simple Hi-Tek coating

[Ausglock]

Currently paying about $6AUD per KG for 2,6,92 here in OZ.

[ioon44]

That sounds like a lot, 2-6-92 around here would be about $3.96 US per KG, but then US $ and AUD $ are not the same.

[glockfan]

That sounds like a lot, 2-6-92 around here would be about $3.96 US per KG, but then US $ and AUD $ are not the same.

well...i might use this reply in my next negociation round lol. 2usd a pound is exactly the price i'm willing to pay.

[Avenger442]

I use, for the most part, COWW. Have a Lee BHN tester and check every batch of bullets after 14 days. The sweet spot for my 308 rifle on BHN is 12-14. Those give me the best groups with the load I use. I have shot 15-17 BHN but the groups will open up and I will have to change the load. My COWW with 2% tin can usually be anywhere from 12-15 BHN 14 days after bullet is cast and coated. You could use pure lead to bring it down, and I have done this, but you would have to remelt the bullets after you have coated them. As far as I have been able to tell there is some difference in the leads BHN in ingot form and after the coating process. So you have to check the coated bullet.

COWW here from the scrap yard are 14 cents US a pound with soft lead being 60 cents US. The guys at the scrap yard will let me sort through the wheel weights to make sure I don't buy a lot of steel and zinc. Some will not let you do that. I have tin I buy off ebay and some linotype that I bought when I first started. I have used very little of the lino. Most of it went into .223 bullets that seem to shoot better at around 20 BHN in my gun with the load I used. (A little side note on the prices, the place my scrap yard sells their scrap to has lowered their price on wheel weights. My guess is they are finding what I find lately when I sort through the weights. They are at least 50% steel and zinc.)

In my auto and revolver I just cast what ever BHN I have in the pot. Have shot everything from 8 to 20 BHN in them and have not noticed a great deal of difference. Of course this may be due to shooters skills which can affect results. And I will say that I'm not a competition handgun shooter.

Now if I were competing or selling bullets as some here are I would probably just buy from Roto metals and maintain the load or if selling use good old capitalism and figure the cost into the price. It is what the professional does and that would make good sense. You can change impact point with a certain load by varying BHN as with almost anything else you do different. But for guys that want to see how cheaply they can get 1MOA and don't mind messing with it a little Roto metals is not the way to go. Variances in BHN for COWW can be adjusted. Just my opinion.

Good news is, if you keep your loading reasonable with the BHN you have, in both handgun and rifle Hi Tek will do what it is supposed to do. That 8 BHN doesn't lead if you remember you can't shoot it with the same load as 20.

[HI-TEK]

That sounds like a lot, 2-6-92 around here would be about $3.96 US per KG, but then US $ and AUD $ are not the same.

If you convert USD to AUSD prices, then depending on currency exchange rates you get can make your alloy about AUSD$5.40 to AUSD$5.80 per kilo. If that is correct, then prices we pay here are not that far apart.
Lead and alloys is listed on Metal exchange, and, depending on greed of seller, and quantity being purchased, governs poor old customers prices.

[Gremlin460]

Re-pure Antimony, it is next to useless because of the high heat to get it into the lead as stated by others above. It was also explained to me buy the lovely lady who runs the Smelter up here.
Now in saying that, I buy ingots of 20% antimony from her that i melt and pour into "mini" ingots of a few Ounces each. This allows me to mix my 92-6-2 with ease and avoids lead fuming temperatures. I weight the mini ingots and write on them that weight with a sharpie. On these forums is a nice excel sheet that works the formulas out for you that you need to mix.

I highly recommend you dig that sheet up, its well worth it.

my 0.01bhn worth.

[popper]

Waas h.t.ing some boolits today, decided to retry the asbbdt with HiTek again. MOnitor temp with PID probe on hot plate. 1035 gold (powder) started to change ~200F, began to flow some. 280F, color started to get darker. 340F started to get gold. 396f, begins to turn brownish (1st coat). Dump in ice water and repeat. 2nd coat came out pretty good, doesn't scratch off. Little lumpy but not bad.
Attachment 215676

[glockfan]

i love this color .i guess it's my fav color with old gold.

well done Sir ,very nice boolit.

