Powder coated some bullets this morning with my new powder coat gun from Eastwood

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

Not perfect, have some learning to do, but I am liking it so far. The pink ones I did by mixing in a cream cheese container...will not be coating them this way ever again. The first few green that I coated I messed up by attempting to clean off finger oils by using acetone...the freshly cured powder coat immediately bubbled. I did recoat them and are not completely wasted...I'd say. The second batch, I used higher voltage and no diffuser...bad idea. For whatever reason, some powder coat flew off the bullets...will only use low setting and diffuser for bullets from now on. Also, these were coated at about 1 a.m., outdoors here in California.

[mehavey]

What Green (powder) is that ?

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

It is Eastwood's Hotcoat Powder Coat Neon Green.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

The gun I used is Eastwood's PCS-250 Dual Voltage.

[fordwannabe]

I use the #5 plastic contaiers all the time to coat, and have never seen that before. What process did you use, cause sum ting wong.

[murf205]

Great looking boolits ANTIDOTE, and since you are in Cali and they are green, maybe you can pass them off as environmental friendly.

[jdgabbard]

No need to clean the finger print oils off bullets. Never have, and they work just fine... No need for a static gun either, at least not with the powders I have tested.

I use a plastic folgers can filled about 1/5 - 1/4 of the way up with airsoft BBs. Dump about 100 bullets in there, shake/swirl with about 2/3 teaspoon of powder for 2-3 minutes, and then move them to your tray you're baking them in. I use some large metal tweezers to stand them upright on parchment paper. As for the oven, set I do use a PID controlled oven. I set the tempt to 415F, and let it reach temp and normalize before sticking the bullets in. If we're talking about smaller diameter up to 35 cal, I just stick them in for 40 minutes and pull them back out, and dump them into a pan of water to quench/harden them. For 45cal, and I presume 40cal would need this too, it typically takes longer for the oven to get back to temp, so I run them for 45min-1hr depending on size/weight.

That's one thing I do that others might not. When you stick your bullets into the oven the oven is naturally going to lose heat due to opening the door. As you do this, the bullets will also start soaking heat, causing an additional drop. With my setup using PWM to drive the element it can take 5-10mins to get back to temp for a tray of smaller bullets, and sometimes longer when using bigger bullets. So I give it 40 minutes with 35cal and smaller so the entire oven can get back to that 415F temp, and then cure for 20-30 minutes (extra cure time won't hurt, but it might degrade the parchment paper...)

[Recycled bullet]

Pretty green bullets you made man. If you want to you can try ultimate Chrome or Ford blue.

[pworley1]

Nice job.

[Rapier]

The base is the key to accuracy with cast bullets, not the nose. So if you pull them from the powder with forged needle nose pliers ( ) gripping the ojive, then bake them nose down, in a hardware cloth box. Box turned upside down, bullet's nose in the holes, you get a nice clean bearing furnace and bullet base, a much more harmonious outcome for accuracy. At 200 meters or less the bullet's nose coating is only pretty, does not really count for much of anything for accuracy. But if you mess up the bullet base, things get ugly quick.

[405grain]

I just bought a piece of perforated sheet metal with 5/16" holes, bent the edges down so it would stand proud of the parchment paper about 1/2", and then use tweezers to set the bullets in nose down. This is for rifle bullets. An added plus is that they can't tip over, so no danger of domino effect. For pistol bullets I just set them base down on the parchment paper, and when they go through a Lee sizer it cleans up any problem with the bases. Best practice is to not have a really thick coat of powder. If you knock some of the powder off before baking there's less of a problem of having it spread out around the bullet base.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

The thing is, I was powder coating these in the backyard in the open at 1 in the morning so not the best idea or conditions. I made the wire baskets, suspended it on two sticks so I could spray all the way through from the bases up. Lighting was not very good so I missed how thin the coating was. Guess I could coat them again, but for my very first time...I am pleased.

[murf205]

Looks pretty spiffy too me, brother. I'd load 'em and shoot 'em.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

Thank you. I'm gonna take some of these out this weekend and see how it goes. I have bright signal white, black, atomic pink, and metallic purple to try on some other bullets.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

So here is what I have. My raw lead .429-.430 bullets are now measuring .434-.436 powder coated. My raw lead .458-.459 bullets are now measuring .468-.470 powder coated. I've got some sizing dies on the way so loading these may be a few days.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

Lost control and went a little krazy...

[elmacgyver0]

Why do looking at these pictures make me hungry for those little licorice candies Good and Plenty?

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

Funny you say that, I had a box of them earlier...now I see the resemblance.

[1eyedjack]

Powder coating can affect folks in some strange ways! We end up with colors that defy description and good taste.

[BJung]

maybe a Good and Plenty box would be a good container for select bullets in this color. All Bright Red bullets would be good for Hot Tomales