didnt came out real good .
the key thing of a succesfull plating , at least in my opinion , lies in the powersource.
it has to be a dc powersupply , but the voltage is not the issue , its the amperes.
to much amps and the plating is thick , but like a powder.
to little amps and the plating does not "grow"right to an even coat.
there is a rule of thumb for the plating current , and this is 1 ampere for every square decimetre.
i calculated that i needed like 1.1 ampere for my batch of 25 bullets .
as said , voltage is not important.
my regulator, that was given to me, came from a plating company , so its a purpose build powersupply.
it has a max output of 25 volt , 50 amperes and with a turn of the knob it increases the ampere output.

also important is to have the power on when you put the objects in the solution , if you dont do that the objects attract "contact copper"wich would not adhese to the material .
this contact copper can be easily rubbed of with a cloth.

the biggest problem in copperplating castbullets lies somewhere else though , and that is adhesion to the material , wich is lead.
i will look into something called a "nickel strike "to see if i can get a better adhesion.

[Freightman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KM_hr5eCNo
Here is a video on a set up.

[wallenba]

I tried using the Zepp root kill granules and a power supply from Radio Shack. I used an old crock pot to get some heat in it, and hung mine with copper wire strands on some copper pipe. I got dismal results from lack of proper cleaning I guess. Just a heavy coat of black muck.
When you say 'soda', do you mean just sodium bicarbonate? And where can one obtain battery acid?
I may have to resort to plating. Around here there is only one indoor range that looks the other way when I shoot cast.

[edwin41]

i watched the videolink on youtube .
first of all , you dont need to heat the bath , room temerature does just fine.
there was a pump used to pump the solution round , thats good because you want some bathmovement.
more easy would be to pick up an airpump like one uses in a pond or aquarium , with them you get some kind of stones with a lot of holes in them and a valve to control airflow.
with these items you can blow air in the tank , adjust to a light bubbling and youve got youre bathmovement.
wallenba , my thinking would be youve supplied to much amps to the bath , maby you could place a amperemeter in the plus line , and adjust with a variable resistor.
maby you did not put the power on when you put the objects in the bath and they caught contactcopper ?
im dutch so my language limits me sometimes , i did the google translation for the dutch word soda , and it translated to soda.
soda is a common household product , for cleaning .
the mentioned battery acid is obtained through automotive or hardware stores , its the liqued that one uses for filling up a carbattery , we need the sulfuric acid and batteryliqued is just sulfuric acid and water.
hope this post would help you a little on the way.

[wallenba]

[QUOTE=edwin41;2055938]wallenba , my thinking would be youve supplied to much amps to the bath , maby you could place a amperemeter in the plus line , and adjust with a variable resistor.

My power supply is a steady 3amp, and I used a 12v automotive stop light bulb to drop it down some. I will try again someday, next time I'll use the soda wash and the acid.

[edwin41]

you can also try a penlight battery of 1.5 volts , if you put in like 10 bullets or so.

[edwin41]

hello,
i found out that a german compagnie called h&n sports sells bullets for the .30m1 carbine , that are leadcores with a thin copperplating . they also have their own reload table for it.
i think its a reduced load , but they mention 12 gr of vithavouri n110.
these bullets seems to be good shooters though , i thought i try some , but they are in backorder for about 3 months now.
it seems to me that this caliber is getting harder to obtain in holland , so im diving in to make my own...
i ordered out for a lyman mould , but i still havent gotten it.
so now i placed another order containing the lyman bulletmould and the sizingdie , i decided on the non gascheck 110 gr roundnose bullet.
my thinking would be that i will cast them soft , size them to .308 , copperplate them , and then again through the sizer with lube , seems to be the best of both worlds.
for now i will have to wait for the mould to come in , but this copperplating thing intriges me , and yes , i will get it under control
it just takes some time and a lot of experiments i think...but hey , if the germans can, i can.

[mactool]

Hi You can by copperpated us carbine bullet here http://egun.de/market/item.php?id=4247120
It not that far away from you

[edwin41]

thats a nice offer right there...
it also shows that it can be done.
i found that the hafting difficultys to the lead maby could be cured by a "copperstrike".
one would need a solution that contains:
cucn [coppercyanide] 42 gram / litre
nacn [sodiumcyanide] 50 gram / litre
sodiumcarbonate 30 gram / litre
potassium sodium tartrate 60 gram / litre
the temerature of the solution should be 38 to 54 degrees celcius.
current for a short time some 25 mA / square centimetre
a longer period about half the current.
then rinse of with water and copperplate the usual way

this would be a solution containing :
coppersulfate 200 gram / litre
sulfuric acid 80 gram / litre
this solution at about 10 degrees celcius
current 20 mA per square centimetre.