[HI-TEK]

Waas h.t.ing some boolits today, decided to retry the asbbdt with HiTek again. MOnitor temp with PID probe on hot plate. 1035 gold (powder) started to change ~200F, began to flow some. 280F, color started to get darker. 340F started to get gold. 396f, begins to turn brownish (1st coat). Dump in ice water and repeat. 2nd coat came out pretty good, doesn't scratch off. Little lumpy but not bad.
Attachment 215676

Popper, is that style for gas checking?
They look good. The "lumpy" finish is usually due to tumble coating a little too long.
As the solvent evaporates, the coating gets stickier, and this is why you get lumpy type of finishes. The more you tumble, the worse the smoothness is affected.
Really, this is very simple to fix, (before you bake).
Just add a little Acetone to re-wet coating, and this should re-melt the lumps, and this time, stop shake coating a little earlier and dump to dry, and don't disturb.
After baking, even if coating is not glassy smooth after second coat, and coating is stuck well, then after sizing, all bearing surfaces should end up smooth and stay put on alloy.

Just an amendment, I just had my ear chewed, I missed the fact that you used only the Hi-Tek as a powdered system to coat. That explains more the rougher finish.
If a powdered dry system is used, then you need to use much less powder, and a calculation needs to determine how much is needed to coat. "I must remember to put on my glasses first."

My only concern is that there may be more dust generated with a dry coating technique.

[Grmps]

Joe, Popper was tumbling the bullets in the HiTek powder, then baking it like we do with Powdercoat.
Put bullets in a container with powder, swill for 15 - 30 seconds, powder electrostatically adheres to the bullet, bake bullet
I'm surprised it turned out that well.

I also was curious as to how it would turn out, but not as curious as Popper .

Even if it worked great, it still wouldn't be cost-effective to use HiTek in that manner

[HI-TEK]

Joe, Popper was tumbling the bullets in the HiTek powder, then baking it like we do with Powdercoat.
Put bullets in a container with powder, swill for 15 - 30 seconds, powder electrostatically adheres to the bullet, bake bullet
I'm surprised it turned out that well.

I also was curious as to how it would turn out, but not as curious as Popper .

Even if it worked great, it still wouldn't be cost-effective to use HiTek in that manner

Thanks Grmps,
I posted an amendment reply I made to Poppers results.
The Hi-Tek was never designed to be applied as a powder. Main difference between Powder coating and Hi-Tek can be summarised as follows.
Hi Tek, with finished 2 coats, applied from solvent based applications adds about 1.5 to 2.0 thou to alloy.
Powder coatings (electrostatically applied) can add from 4 to 14 thou onto alloy.
Rough calculations, the powder coatings seem to use about 6-8 times more product as a coating.
Other observations are, that examining powder coating and other coatings after being applied to alloy, there seems a great variation in thickness of the film that is on the alloy. We cut in half coated alloy not using Hi-Tek, and enlarged the picture to show what we found. We also did same with a Hi-Tek coated alloy. The alloy coated with Hi-Tek, was very even, and was difficult to measure the
2 thin coat thickness.
Attached is what we found.

[popper]

I was interested in the baking characteristics of the HiTek, not really powder coating with it. It melts but doesn't 'plastic flow' like PC thus the need for the liquid application. It appears that the 'cure' temperature band is pretty narrow, over temp darkens the color. I'm thinking hold ~ 380 for cure and then reduce to 350 for an hour will allow heat treating. I did this baking before and < ~370 it won't cure (my temp measurements may be off a bit) but color came out great. Wouldn't pass wipe test. Coating didn't survive sizing in a few places, sized down from 313 to 308.

[HI-TEK]

I was interested in the baking characteristics of the HiTek, not really powder coating with it. It melts but doesn't 'plastic flow' like PC thus the need for the liquid application. It appears that the 'cure' temperature band is pretty narrow, over temp darkens the color. I'm thinking hold ~ 380 for cure and then reduce to 350 for an hour will allow heat treating. I did this baking before and < ~370 it won't cure (my temp measurements may be off a bit) but color came out great. Wouldn't pass wipe test. Coating didn't survive sizing in a few places, sized down from 313 to 308.

Thanks Popper,
Do you have a picture of what projectiles look like after sizing?
With wipe test, did coating totally came off alloy, or did you get removal of surface "lumps" with the rubbing?
Hi-Tek does "plastic flow", but a much narrower window for flow levelling to take place.
Plastic flow starts at about 150C and as temperature rises to about 180C this plastic flow takes about 90-100 seconds.
Then after that point the heat curing sets the polymer into a solid and cannot further "flow".

