HFPC Boolits..Piglet Method

[gatorshooter]

Tried the piglet method yesterday. About 100 40 sw and 130 .30 cal. Tried laquer thinner for the 40 and acetone for the .30 cal. Acetone worked better for me. It was over 90 degrees on my porch. Solvent evaporated pretty quickly. Hfpc flat black. Used old toster oven. Had a free standing oven thermometer to check my temps. Shot about 20 of the 40s in my stock glock 23 no fouling observed. Didnt bench for accuracy. Ok... i hit the 2 liter bottle from 20 yds ..will paper test them when its not a furnace on my range. Surface was pretty rough on both batches. I made some trays using some alum expanded metal gutter leaf guards i had left over. Cut to fit the toster oven and Bent up edges with linemans pliers. Seemed to work well. The 40s i sized and loaded them. The 30s i gas checked and sized and lubed with lbt blue. I will test and see if any velocity differences in lubed vs un lubed in the 30 cal rifle loads

[prickett]

Tried the piglet method yesterday. About 100 40 sw and 130 .30 cal. Tried laquer thinner for the 40 and acetone for the .30 cal. Acetone worked better for me. It was over 90 degrees on my porch. Solvent evaporated pretty quickly. Hfpc flat black. Used old toster oven. Had a free standing oven thermometer to check my temps. Shot about 20 of the 40s in my stock glock 23 no fouling observed. Didnt bench for accuracy. Ok... i hit the 2 liter bottle from 20 yds ..will paper test them when its not a furnace on my range. Surface was pretty rough on both batches. I made some trays using some alum expanded metal gutter leaf guards i had left over. Cut to fit the toster oven and Bent up edges with linemans pliers. Seemed to work well. The 40s i sized and loaded them. The 30s i gas checked and sized and lubed with lbt blue. I will test and see if any velocity differences in lubed vs un lubed in the 30 cal rifle loads

What temp did you cook them at and for how long? Did you check the temp with a thermometer? I found the rough finish was due to my oven not getting hot enough (based on an oven thermometer). When I upped the temp to actually hit 400 degrees, the finish smoothed out.

[gatorshooter]

Checked temp with stand alone oven thermometer that i could see through glass. Oven stayed 375 to 400 for 20 min.

[Maximumbob54]

Learned something tonight.

You can lay on the HF powder thick on boolits that don't have SWC edges and it works:


You cannot do the same with PBTP though...


I'm hoping I can bake them and then give them another thin coat to cover the edges of the driving bands. Or just melt them back down and start over.

EDIT: If you ever mess up the PBTP to that level then just melt them back down. They were a disaster after a thin second tumble and baking.

[Love Life]

I got my powder in. Looks like I'll be giving the TES powder coating method a try.

[docmagnum357]

If I can ever get through with the other chores around here I am going to run a BIG bunch of bullets. I bought almost 300 lbs. of sheet lead and plumber's lead ( pipe) and I am going to see if I can get good results with pure lead. If I can, I will be very happy.

SO far, so good. The times I have had bad results were because of a less than perfect process.

I keep telling everyone I am going to show my process. No secret, just a modified cement mixer and lots more acetone than most folks are using. Boolits get dry to the touch in the mixer. Cost will be a little higher due to the extra acetone but time and quality both improve. I have made boolits that are as pretty as any of the pictures anyone has posted with the Harbor Freight flat black.

Wouldn't it be nice if straight lead would work with this method? Can you say CAST HOLLOW POINT HEAVEN? Alloy and alloying metals have gotten high. Pure lead would sure be cheaper, too.

[prickett]

Wouldn't it be nice if straight lead would work with this method? Can you say CAST HOLLOW POINT HEAVEN? Alloy and alloying metals have gotten high. Pure lead would sure be cheaper, too.

It would be nice. Unfortunately, my experiment with soft lead was a total failure. Had both leading and key holing (at 7 yards).

[Maximumbob54]

All of my latest testing has been done with range scrap with just enough tin to aid in mold fill out. I quit using the lyman #2 clone alloy as I thought it was too hard for the coating to work.

[TES]

This is still pigs method. I have not divulged my method for coating. Wanna try my method with the high tech coating before spilling the beans.

Someone asked about priming the boolits first..... yes I tried using a pvc "purple" primer and it worked the same as just coating. In other words it was an extra step and no noticeable change in the coating.

[Love Life]

I tried it earlier today. Went about as well as my 1st try with the other coating. I figure a few more tries and I'll have it down. Shows promise though, and I went with road cone orange.

[Russel Nash]

I am up at this late hour tinkering with these dang boolits. Bought a used toaster oven off of Craig's List today. Using the fluorescent green powder I got off my buddy (BTU powdercoating, google it).