Can I suggest and experiment, that you set oven at about 300F and cook the coated projectiles at that temperature, so that alloy gets to and is held at 300F, and remains there for at least 3 minutes thereafter, then remove some, cool and examine/test.
It may take a much longer time to get your alloy to 300F and will depend on your oven.
Compare the flow and levelling as you found with setting oven at 380-400F.
The rationale I am using, that a lower heat should lengthen the plastic flow time.
I do however have reservations about a complete cure taking place at 300F.
May be, afterwards, you can bake the same alloy at 200C to finish cure.
Ideally, to do this experiment, a programmable oven should be used, where temperature rise, and hold points can be programmed into heating rates and hold times can be set, at each temperature rise.
Old gold does become more a Tanned Gold colour. With Gold 1035, the Gold is much lighter and more sparkly when baked at same conditions.

[HI-TEK]

Thanks Grmps,
I posted an amendment reply I made to Poppers results.
The Hi-Tek was never designed to be applied as a powder. Main difference between Powder coating and Hi-Tek can be summarised as follows.
Hi Tek, with finished 2 coats, applied from solvent based applications adds about 1.5 to 2.0 thou to alloy.
Powder coatings (electrostatically applied) can add from 4 to 14 thou onto alloy.
Rough calculations, the powder coatings seem to use about 6-8 times more product as a coating.
Other observations are, that examining powder coating and other coatings after being applied to alloy, there seems a great variation in thickness of the film that is on the alloy. We cut in half coated alloy not using Hi-Tek, and enlarged the picture to show what we found. We also did same with a Hi-Tek coated alloy. The alloy coated with Hi-Tek, was very even, and was difficult to measure the
2 thin coat thickness.
Attached is what we found.

Just did some calculations to convert the mm measurements to thou of an inch as per the picture
0.128mm is about 5 thou
0.14 mm is about 5.5 thou
0.162mm is about 6.4 thou
0.192mm is about 7.6 thou
0.449 mm is about 17.7 thou.
As indicated with arrows showing mm measurements, these were measured variations in coating thickness around perimeter of the alloy where a non hi tek coating was used.
Questions can arise as to actual positioning of alloy inside barrel, when coating seems thicker on one side as compared to other side.
We water captured a shot projectile that did not contain hi tek coating. Results as per picture. It was interesting that alloy was not damaged and coating was intact at base, but why coating simply shredded off the alloy was a mystery.
[ATTACH]215759[/ATTACH]

[Avenger442]

Okay guys, found a partially dry day on the range (love this Alabama mud) and test results are finally in for the HiTek and PC handgun bullets. But I wish to qualify the results somewhat. When I test rifle I use a rest that, for the most part, locks the rifle in place so there is very little movement. This leaves you with the loads capability with very little of the shooters skill coming into play. With the hand gun test I wanted to get a Ransom rest to lock the gun in place for the test. But because of the $$$$ and the learning curve of using the Ransom that didn't happen. Instead I used a home made rest that eliminated some of the movement but not as much as the Ransom would have.

The loads were .38 Specials. Slide produced both the PC and Hi Tek bullets. They are from scrap and his measurement of BHN was in the 12-15 BHN range. The bullet is a tumble lube design from a Lee mold. Weight was +/- 160 gn. Bullets for each five shot group were weight matched to within one grain (habit from rifle loading). PC Bullets were one coat of Hot Rod Blue the Hi Tek were two coats of Kypronite Green. Slide had sent the bullets sized .358 and my gun seems to like .357 so all bullets were put through the Lee sizing die. Slide, when you read this, I liked getting them .358 thanks. The powder was Unique 4.4 gn. hand weighed on a digital scale in Federal once fired cases. There was no case prep done. Have had some problems with the lot of small pistol CCI primers that I had open so I switched to a Winchester WSP they performed admirably.

Note here on the CCIs, I started using CCI exclusively in my loads when I first started loading and especially like them for rifle. But I think that there is something wrong with the lot I had open. I had several FTFs at the range last time I used them. Second or third try with them would cause them to fire. Firing pin marked primer on the first attempt. This lot definitely not for self defense loads.

If you remember we first started these test to determine if there was any speed difference between PC and Hi Tek. And in the rifle test there was a 6 fps difference. I can't remember which was favored. Which I said was really no difference. I shot five groups of five in the Hi Tek pistol loads and the same in PC. Speeds with this load were in the 860 fps +/- zone. With the pistol test there was and overall average of 10 fps difference in favor of the PC. But still, speeds were basically the same. If I had been getting 50 fps more out of one or the other I would say that was a difference. So, again, my overall subjective opinion is that there was no difference in speed between PC and Hi Tek.

Groups were not stellar but acceptable compared to the last pistol test like this that we tried. They were shot at 25 yards and off of the home made rest that is basically some plywood with some parts off my rifle rest, giving me some adjustment, and a bag of lead shot. Overall average for PC groups was 4.35" with a best group of 3". Overall average group size for Hi Tek was 4.05" with a best group of 2.75". Again, not all shooters skills were removed from this test.

One more thing I would like to mention is that, with the Lee bullets, Slide sent me some hollow base wad cutter bullets in 150 +/- gn. One group coated in Dark Green Hi Tek and the PC in Harbor Freight red. I've never shot wad cutters and don't even own a mold that cast them. But, after shooting some, I can see why guys that punch paper shoot them. I was concerned that these would not have much accuracy at distance so I moved the target in to 15 yards. I was wrong. I didn't load enough to use as a definitive test but I will say this, both shot 1 1/2" groups. I was surprised. Slide loads his with 2.8 gn of Bullseye. The closest thing I had was Accurate #5 so I loaded them with 3.7 gn. Speeds were in the 700 fps range. To answer your question Slide I like that bullet and need to know the mold. Send me a PM. And tell me how much lead you want back for helping with this. Or maybe I can send you some bullets? Thanks.

Oh, almost for got. I didn't clean and closely inspect the barrel. But a cursory inspection with a bore light didn't show any leading. And since those 1 1/2" groups were shot last I didn't expect to see any. As Gomer used to say "suprise, suprise, suprise". I'm going to have to get me a bucket and thunk under it for a while.

[slide]

Well done Avenger442! That is a lot of work and glad things are drying out. I will p.m.

[glockfan]

thanks for this test.

it shows that PC and hi tek gives similar speeds.

as for accuracy, this is dependable of many factors ,but since hi tek doesn't add much in diameter, i would be tempted to think that PC might have more influence on poor-good accuracy than hi tek ,
since PC actually is adding some more to the diameter of a given boolit.

i'm reacting that, if the PC isn't perfectly evenly spread , the boolit might gets out of balance .

[Avenger442]

thanks for this test.

it shows that PC and hi tek gives similar speeds.

as for accuracy, this is dependable of many factors ,but since hi tek doesn't add much in diameter, i would be tempted to think that PC might have more influence on poor-good accuracy than hi tek ,
since PC actually is adding some more to the diameter of a given boolit.

i'm reacting that, if the PC isn't perfectly evenly spread , the boolit might gets out of balance .

I agree with your premise. Uneven coating would throw the lead core of the bullet off center with the barrel slightly. One of the basics of long range shooting is that you want the bullet centered with the barrel. Guys that shoot those 1000 yard shots trim brass necks and other things to help this. An uneven coating would have the effect of starting the lead core off center with the barrel.

I'm going back to rifle after this. The plan is to rework some Winchester brass with the goal of getting 2" or under groups at 200 yards (longest range I have access to). Will be using the Hi Tek coated bullets. Also want to try something Joe has said several times that Hi Tek one coat, while not as pretty, will not lead the barrel. If it will protect at pressures producing 2700 fps that will impress me.

[dikman]

Good stuff, Avenger, the only thing you didn't mention is what you actually fired them out of.
I'm very curious to see your results with one coat.

[Avenger442]

Good stuff, Avenger, the only thing you didn't mention is what you actually fired them out of.
I'm very curious to see your results with one coat.

Your right. It was a Ruger GP 100 with six inch barrel. I've had very good results with the Rugers. I have had three of their hand guns that will shoot better than I can. The guy that owns the range near my house said the 45 auto was better than his Sig. He is a pistol guy, instructor and a competition shooter. I also carry one for EDC. End of add.