I read Dolomite-Supafly's write up. That helped a lot. But what I was not prepared for was how quickly it sets up. WOW!

Yeah, just decant the extra lacquer thinner into some other container. Once that powder coat and lacquer thinner meet, WOW! in my case it looked like someone had hacked up a big green loogie. It had the consistency of bubble gum. Add the boolits and swirl and toss and you can feel the boolits wanting to clump together. That's the time to dump them on the screen
/mesh. You gotta rush or hustle.

Anyway... My very first attempt:

[Maximumbob54]

Nash, from what you describe and the pic you posted I would say that's too much thinner and not enough tumble. The trick I'm using is to only use enough thinner to get the powder to break down and then tumble them until nearly dry to the touch. You end up with a lot less sticky and a lot more even of a coating. This is just guessing but I think your powder is similar to the Harbor Freight in that it looks like epoxy powder. The polyester powder from Powder By The Pound gives a more even coat and is a little more forgiving when tumbling about not clumping. I've found the PBTP to not be as temp sensitive in that as the thinner evaporates the HF epoxy powder wants to cool too much and clump and the PBTP polyester doesn't do that nearly as bad. The PBTP also doesn't stick so much to each other or the mesh. That's just my two cents and other may claim I'm full of it but that's what has worked best for me.

[Russel Nash]

I tried to break them free from the mesh this morning. Jeesh... I have a few boolits stuck to each other. Ugg!

[Maximumbob54]

Didn't mean to curse you...

Try it again like I said and try to keep them away from each other. I've done about a dozen batches of each flavor of powder so far and while I don't feel like I have it down perfect yet, I have gotten much better with each attempt.

Remember, less thinner, more tumble, and maybe try to use less powder next time.

[Russel Nash]

Okay, thanks! I tried coating them this morning, for the third time. I used less lacquer thinner. I could tell that as soon as that thinners hits the powder, the powder like "conglamerates". Maybe "congeal" is a better word. Then I dumped in my boolits. Swirled and shook, and did the pancake flipping motion. I could see the excess lacquer thinner just sitting there not doing anything. So I gingerly poured that off. Then went back to shaking, swirling, and pancake flipping. I could feel the mix getting sluggish (no pun intended) and then dumped it onto the mesh. Then I tried shaking the mesh tray to get the boolits to separate, but that didn't work well. I stuck them in the oven and they immediately started bubbling. OH! OH! So I pulled the tray out thinking the lacquer thinner was like boiling off. I thought I could shake the tray to get them separate. Nope! So I stuck them back in the oven.

[Russel Nash]

I think the key is going to be to keep them moving as they tumble dry/bake.

I mean how else are Precision/Bear Creek/Black Bullets International moly/poly coating their bullets???

It was mentioned in this thread or the big powder coating thread by at least one person, DocMagnus I think, that a heated concrete mixer would probably work.

[Russel Nash]

I think the key is going to be to keep them moving as they tumble dry/bake.

I mean how else are Precision/Bear Creek/Black Bullets International moly/poly coating their bullets???

It was mentioned in this thread or the big powder coating thread by at least one person, DocMagnus I think, that a heated concrete mixer would probably work.

[Skip62]

This is what works for me. Polyester powder and lacquer thinner. Poor enough LT in to cover the bullets, no bullets yet. Then sprinkle 1/2 tsp of PC on top for 100 155 gr boolits. I tap the teaspoon to get it sprinkled onto the mix. I swirl shake and agitate until the boolits are covered and the LT is almost clear again. Then I pour out all the excess LT, and pour the boolits onto mesh, and separate. I strain and reuse the LT. I get very consistent, completely covered boolits. I use two coats. The trick is the right amount of PC for the number of boolits, not thinner to PC. This doesn't work with HFPC. With HFPC I use acetone and mix till it evaporates off, but use the same amount of PC. My only problem is the oven doesn't heat consistently enough, so it doesn't always cute properly.

Sent from my MB886 using Tapatalk 2

[Maximumbob54]

I think if they bubble then that's a sign of trying to apply too much powder in one coating. Since I cut back they are mostly smooth.

[Maximumbob54]

Nash -

These are a second coat of HF matte black. I used a light first coat and baked them at 400 for 25 minutes, let them cool, then I did a second light coating and this is them before baking:



They aren't perfect looking but so far with the red HF powder they have been perfectly functional shooters. These are already dry to the touch but if they are touching each other too much in the tray then they will still stick to each other after baking. But they don't stick to each other setting in the bucket. And they don't stick to the mesh so bad as when dumped in wet. I will take a pic when they come out in a bit.